August 12, 2015 report
Flickr photo data used to predict people's locations
A team of researchers with University College in England has found a way to use photo information attached to images uploaded to the sharing site Flickr to create an application that can predict where people will be at a given time. In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the team describes how they used millions of photos publicly available on the popular web site and the data attached to them to create a database which was then accessed to provide data for an algorithm they developed.
Many people are still unaware that a lot of modern cameras, especially those on smartphones, add data to images that can be accessed by others if those images are made publicly available—such as on file-sharing websites. One such data item is GPS coordinates which pinpoint where on the planet the photograph was taken, another is a timestamp specifying exactly when the photo was taken. In this new effort the researchers accessed such data by pulling photographs off of Flickr that had been put there by people wanting others to see what they had captured—in this case, by people in the United Kingdom. In all, the team obtained GPS and timestamp data from 8 million images taken by approximately 16,000 people and put it into a database for easy access.
Next, they created a computer algorithm that looked at all of the pictures taken by a single camera, noting all the locations where pictures had been taken—over and over again for every unique camera ID in their dataset. The algorithm then used that information to predict future movements based on past movements, of whole groups of people. To test it, they compared their results with a government survey taken to discern national travel patterns and found that the two agreed approximately 92 percent of the time. The team reports that they could also focus on individuals (or at least their cameras) and predict where that person might be at any given moment.
The research done by the team highlights both privacy issues and concerns regarding shared photographs and a new way for governments to track people movement, which could help with road building plans, or other transportation projects.
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Abstract
Humans are inherently mobile creatures. The way we move around our environment has consequences for a wide range of problems, including the design of efficient transportation systems and the planning of urban areas. Here, we gather data about the position in space and time of about 16 000 individuals who uploaded geo-tagged images from locations within the UK to the Flickr photo-sharing website. Inspired by the theory of Lévy flights, which has previously been used to describe the statistical properties of human mobility, we design a machine learning algorithm to infer the probability of finding people in geographical locations and the probability of movement between pairs of locations. Our findings are in general agreement with official figures in the UK and on travel flows between pairs of major cities, suggesting that online data sources may be used to quantify and model large-scale human mobility patterns.
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User comments
-The source of georges idiot one-liners
http://www.zazzle...83750718
What is the source of your post? Psychological problems?
Only a psychopath would think that this 'experience' gives him special insight into the nature of govt surveillance.
And EVERYONE here can see how ridiculous this is, but you.
This is how SICK you are.
Now I do not trust anybody with power over me.
The personal snipers on this thread have no idea how it all worked, and how we got to where we are today with Big Brother. Such is the price of monomania and ego problems.
-Yeah I thought the same thing while walking through a radio shack one day.
And then I opened up a copy of mother jones and realized just how singularly brilliant I was.
Im becoming convinced that psychopathy is a reflection of just how intellectually deficient the psychopath is.
After all, how stupid do you have to be to think that looking at hardware and getting concurrence from fellow fetchits would give one special insight into the nature of govt surveillance?
'Oh yeah big brother sucks man. Pass the doobie.' -And thus was borne a genius (in his own mind)
"ook up Igloo White, 1stwave, or the 553d Recon Wing at Westin's site"
-No, post a link you lazy asshole. NOBODY believes a word you say here.
Psychopaths are pathological liars.
You made me prove I tested carbon fiber materials for NASA, did the tests for the NRC, and taught Power Quality nationwide.
Who are you?
-Uh no you didnt. You claimed you were working directly for mcnamara designing, constructing, and operating your spy network.
IN REALITY you were a 20yo private laborer who had no idea how the equipt was designed or what it was for.
You lied. Again.
"I tested carbon fiber materials for NASA, did the tests for the NRC"
-You were a job shopper doing temp validation work, and indications are that you were let go after so many months for incompetence no doubt.
"and taught Power Quality nationwide"
-You washed out of your temp engr job at PG&E and so they assigned you to a team teaching position, delivering presentations prepared by real pros.
This gave you another opportunity to pretend you were something that you were not.
But this combined work only lasted a few years, and you were canned yet again.
You yourself have provided all the evidence needed to reach these conclusions.
You fucked up yet again george.
My experience in the service in Electronic Reconnaissance really has him bugged. Those stay-at-home "patriots" have no idea what real service is like in wartime.
-So what 'character' does one need to lie like this;
"You claimed you were working directly for mcnamara designing, constructing, and operating your spy network.
"IN REALITY you were a 20yo private laborer who had no idea how the equipt was designed or what it was for."
EXPLAIN this bullshit please george.
"have no idea what real service is like in wartime"
-Well as a lowly tech, neither do you.
Thats ovbious.
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