List of Machine Learning Projects That Will Inevitably Be Used to Identify Your Nudes

Anus print detection

A mountable toilet system for personalized health monitoring via the analysis of excreta. 6 April 2020. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-020-0534-9

Each user of the toilet is identified through their fingerprint and the distinctive features of their anoderm, and the data are securely stored and analysed in an encrypted cloud server.

Areola and Nipple Detection "For Criminal Identification"

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.11651.pdf

Log In To Cam Sites with Penis Detection

(This project didn't go anywhere)

https://www.camsoda.com/labs/dickometrics/

Ear print detection

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2431211.2431221?

Blurring doesn't always work

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019arXiv190210885P/abstract

(Will be updated as more arise.)

Public Comment on AI for the Defense Innovation Board

On March 14, 2019, the Defense Innovation Board held a listening session on Artificial Intelligence Principles at Carnegie Mellon. The DIB is an independent committee made up mainly of tech execs and academics that advises the DOD. I wasn't planning on giving a comment at the session, but I got so angry listening to the pre-written publicity statements read aloud by defense contracting tech companies, that I couldn't stay seated.

Here's my very last-minute statement:

Hello, my name is Maggie Oates. I'm a PhD student here in Societal Computing and I work in Cylab, which is the cybersecurity lab here.

Let me first say that I disagree with the very enterprise and existence of the Defense Innovation Board, as it seems like a tool to lend credibility to the project of advancing military efficiency and further escalating the baseline of 'defense.' Second, I disagree with CMU's continued involvement with the military and am hard-pressed to think of an ethical and responsible use of AI at all [in defense].
That said, I would like to focus on something else today and that is what I view as an externality of the project of AI in the DOD. And that is the growth of civil surveillance, both domestically and abroad. The development of machine learning algorithms relies on massive amounts of data, of course. And while methods are being developed to reduce the amount of data required, or to reduce the amount of labeled data required, these methods often correlate with having the downside of being hard to explain and more difficult to verify, making them an unlikely use in the DOD's context. Beyond that, the project of labeling data often rests on exploitative labor practices. So I stand here to assert that any responsible principles must address the effects that DOD AI will have on surveillance, not only from the state, but also from the tech companies that will be the first line in building that AI. This topic is absolutely not out of scope. Thank you.

You can view the video and comments on the DIB site.

JSON and & "Good, not Evil"

The JSON license is apparently infamous in the FOSS community for its inclusion of a moral clause. The license was nearly identical to the classic MIT License, except the one line,

The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

This line has persisted in the license since 2002 when Douglas Crockford originally penned it, and not without controversy. This clause prevents the license from being considered a free license, since it places restrictions on use. That has consequences for artifacts licensed under JSON. Below are some highlights of its fascinating, contentious past and present.

Google Code stops hosting

Around 2009, Google Code (at the time a host for open-source projects) reportedly stopped hosting projects that used the license. Ryan Grove described how he chose to migrate his project, JSMin, to Github. 

In 2010, it would appear that the Google Android team replaced JSON.org implementations in core Android by writing them from scratch, with the commit "Removing the non-free org.json implementation."

Debian rejects use

In 2010, the debian-legal listserv re-visited the topic of whether JSON.org software can be included in Debian's free distributions. Thomas Koch reported he emailed Crockford about the line and received the response,

If you cannot tolerate the license, then do not use the software.

The opinion of the listserv, summarized by Josselin Mouette, was

Definitely non-free, and the author’s clarification removes any doubt.

Crockford & "Evil" IBM

In a fascinating talk for Yahoo on the history of JSON (Trivia: the first JSON 'Hello world' message failed), Crockford discussed granting a license change. In a short section on the history of the license he says, 

this was late in 2002, you know, we just started the war on terror and you know we were going after the evildoers with the president and the vice president and I felt like I need to do my part. So I added one more line to my license was that the software shall be used for good not evil.

 However, he also describes how he's frequently approached by individuals and companies wanting to use his license. After IBM asked for a separate license, he allowed IBM to use his software under the JSON license, writing,

I give permission to IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil.

Apparently that was enough for IBM lawyers in 2011. So Crockford has, in fact, granted adjusted licenses to some large organizations like IBM.

Crockford & Actual Evil

In 2012, compelled by a conference talk that covered how "the regime in Syria was using open source software in its efforts to track down and murder anyone with the courage to oppose the evil government," Crockford posted on Google+ ,

My very, very, very small part in this is that I include The software shall be used for good, not evil in my licenses. It is not effective at all, but it at least states my intention. It is quite controversial in the open source community because it is claimed that it restricts a specific field of use (specifically, evil), and that software cannot be considered free unless its license permits it to be used in the investigation, torture, and murder of patriots who dare to resist tyrants.

 The line, "It is not effective at all, but it at least states my intention," brings forth questions about the tensions between intention and impact. I'd be curious what Kant thinks about this case study.

 Github & project bug reports

Across Github and other software hosts, you can find references and arguments to the license in bug reports and feature requests. 

In 2013, @blickly opened the issue "json.org is not free software #187" on the popular jshint project for Javascript linting and hints. This issue has 79 comments and remains unresolved as of this writing. In September 2017, user @eclipseo commented that the issue was "preventing us from including it in Fedora."

In contrast, the open project management system Trac resolved their use of JSON software in less than two months in 2012. They simply replaced the parser they were using. 

Change.org petition

2014, Thomas Koch (yes, the same Koch from Debian) begins a Change.org petition to get Crockford to remove that line from its license with the reasoning

Many free software activists are also active for good causes in other areas than software. The non-evil clause costs them time and nerves and distracts them from doing good.

The petition got 35 signatures.

Apache doesn't get the joke

In 2016, Apache reversed (archived text) its prior 8-year decision to use JSON-licensed software in its products. Originally, circa 2008, the legal-discuss listserv's thread indicated that "Good, not Evil" was, for the most part, a joke rather than a legal concern. Henri Yandell wrote, 

It's a joke clause in my opinion.

Yahoo & Nukes

This is the first in a series of tech licenses and terms that involve moral clauses.

Back in 2013, the Yahoo! Desktop Search Software License Agreement contained a fun clause in Section 4, Licensed Uses and Restrictions. While it's explicitly there for liability reasons, it certainly also has the undertones of an ethical question.

[You May Not:]
(v) use the Yahoo! Software to operate nuclear facilities, life support or other mission critical application where human life or property may be at stake and understand that the Yahoo! Software is not designed for such purposes and that its failure in such cases could lead to death, personal injury, or severe property or environmental damage for which Yahoo! is not responsible.

While Yahoo no longer has a desktop search and has since unified its licensing, these terms no longer exist.

Ethical Licensing

Soon after I first learned about open source and free software license, I started wondering about what sort of clauses could be added to licenses. Recently, I've become progressively interested in licenses with morality clauses in them.

I'm starting a list of the licenses (and their relatives such as Terms of Service) I come across that contain apparent ethical clauses. You can find these under the ethical-license label.

Here is a general Stack Overflow question on this topic; another on the relationship to OSS. Looking forward to exploring this topic with you. 

On Being A Nice Hacker Princess

Spring break. I was sitting in the airport, lamenting that three of my professors had assigned work due the week after break, but delighted that there was enough WiFi to squeeze in a half hour of work. I was focused, writing something in C++ for my Computer Vision class when I noticed a girl peering over my shoulder, maybe 7 or 8 years old & with a ponytail.

Me: "Hi"

Girl: "Um, are you a hacker?"

I was outwardly very amused and inwardly very pleased at the question.

Me: "No, not exactly. I'm in college & I study Computer Science. I write code to ask my computer to make things like websites or Candy Crush. So it's kind of like being a nice hacker."

The girl was thoughtful for a second, ignoring her mom's call that it was time to board. Then she said "OK" & ran off to her mom, who smiled apologetically to me as her daughter jumped up and down in front of her & informed her of important news.

Girl: "Mom, when I grow up I want to be a hacker"

Mom: "A hacker? This morning you wanted to be a princess!"

Girl: "Yeah! Both! I mean, I want- I want to be a ummmmm nice hacker princess"

A Nice. Hacker. Princess.

As I watched them leave, my heart swelled full of hope. There was something so pure, so quietly radical about her statement. She could be a hacker even though she was a princess, dammit. The two did not involve an XOR* in her book.

I used to want to be a software engineer or a researcher or a data scientist, but my aspirations changed in that moment: I, too, wanna be a nice hacker princess. I want to revel in my CS femmeness, I want to break things & fix them & get elbow-deep in code in a hella cute dress. I want to taste the satisfaction of functional code, admire it's resemblance to magic. I want to hack my IDE's into having glitter font. (jk, mostly) I want to do all of this while being nice- contributing my hacker-princess talents to something meaningful, something kind & impactful & clever.

I found a role model in a 7yr old, a small blonde creature who saw no limit in her potential, no paradox in her newfound dream. I refuse to use XOR's in my vernacular, to limit my princessliness with real or self-imposed expectations and inhibitions. I will forever find power in what femmetech means to me. And whether you are woman, man, fluid, trans, all of the above, or none of the above, I invite you to find power in whatever that means to you.

XOR XOXO 
Yrs truly,

a nice hacker princesses

*XOR = "exclusive or". Either this or that, but not both. 

The Problem with #BoycottIndiana

After 63 House Reps, 40 Senators, and Mike Pence gave the go-ahead on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the nation exploded. Concerned about the bill’s potential to be a thinly-veiled rationalization of discrimination against LGBTAQ+ folks, hundreds of groups have responded with outrage.

Local and national celebrities, businesses, religious groups, politicians, and conventions have gone to great lengths to express their opposition to the measure. I mean, when Reggie Miller, Miley Cyrus, and Tim Cook all tweet about the same issue in the same day, you know something’s up.

Big names like Salesforce, Angie’s List, the entire city government of San Francisco, the NCAA, Gen Con, and Yelp have all responded with threats or actions to reduce or eliminate their business dealings in Indiana. To these noble efforts to #BoycottIndiana, I have one word:

Don’t.

I am a proud Hoosier. I am queer. And I’m one of the thousands of LGBTAQ+ kids and adults across the state that are fighting for a place in this beautiful state. We’re here and we’re queer and when you boycott Indiana, you boycott us.

So stay. Stay and fight with us. Stay and offer a young lesbian a summer job in a safe space. Stay and donate to our queer candidates, lobbyists, and organizations. Stay and invest in housing that’s safe for transfolks. Stay and support our arts, our writings, our families, and our local communities.

Stay because too many people have told us again and again that we’re not wanted here.  Stay because I’m not ready to give up on the place I call home.

Don’t boycott Indiana. Invest.