Internet anonymity is a thing of the past
The significance of online privacy
If your parents were watchful, they may have advised you to never, ever
use your last name online, and in all honesty, that makes sense. It's not good
if a potential employer searches for your name on Google and finds images of
you being hauled away from a student attack or those humiliating articles you
wrote while in college. Although you can always request to get them removed,
the Internet never forgets, as the saying goes. It is wise to take all
necessary safeguards because there are numerous methods available for locating
stuff that is believed to have vanished. In particular, whenever possible,
substitute the initials for the surname or use a pseudonym. And at one point,
that was a wise decision.
In reality, a number of recent instances have brought attention to how
crucial it is to protect anonymity online. In this article, we'll look at how
the idea of online anonymity has changed over time and why it's getting harder
and harder to hide online.
A few months back, I was buying hard drives in bulk to look for ones
that were incorrectly formatted and from which fascinating files and old
photographs could be recovered. To some extent, preventive and
awareness-building were the goals. Despite several hours of research, we were
unable to uncover any important information on the disc owners. Even their
first names weren't known to us. It was starting to annoy me a little.
So we made the decision to make this an individual journey. And it was
at that point that we came upon some amazing tools that have all but rendered
online anonymity obsolete.
The fantastic tools that have virtually rendered anonymity unnecessary
Examining the information of the pictures we had taken and recovered
from the hard drives was one of the first steps in our research. The camera
model, the date and time the photo was taken, the GPS coordinates (if
available), and other details are all contained in the data. This may be
helpful in identifying the photographer. This can be helpful for determining
the seller's identity, for instance by looking up their home or place of
employment online. We searched through every image, but nothing pertinent
turned up.
The study of facial recognition
We also tried several other things, but they didn't work. We then made
the decision to investigate facial recognition. Global adoption of facial
recognition technology shows how potent it has grown. In order to recognize
faces in photographs and compare them to databases already in existence, it
uses machine learning techniques.
An artificial intelligence machine that has already been trained to
extract distinctive face signatures from photos was used. The distinguishing
characteristics of a face are represented by these signatures, which are
mathematical vectors. It is feasible to tell if two faces belong to the same
individual by comparing their signatures.
Face search engines like Pimize have made this technology available to
the general public. These search engines continuously browse the Internet
looking for faces in pictures to index. They can even show you the websites
where these people have been spotted.
Face recognition technology
Due to facial recognition's high accuracy, even a straightforward selfie
shared on social media can successfully identify a person. The incident of
American actor Shia LaBeouf, whose anti-Trump flag was discovered thanks to
subtle hints and thorough research carried out by fervent Internet users, is
fascinating in this regard.
Similar to this, we eventually found a secret blog with embarrassing
pictures after conducting research. However, utilizing standard search engines
made it essentially impossible to find. This is when facial recognition really
excelled.
Considering the current status of online anonymity
This prompts us to consider the current condition of online anonymity.
The use of a pseudonym alone is no longer sufficient to ensure our anonymity
because times have changed. The ability to identify a person from a single
photo has increased the power of facial recognition software and face search
engines.
The safety measures you must take to safeguard your privacy online
It's crucial to take safeguards to safeguard your online privacy, like
using aliases, deleting the Exif data from your images, and being aware of the
risks associated with facial recognition. ProtonMail, ProtonVPN,
ProtonCalendar, and ProtonDrive are a few additional services that provide
strong privacy protection by encrypting your data from beginning to finish and
adhering to rigorous data protection laws.
In short, the development of facial recognition technologies and face
search engines has made it harder to maintain anonymity on the Internet. Use
services that respect your privacy and implement online security measures to
preserve your privacy. It's time to adjust to this new reality if we want to
maintain our online privacy because the Internet has changed.
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