July 8, 2007 10:01 PM BST
Good-day ladies,
While each of us may have our own reasons to post, or not to post images of ourselves, Wendy does make a very valid point. Sure, it smacks of paranoia, but I feel that she is dead-on with her point.
Facial recognition software is reality, and its widespread utilization is far more extensive than most are willing to admit. In the last five years, I've noticed more and more video cameras at roadway intersections. Initially, I believed that they were installed to catch those who run-through red lights. But wait a minute, those cameras are positioned to look through the front window of the vehicle, not to capture the rear where the vehicle license is displayed. (Not all states issue "license plates" for both the front and rear of the vehicle.)
Reports of recent terrorism attempts in London included statements that there are literally thousands of video surveillance cameras in the city, and the captured video would be used to track down the origination of the suspects.
Web-bots are also reality, and they are constantly crawling through the web, gathering all sorts of data, video, photos, text, email addresses, domain names, everything; virtually nothing goes unnoticed.
In 2004, I came out to friends, family, my employer, and I went full-time, on the job, everywhere. While I knew that virtually everyone at the company in the city where I began my transition would be 'in-the-know' with all the gossip, I didn't necessarily want everyone in the entire company to be in 'the loop'. (I'm employed by a large national company.) Last year, I transferred to another location, where virtually no one knew anything about me, so I could just be 'me'. I recently discovered that virtually everyone in my department at the new location is 'in-the-know', but outside the department, I don't think it's universally known. The point is, outside of my employment, I'm living stealth.
I began keeping a Trannyweb blog about many of the issues, events, triumphs and problems I was encountering. I had a photo icon, my Trannyweb username and identification is an alias. My blog account of what was happening in my real life was absolutely genuine and factual. (While no specific names were ever used, if a curious co-worker had ever read the blog, there would be no denying it.) I kept the blog going for a few months assuming that no one outside of Trannyweb Full Membership would ever see it. (like the member photo galleries) One day, while surfing the web, I thought that I'd "Google" my Trannyweb name and see what would appear. And there they were, every single one of my blog entries. As a precaution, I deleted my entire blog. I know that once something is on the web, there is no way to erase it forever, it will always be "out there" somewhere, it just may become a little more difficult to find.
It really doesn't matter to me if people discover my status/past, but I certainly don't want to advertise. Sure, I have a past, it will always be there, it's what made me who I am today. I wish it had been different, but we cannot wish-away what was, in favor of what we want for ourselves today and in the future.
The bottom line: While it may sound like paranoia, always remember, when posting photos, video, personal information, accounts of personal experiences, once it's 'out there' all the pieces can be put together, for whatever purpose.
July 14, 2007 7:43 AM BST
Of course, Wendy, there is another aspect to all of this. It is anonymity that makes these forums such a valuable way for people to express themselves (not that true anonymity really exists). Aside from security issues, it allows people to focus on the message rather than the messenger, and it is the message that is most important.
July 14, 2007 11:57 AM BST
Hi girls,
If you don't mind, I have changed the title of this thread from "Thinking about posting pictures on TW?" to "Thinking about posting photos on the internet?" because it is very, very unfair to single out Trannyweb and quite damaging to our community.
This thread applies just as much to Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and all other online communities. The previous title was unfairly giving the wrong signals to our new members.
And just to put the record straight, anyone can look at a blog because that's what blogs are - an online diary where you can bear your soul to the world. This is not something that is unique to Trannyweb.
Also our forums are available for all to see, members or not. However, that is the reason why we created our Full Members Forums which can only be accessed by Full Members and the contents of which are otherwise completely private.
Likewise, our Trannypix Photo Galleries are only available to Full Members and can not be seen by anyone who is not a Full Member themselves (and that includes bots).
When you pay for Full Membership, one of the features you are paying for is anonymity in that our Full Membership features like picture galleries and Full Member's forums can only be accessed by other Full Members.
Hugs,
Katie x
July 15, 2007 7:53 PM BST
Hi All,
Just as long as the Marketing people get my preferences right!! That would be -
• Black Pencil skirts, White tops.
• Sling Back 3 or 4” heels.
• A diamond solitaire pendant & earrings.
• Bare essential mineral makeup.
Now if they would only send them for free.
Seriously, the erosion of privacy is a big issue. Whether it is the facial recognition, the RFID passport or the one-touch smart chip credit cards, safety measures will need to be put in place or abuse is highly likely.
Take for instance the phone book. At one time a valuable tool, until unregulated marketing turned it into the proverbial "TELEMARKETING CALL at DINNER TIME call". Or worse, the scam artists with a deal that can't be true.
Now fast forward to another technology and instance brewing on the internet.
How many here use GOOGLE? Although they claim to not keep personal data on your searches, recent high profile legal cases here in the US, brought to light that the Govt got records of the suspects search sites (from Google) over an extended period of time. How could they have provided that without Google keeping personal records? Now that Google also has many other businesses, how much cross-indexing and data-mining on your habits and preferences do you thing they will have available for use?
Finally, have you noticed the "targeted Marketing" that pops up, changes based on your recent searches? Some of it is hilarious, such as transmission repairs and electrical transformers after I've searched for the word transitions or transgendered .... (I was looking for Transitioning resources in the local area). Now however, I get transmission repair popups weeks after my search. (BTW: my PC's cookies are removed daily).
I guess the point of my ranting here, is that as we enjoy the advantages of the internet, including this absolutely wonderful site (TW), we should be mindful that we are giving up some of our privacy.
BTW - It wouldn’t hurt to lose some of that privacy if some TS oriented marketers chose to send some free samples my way (especially if the samples were from De Beers).
Hugz,
Michelle Lynn
August 5, 2007 8:05 PM BST
Hi Wendy,
I found this a most interesting thread, primarily as I work in the biometrics industry. Although facial recognition technology is improving it will still be quite a while to be as good as other forms of identifying users.
In my job I've worked various systems, a lot of these currently require very controlled conditions (otherwise you won't correctly identify anyone), ie correct lighting, pose, type of glasses, etc, changing any of these to much and you'll just as likely return some other user
This is why countries these days have updated the conditions needed for passport photos, ie no smiling looking straight ahead, certain ratios in relation to where your eyes,face fit within the photo. All these ensure the face systems can have any chance of correctly identifying you.
Face recognition systems can find the correct user with upto 100% probablity BUT that depends on the size of population and how many candidates it returns. for example in a population of 1 million users some systems can guarantee you'll be in a list of the top 1000 candiates returned.
Having access to some of these systems I did an experiment with 20-30 faces of myself, some as a guy, some with my own makeover attempts and those of professional dressing services. The results were quite interesting, some of own makeover attempts gave quite high scores compared against a male photo, but some of the professional makeovers gave scores such as that I would not be recognized at all. Unfortunately I probably didn't have all the photos taken under the strict conditions required say for passports or security checks at airports.
Some of you may have tried this out before to see what celebrity you look like!
[url]http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/tryFaceRecognition.php[url]
Michelle
What you are saying is invalulable advice. No one wants to be"outed" in such a bad way where others could use that information to hurt them. Good words. P. 
