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Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens
In 2014, Facebook filed a patent application for a technique that employs smartphone data to figure out if two people might know each other. The author, an engineering manager at Facebook named Ben Chen, wrote that it was not merely possible to detect that two smartphones were in the same place at the same time, but that by comparing the accelerometer and gyroscope readings of each phone, the data could identify when people were facing each other or walking together. That way, Facebook could suggest you friend the person you were talking to at a bar last night, and not all the other people there that you chose not to talk to. Facebook says it hasn't put this technique into practice.
[...] Patents filed by Facebook that mention People You May Know show some ingenious methods that Facebook has devised for figuring out that seeming strangers on the network might know each other. One filed in 2015 describes a technique that would connect two people through the camera metadata associated with the photos they uploaded. It might assume two people knew each other if the images they uploaded looked like they were titled in the same series of photos—IMG_4605739.jpg and IMG_4605742, for example—or if lens scratches or dust were detectable in the same spots on the photos, revealing the photos were taken by the same camera.
[...] The technological analysis in some of the patents is pretty astounding, but it could well be wishful thinking on Facebook's part.
Vera Ranieri, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on intellectual property, hasn't reviewed these specific patents but said generally that the U.S. Patent Office doesn't ensure that a technology actually works before granting a patent.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Monday January 07 2019, @02:14PM (2 children)
Which means you will eventually scratch the lens, making you more identifiable.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 07 2019, @06:42PM (1 child)
If you clean your lenses properly they will not get scratched no matter how frequently you clean them.
Normal glass is about a 6 on the Mohs scale, harder glasses such as borosilicate glass are about 8. These materials are actually quite difficult to scratch. Sure, if you get your lens paper contaminated with sapphire dust or something you might manage to scratch borosilicate glass with it. Lens elements are sometimes are made with more exotic materials like fluorite (about 4 on the Mohs scale, more easily scratched) for its different optical properties, but those would not typically be used on the outer elements that need cleaning.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday January 10 2019, @06:05PM
Actually all non-shit lenses have coatings that are even harder than the glass. However, the more times you clean it, the more opportunities for a piece of dirt to get on it and dragged across.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh