Fake Computer Keys

Facebook's facial recognition flops

Lately, there’s been a lot of buzz in the media about Facebook’s facial-recognition technology —admittedly, in part thanks to us . But now we’ve decided to look at the technology itself: Is it as dangerous as we think it is? In the end, Facebook’s new face-recognizing feature doesn’t yet work well enough to pose a significant threat to your privacy.

Facebook says its facial-recognition technology is convenient because it groups together multiple images of the same person; as a result, you have to type a friend’s name only once, and the tag will apply to all photos of that person. If your friend has been previously tagged in enough photos, Facebook will suggest his or her name so you don’t have to do anything. And yes, we think that would be more convenient—if it worked.

We did a few experiments to see how well Facebook’s facial-recognition technology, in its current state, actually recognizes faces. We uploaded pictures of people who had no tags on Facebook, as well as photos of people who had many tags on Facebook; we even reuploaded photos that already existed on Facebook with tags, just to see what Facebook could detect and what it couldn’t. Since Facebook allows you to disable the facial-recognition feature in your privacy settings, we made sure to upload photos of people who left the facial-recognition feature on.

As it turns out, the tool isn’t exactly advanced to a worrying degree (or anywhere close).

At the moment, Facebook’s facial-recognition technology seems to be good at one thing, and one thing only: recognizing that a face is a face. Considering that most point-and-shoot cameras have such technology, this isn’t exactly mind-blowing.

As you can see to the right, Facebook’s facial-recognition technology has no trouble recognizing face shapes in these photos. Unfortunately, it also cannot tell that they’re photos of the same person.

Below, Facebook is able to group photos together and determine that the top three are of one person, and the bottom two are of another person. Pretty good, right? Except for the fact that, again, these are all photos of the same person.

Facebook’s facial-recognition technology appears to be able to recognize people’s faces across multiple photos if the lighting is similar, the coloring is similar, the angle is similar, and the person’s expression is similar. For the photos below, Facebook recognizes the first two as being of the same person—but that isn’t so impressive, considering that the lighting, coloring, angle, and expression are all basically the same in both photos. But Facebook can’t tell that the other two photos are of the same person, probably owing to the drastic changes in lighting and angle.

Windows Vista Repair - Virus Solution and Removal - Computer and ...

Windows Vista Repair is a fake computer analysis and optimization application that will issue fake error information in order to deceive users about issues present on the system. It was found out that  Windows Vista Repair virus will be installed via Trojan that will be introduced on fake error messages when visiting a malicious web sites. These messages will state that problems on the computer was diagnosed and will advise to download the fix by endorsing Windows Vista Repair. When clicked, the rogue application will begin to download and instantly installs on the computer.

Once loaded, Windows Vista Repair will modify system settings and add its own entry to the registry that will allow itself to run when Windows is started. It will continuously display fake warnings and alert messages. Internet browsing will also be affected by Windows Vista Repair when it starts to redirect browser to unsolicited web sites. Some Windows functionalities are also disabled such as task manager and registry editor. From time-to-time, a pop-up to purchase the registered version of Windows Vista Repair will be displayed. The only way to remove this threat and bring back computer to its normal working state is to download, install and scan with a trusted and powerful anti-malware application. Ignore Windows Vista Repair and all of its pop-ups. Rogue programs were developed to scam users and steal money from its victims.

Screen Shot Image:

Damage Level: Medium

Systems Affected: Windows 9x, 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7

Manual Removal: Most of the time, Trojan associated with a rogue program will disable Windows functionalities and prevent the compromised computer from executing any application including antivirus program locally installed. If this happens, you can try using a McAfee Portable Antivirus called Stinger. It can be downloaded for free.

Agent and multi-agent systems-- technologies and applications, first KES international symposium, KES-AMSTA 2007, Wroclaw, Poland, May 31-June 1, 2007 : proceedings

PC magazine, the independent guide to IBM-standard personal computing

Computer security, proceedings

Computer network security, Third International Workshop on Mathematical Methods, Models, and Architectures for Computer Network Security, MMM-ACNS 2005, St. Petersburg, Russia, September 25-27, 2005 : proceedings

Computer system security, basic concepts and solved exercises