Bad Gone Blog

Privacy be damned, according to facebook.

The social media giant is facing a new wave of concerns over privacy protection after launching its latest feature, which allows users to identify their friends automatically in photos without their permission.

The photo tagging tool, called Tag Suggestions, was put into place in December, but it was listed as unavailable until recently.

Here’s how it works: When a user uploads new photos to his or her Facebook profile, the new feature then scans them with facial recognition software to match the people in the photos with other photos in which they might have been previously tagged.

The feature also offers “group tagging,” which allows users to type in a person’s name and “apply it to multiple photos of the same person,” according to Facebook’s blog post on the subject.

The problem is that users can do this without their friend’s permission.

Facebook said on its blog Tuesday that it has been rolling out the Tag Suggestions feature over the course of several months. While it was originally just available in the United States, they also said it is now activated in several countries, which has already caused some headaches.

Bloomberg.com reported that a group of European Union data-protection regulators announced Wednesday they have launched a probe into the new feature, which was enabled as an active default setting, to see if it violated any privacy rules.

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant for Sophos, a British Internet security firm, called the new feature “creepy” and said that one of Facebook’s biggest offenses was not telling its users this feature was being launched, as well as not explaining to them how to opt out of it.

“There’s a huge backlash in response…. [Facebook users] don’t really like the idea of Internet companies, Facebook in particular, gathering data of what we look like,” he said. “It makes me uncomfortable…especially when they turn on features like this without even telling us.”

Cluley said the potential danger with this feature is your Facebook friends can upload any photo and tag it with your name, and Facebook doesn’t give you the option to pre-approve your name being attached to that photo.

“It’s encouraging people to tag you even more,” he said. “Over time, that’s going to be a very valuable lump of data so they should allow people to opt into it, but that’s not Zuckerberg’s way.”

“Personally, I’m going through all my photos and tagging them Mark Zuckerberg,” he joked.

Another concern with Facebook gathering this data, Cluley said, is what the company might do with it five or ten years down the road.

“Maybe in the future [Facebook] will sell this information to third parties,” he said. “There’s so much information we’ve already given away willingly to Facebook. They have slowly eroded away our control over that data.”

Facial recognition technology is nothing new, and has been used in other photo editing software, such as Apple’s iPhoto and Google’s Picasa Web Albums.

Jim Tiller, the vice president of security for BT Global Services, which handles IT network security for multiple companies, said that facial recognition technology has been used for some time — for instance, by law enforcement and terrorism experts to help track suspects.

In the realm of Facebook, Tiller said one advantage of this technology is that it “could be helpful in just managing digital media,” depending on how it was used, and he felt that what Facebook was attempting to do was simply streamline the photo tagging process.

~Boo

Two men are accused of driving around Denver with a dead friend, running up a bar tab on his account and using his ATM card at a strip club in what appeared to be a disturbing reflection of the movie “Weekend at Bernie’s.”

Robert Young, 43, and Mark Rubinson, 25, have been charged with abusing a corpse, identity theft and criminal impersonation.

It’s unclear how Jeffrey Jarrett, 43, died, but the men are not charged in his death. The coroner said toxicology tests were pending. Young and Rubinson are free on bond but couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.

In the 1989 Hollywood comedy, two ne’er-do-wells find their boss dead at his ritzy beachfront home and escort his body around town, attempting to save the weekend of luxury they had planned.

In Denver last month, according to a police affidavit that gives an account of a story first reported by the Denver Post (), Young arrived at Jarrett’s home and found him unresponsive.

But rather than call the authorities, police say, Young went to find Rubinson.

The duo returned to Jarrett’s home and put his lifeless body into Rubinson’s SUV and headed to a nightspot where they spent more than an hour drinking – leaving Jarrett’s body in the vehicle, according to police documents. Police say the two men used Jarrett’s card to pay for the drinks on Aug. 27, noting “they did not have Jarrett’s consent.”

Rubinson and Young then drove to another restaurant to hang out, Jarrett’s body slumped in the back along for the ride, police say.

They then returned to Jarrett’s home, carried him in and put him in bed, according to court papers.

From there, police say, Rubinson and Young went to get gas and made a stop at a burrito joint, again using Jarrett’s card. The two men then went to a strip club, where authorities say they used Jarrett’s card to take out $400 from an ATM.

As the men left the Shotgun Willie’s strip club parking lot, one told the valet and a police officer standing nearby that “they were driving around with a dead guy and they didn’t know what to do with it and they were just going to go home really fast,” general manager Matthew Dunafon said.

Police went to Jarrett’s home and found the body.

Police say Young told them Jarrett was obviously dead while they were at the first stop of the night.
The Denver District Attorney’s Office said Young posted a $2,500 bond and is scheduled to appear in Denver County Court for a preliminary hearing on Sept. 27.

Rubinson posted a $3,500 bond and is scheduled to appear in Denver County Court on Oct. 4.

~Boo

A Frenchman has been ordered to pay his ex-wife £8,500 in damages for failing to have enough sex with her during their marriage.

The 51-year-old man was fined under article 215 of France’s civil code, which states married couples must agree to a “shared communal life”.

A judge has now ruled that this law implies that “sexual relations must form part of a marriage”.

The rare legal decision came after the wife filed for divorce two years ago, blaming the break-up on her husband’s lack of activity in the bedroom.

A judge in Nice, southern France, then granted the divorce and ruled the husband named only as Jean-Louis B. was solely responsible for the split.

But the 47-year-old ex-wife then took him back to court demanding 10,000 euros in compensation for “lack of sex over 21 years of marriage”.

The ex-husband claimed “tiredness and health problems” had prevented him from being more attentive between the sheets.

But a judge in the south of France’s highest court in Aix-en-Provence ruled: “A sexual relationship between husband and wife is the expression of affection they have for each other, and in this case it was absent.

“By getting married, couples agree to sharing their life and this clearly implies they will have sex with each other.”

~Boo

A judge in Corpus Christi, Texas had some harsh words for a mother charged with spanking her own child before sentencing her to probation.

“You don’t spank children today,” said Judge Jose Longoria. “In the old days, maybe we got spanked, but there was a different quarrel. You don’t spank children.”

Rosalina Gonzales had pleaded guilty to a felony charge of injury to a child for what prosecutors had described as a “pretty simple, straightforward spanking case.” They noted she didn’t use a belt or leave any bruises, just some red marks.

As part of the plea deal, Gonzales will serve five years probation, during which time she’ll have to take parenting classes, follow CPS guidelines, and make a $50 payment to the Children’s Advocacy Center.

She was arrested back in December after the child’s paternal grandmother noticed red marks on the child’s rear end. The grandmother took the girl, who was two years-old at the time, to the hospital to be checked out.

Gonzales who doesn’t have custody of the child or her other two children, is trying to get them back, but until CPS feels she is ready the kids are living with their paternal grandmother.

~Boo

A stash of pornography was found in the hideout of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. commandos who killed him, current and former U.S. officials said on Friday.

The pornography recovered in bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive, according to the officials, who discussed the discovery with Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The officials said they were not yet sure precisely where in the compound the pornography was discovered or who had been viewing it. Specifically, the officials said they did not know if bin Laden himself had acquired or viewed the materials.

Reports from Abbottabad have said that bin Laden’s compound was cut off from the Internet or other hard-wired communications networks. It is unclear how compound residents would have acquired the pornography.
But a video released by the Obama administration confiscated from the compound showed bin Laden watching pictures of himself on a TV screen, indicating that the compound was equipped with video playback equipment.

Materials carted away from the compound by the U.S. commandos included digital thumb drives, which U.S. officials believe may have been a principal means by which couriers carried electronic messages to and from the late al Qaeda leader.

Three other U.S. officials familiar with evidence gathered during investigations of other Islamic militants said the discovery of pornography is not uncommon in such cases.

~Boo

A homeless man was dead after a woman discovered him inside her Fayetteville apartment, which was in a house that had been broken up into several apartments. Fayetteville police said John Standridge entered the woman’s apartment to use the bathroom.

She told police she found him and screamed. She said Standridge then ran out of the room with his pants around his ankles, tripped and fell down the stairs and died.

A downstairs neighbor met him at a liquor store and invited Standridge back to the house to stay the night so he wouldn’t have to sleep outside. The neighbor got drunk then went to bed. He gave Standridge a blanket and pillow and said he could sleep on the couch.

The neighbor said he thinks Standridge was intoxicated and got confused about which apartment was which and mistakenly entered the woman’s apartment. He said Standridge was a nice guy and thought he had “met a new friend.”

The coroner found the cause of death to be consistent with a fall down the stairs, but the body was sent to the Arkansas Crime Lab for more testing.

~Boo

Police in Delaware arrested a man after they say he exposed himself inside a cemetery.

Robert K. Matlosz, 71, is facing several charges for his alleged role in the incident that occurred Saturday morning at the All Saints Cemetery in Wilmington.

According to investigators, police received a call about a suspicious vehicle that was parked in the cemetery in the area of the St. Marks High School track where the girls track team was practicing.

As Delaware State Troopers approached the vehicle, they say they observed that a male, later identified as Matlosz, had his pants down around his ankles and was masturbating.

Police say Matlosz noticed the trooper and tried to flee in his car. After a short chase, Matlosz’s vehicle was stopped and he was taken into custody.

Matlosz is facing charges of Indecent Exposure, Reckless Driving and Resisting Arrest. He was released after posting $600 unsecured bail.

Police said there is no indication at this point that any members of the St. Marks High School girls track team observed Matlosz in the cemetery.

~Boo