Search the World's Smartphone Photos

mikejuk writes "Researchers have devised and tested a system called Theia that can perform an efficient parallel search of mobile phones to track down a target photo. It could be used to perform a realtime search for a missing child accidently caught in a photo you have just taken or the location of a criminal or political activist. You might think that the security and privacy aspects were so terrible that you just wouldn't install the app. However exceptional photos of a sporting or news incidents are worth money and the profit motive might be enough for you to install it."

Selling Out Your Privacy

[Doc Ruby]

mikejuk:

You might think that the security and privacy aspects were so terrible that you just wouldn't install the app. However exceptional photos of a sporting or news incidents are worth money and the profit motive might be enough for you to install it.

Ben Franklin [google.com]:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Doc Gonzo: They who can give up essential privacy to obtain a little temporary cash deserve only a little temporary cash, but neither liberty nor privacy.

This app might be worth granting access to your public images, if you could trust that the app would not get permission to access your private images (or anything outside the public images you allow). But then it wouldn't have the side effect of "WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN".