Author: TheOceanBreeze

  • Artificial Intelligence: Surveillance is On The Rise

    For the past years we’ve been recorded in public on security cameras, police bodycams, livestreams, other people’s social media posts, and so on. But even if there’s a camera in our face, there has always been a slight assurance that strangers wouldn’t really be able to do anything that affects us with the footage. The time and effort it would take for someone to browse through months of security footage to find a specific person, or search the internet on the off-chance they’ll find you is just unrealistic. But not for AI.

    Long possible in Hollywood thrillers, the tools for identifying who someone is and what they’re doing across video and images are taking shape. Companies like Facebook, Google and Baidu have been working on such artificial intelligence-powered technology for years.

    But the increasing rate of success and widening availability of these systems foretell a near future when every video is analyzed to identify the people, objects, and actions inside.
    Artificial intelligence researchers have struggled for years to build algorithms that could look at a picture and tell what it depicts. The complexity of images, each containing millions of pixels that form unique patterns, was just too complicated for hand-coded algorithms to reliably work.

    Since then the systems have grown in complexity and scale. Researchers began making larger networks of “neurons,” while hardware manufacturers like NVIDIA began engineering specialty processors to make the networks exponentially faster. The result has been a nearly unbelievable rise in what the systems can accomplish. Given a large dataset of images or video, these systems can be trained to learn what a person’s face looks like, and reliably identify it again and again.

    Facebook has also showed interest in this technology to understand who are in livestreams on the site and what they’re doing. In an interview last year, director of Applied Machine Learning Joaquin Quiñonero Candela said that, ideally, Facebook would understand what’s happening in every live video, in order to be able to curate a personalised video channel for users.
    Facial recognition in still images and video is already seeping into the real world.

    Baidu is starting a project where facial recognition is used instead of tickets for events. The venue knows who you are, possibly from a picture you upload or your social media profile, sees your face when you show up and knows if you’re allowed in. Paris tested a similar feature at its Charles de Gaulle airport for a three-month stint this year, following Japan’s pilot program in 2016, though neither organizations have released results of the programs.

    US governments are already starting to use the technology in a limited capacity. Last week the New York department of motor vehicles announced that it had made more than 4000 arrests using facial recognition technology. Instead of scanning police footage, the software is used to compare new drivers’ license application photos to images already in the database, making it tougher for fraudsters to steal someone’s identity.

    If state or federal governments expand into deploying facial recognition and AI in public, they will already have a database of more than 50% of American adults from repositories like DMVs. And again, the bigger the dataset, the better the AI.

    Security cameras are also getting a dose of AI. Intel announced in April that it had developed hardware for security cameras capable of “crowd density monitoring, stereoscopic vision, facial recognition, people counting,” and “behavior analysis.”

    Another camera, called the DNNCam, is a deep learning camera that’s waterproof, self-sufficient, and claims to be virtually indestructible, meaning it can be set to work in remote environments away from internet connections or behind a cash register for “regular customer recognition,” according to the website.

    So what has a privacy-minded, law-abiding citizen to do when surveillance becomes the norm? Not much. Early research has identified ways to trick facial recognition software, either by specially-made glasses to fool the algorithms or face paint that throws off the AI. But these often require knowledge on how the facial recognition algorithm works. This is just a heads up.

  • Vegan Dairy-Free Oreo Milkshake (Ice Cream Optional)

    Vegan Dairy-Free Oreo Milkshake (Ice Cream Optional)

    Do you crave milkshakes, but can’t digest milk? As a person who cannot digest milk, I had the same problem as you, so I needed to find a good alternative that would satisfy my stomach. Looking around, I found the best way to make a milkshake without the milk, while still finding a way to adding fruit into the mix. Here is a list of ingredients that you will need to get started.

    NOTICE: Please feel free to experiment the measurements to your liking. When I made this recipe up, I experimented with quantities to see what tastes best for me.

    A blender is highly recommended for the best blend of your milkshake. Blending this by hand may be very tough, depending on how strong you are.

    Please let me know down in the comments section how it turns out if you perform these steps without a blender. Also feel free to send links of your shakes in the comments section below.

    Now that you have all the ingredients, here is how you make your tasty milkshake:
    1. Place all of the ingredients above into a blender. If the ingredient is in a container, use common sense. Blending the containers in with your drink may result in injury, or at least a bad time.
    2. Blend until a thick texture can be seen. No large crumbs should be in the shake.
    3. If you need an example for step 2, look at the cover image above.
    4. If you want to add in the chocolate syrup after you blend, it’s okay. Just pour it in.
    5. Your milkshake is now ready for consumption. Enjoy. 😉

  • Discord and Their New Policies – How They Affect You

    Discord and Their New Policies – How They Affect You

    Just recently, Discord released new policies regarding text channels and personal messages. These changes include a new Report button, a new Community Guidelines policy, and restricting access to minors from using the service. Discord modified their The Privacy Policy and Terms Of Service to reflect those changes. Here are five changes to expect with Discord.

    1. Reporting Users Is Now Easier

    Discord now provides a Report button to make it easier to report message that have offended you. The user you are reporting cannot be on your friends list, and you must unfriend them first by right clicking on their username and selecting “Remove Friend“. To report a message, click on the hamburger icon next to the offensive message, and selecting “Report“. From there, you will see this message:

    Here, you can select from several different reasons to be sent to the Discord abuse team for review. The following reasons are provided: Illegal Content, Harassment, Spam or Phishing Links, Self Harm, or NSFW (Not Safe For Work) content. In addition, learn more with this article about how to report a user, and this article about the recent changes.

    2. Hiding NSFW Content

    In addition, Discord now requires that users put all NSFW content into a marked channel. Users can opt-out ahead of time thanks to this. Therefore, users now need to verify themselves to see the content as part of the updates to their policies. This puts the user at ease so they won’t get their co-workers and bosses upset. Users will see this image when they access an NSFW channel:

    From here, users may continue to see this content. Users may also click “Nope“, if they wish, as described above if they do not wish to see the content. However, the system will send them back, in this case, to the main chat. Considering if the channel has inappropriate content, Discord may therefore boot them back into the announcements or rules channel if the main channel has inappropriate content. Finally, this content will only be available for those users above eighteen (18).

    3. Discord New Age Requirement

    Additions to the Privacy Policy require users to be thirteen (13) or older in order to be able to sign up for a Discord Account. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act bans children under 13 from the platform to comply. Therefore, in order to comply with”COPPA“, Discord will delete knowingly collect personal information. Parents who believe that their children may have exposed personal information may contact Discord staff by clicking here. It is unknown how this affects children who use Discord to this day. Discord recommends parents be aware of their child’s use of the internet in order to keep them safe online.

    4. Advertisement Data Collection

    In other positive news, users are entitled to stop having data collected from Discord’s advertisements on other services. Updates to the Privacy Policy now entitle users to exercise opt-out programs administered by third-parties such as Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), and the more common Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA).

    On May 1st, 2017, they will enact the new Privacy Policy. Users must read and accept it in order to use their services, as well as the Terms Of Service. Therefore, read the privacy policy and the terms of service, as well as the support article discussing this.

    5. New Community Guidelines

    Discord now has a Community Guidelines page, just like YouTube does. The guidelines can be found here. These guidelines talk about the rules of Discord. They explain the consequences for violating such rules, which can include suspension of the service for a certain amount of time, and/or account deletion. Discord makes it clear that misconduct is not tolerated, in simple terms, and that they will punish those who disobey.

    Conclusion

    How do you feel about these new policies? Perhaps the policies are too strict for you? Feel free to leave your thoughts down in the comments section below. If you would like to see more blog posts like this one, please subscribe so we can get the latest posts to you as soon as possible. Thank you for reading this article, and stay safe!

  • Aclevo Is Leaving YouTube, But Why? (OUTDATED)

    Serious changes are going to be made in order to keep Aclevo alive. For one, our main source of revenue will be the blog instead of YouTube. I, Reasonably Selenium, the CEO of Aclevo, will be explaining why in a minute. We as a company will also be switching from YouTube to other services such as DailyMotion and HitBox. Before we begin, please understand that we have strong opinions about maintaining an effective budget in the surplus region. We really do not like losing one of our best sources of income that keeps us rolling.

    As you all may know, YouTube has recently changed their policies regarding monetization. YouTube channels below 10k total views will no longer be able to receive revenue until they are able to get that amount of views. Unfortunately, getting popular does not happen overnight, and Aclevo heavily relied on this revenue in order to provide funding for the website and the domain. We may not be able to pay for the xyz domain due to the unforeseen circumstances, and may have to go back to using a free domain. We will keep you posted, and update you if and when “doomsday” comes.

    But in all seriousness, we do have some solution to our revenue problems, which is our blog. We use the ads on our posts to pay for the website and domain. I am not qualified to share information about how much revenue we make. However, we as Aclevo hope to make enough revenue in order to pay for our necessities and keep the blog running. Our bloggers, including myself, work really hard in order to make sure content gets pushed out here.

    We as a company will no longer post our videos to YouTube. Instead, all videos will be uploaded and monetized on a video sharing service known as DailyMotion. Their company was founded in France in 2003, and has been growing as an alternative to YouTube ever since. Our Multi Channel Network, known as Freedom, currently support getting revenue on DailyMotion at the time of this post.

    They also support HitBox, a video streaming service we may decide to use to stream Aclevo Live. One of our members showed interest in producing live shows in order to get more viewers. We thought it would be in our interest to start streaming in order to keep our fans happy. If you would like to see us live stream successfully for the first time, please let us know down in the comments below. We will be sure to produce quality content on the double.

    Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you would like to stay updated with us, please be sure to subscribe for more blog posts, and tell us in the comments what you think about the situation and what you think we should do next. Please be sure to check out our other posts to get more amazing content. Have a nice day, everyone!

  • How to be anonymous online (Using a VPN)

    If I care about one thing about being online, then it must be privacy. A common mistake I always see is that people think if they are not doing anything wrong then they do not need to be safe. That’s not a good mindset to use when browsing the web. A great solution for this is a VPN.

    What’s a VPN and why should I care?

    A VPN enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computers were directly connected to the private network. Not only does this hide your IP-address, but also your location and websites you visit from your ISP. It’s also useful for browsing websites that happen to be blocked by your ISP or website administrator.

    Every day you give access to your personal data to thousands of websites and services located all over the world. On the way to its final destination your data passes dozens of hops, routers and networks.

    Your data can be logged, monitored, analyzed and stored by your ISP, your network administrator, a site you visit, your network peers, or even worse, a hacker.

    For example, your network peers may be snooping and peeking on your private Internet activities, looking for a way to compromise you and damage your reputation. And a hacker who gave you a free access to his unsecured WiFi is waiting to take over your email account and gain access to your bank account.

    Okay, this sounds scary. How can I get a VPN?

    There are a lot of VPN providers out there, so I understand it’s difficult to choose. (Trust me, I know. I had to do this myself.) Here are a few points that you need to consider when choosing a VPN:

    • Logging of any kind (If your VPN provider keeps logs, it is a wise decision not to utilize their service.)
    • Location of HQ (If your VPN provider is operating in a five, nine or fourteen-eyes country, you may want to reconsider. Read here why this matters. )
    • Their policies (Not everyone may want to do this, but for your privacy’s sake I recommend you to check the VPN provider’s ToS. Some of them may not care too much about your privacy or not at all, which is quite ironic.)

    I myself use SecureVPN.to since they have proof that they don’t log, but also have a lot of countries to choose a server from, a fast network and accept secure payment methods such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and PaySafecard.

    If you’re unsure what VPN provider you should choose, then you can consult That One Privacy Site for comparisons and reviews.

    What about a free VPN?

    Definitely not recommended. Free VPN’s are absolutely not trustworthy and may even be more dangerous than not using a VPN at all. The most notorious example of this was Hola. Well, we all had to say “Adios” to that service. And they’re not the only one.

    Okay, so a paid VPN is all I need?

    It’s a great start, but you would need to add a few add-ons on your browser. I use Firefox for my browsing since it’s open-source, but if you’re used to Google Chrome, I can definitely recommend Iridium. It’s pretty much Google Chrome without it sharing data to Google.

    Here are the add-ons I use:

    WebRTC Control WebRTC exposes your internal network IP(s), without user interaction. WebRTC will basically render your VPN useless if enabled, so let’s disable this! I will never run Firefox without this add-on.

    uBlock Origin is able to block tracking, malware domains, banners, pop-ups and video ads – even on Facebook and YouTube. Not only great for blocking ads, but safe as well!

    HTTPS Everywhere will force all websites to load on the HTTPS protocol. This add-on requires no back end to work. Simply download, install and done.

    Noscript prevents Adobe Flash, Java, Javascript and other plug-ins from untrusted sources from being executed. You can choose what runs.

    So I think this concludes my tutorial on how to be anonymous online. It is however worth a mention that you will never be completely anonymous online, this is a good way to start and help to slow down malicious entities.

  • Is NeverWare “CloudReady” for your laptop?

    Is NeverWare “CloudReady” for your laptop?

    Yesterday night, I decided to try out a product that I haven’t put to the test in years. My interest in NeverWare CloudReady sparked my interest yet again when I saw that they introduced a Multi-boot feature so that you could install it alongside Windows. NeverWare Cloudready is a port of Chromium OS that can be installed on older computers and laptops,

    Why Switch to CloudReady?

    Because Windows 10 is not really my favorite product when it comes to operating systems in regard to their forced update scheme, I had an excuse to install something new. Sure, I could have wiped the hard drive and installed this as my primary operating system, but I still used the multi-boot feature because I still have data on my hard drive that I didn’t want to lose. Here is my experience with the installation and the use of this product.

    Downloading and Installing CloudReady

    The installation of this product was very easy. All I had to do was follow the instructions on this website. I purchased a SanDisk USB Flash Drive some time ago unrelated to this use case, and I wouldn’t recommend using it for this installation process.

    As I booted into the CloudReady installation, the display became very bright. I wasn’t too happy with this, but I was able to turn down the brightness after figuring out the new function key layout.

    CloudReady Setup

    All I had to do next was click at the bottom-right hand corner of the screen, click “Install CloudReady…”, and follow the on-screen prompts. After taking a little break while CloudReady installed, I unplugged my USB Flash Drive and booted my PC.

    First Boot to Desktop

    I was first asked to select my language, keyboard layout, and enter my network settings. A login screen then appeared where I could login to my Google Account for the very first time.

    From Profile Picture to Desktop

    Then I was able to set my profile picture and take a tour, even though I could have just dived in and played around if I wanted to. A clear desktop appeared with a taskbar showing the Chromium Browser, just waiting for me to open it for the first time.

    This simplicity deserves a personal applaud from me, as well as the other great benefits that come with this product that I usually use often.

    Webstore Apps

    Great software comes with the operating system, and my preferences from Google Chrome automatically sync. All of the apps and extensions from the Chrome Webstore automatically download and install themselves without me having to press a button.

    Taskbar

    The taskbar even adds icons to my favorite office applications from Google so that I can access them easily with a click. I am so happy that I do not have to use my geek skills in order to get to work, and that I don’t have to waste my time installing applications like I do on Windows or Mac. Even though a normal out-of-the-box Linux distribution provides this functionality, it’s not as personalized and quick as NeverWare CloudReady.

    Compatibility with Windows and Linux

    As with all software, and basically everything in general, where there are great benefits there are drawbacks. One drawback is that not all Windows Or Mac programs/apps are going to install on this operating system (unless you want to tear apart CloudReady, but I’d say please just use Windows/Mac).

    Chromium Webstore on CloudReady

    However, the Chrome Webstore does feature some good applications that you may find are better than the ones that you use. You never know how a product or service is going to be unless you try it out yourself. Another drawback is that some systems may not be supported with CloudReady. If you would like to learn more about which products are certified to be compatible with this software, please click here.

    Windows and Linux Compatibility

    Neverware’s CloudReady software is geared more toward users who just want to use the internet and have an office suite ready for them at first install. Users who wish to run applications such as games like Grand Theft Auto 5 or Garry’s Mod will want to stick to their current Windows, Mac, or Linux operating systems.

    Conclusion

    Because I use both a desktop and a laptop, I can leave my heavy applications to my desktop while I use my laptop for browsing the web and writing articles on the blog such as this one. I’d say my laptop is CloudReady for the future, but is yours?

    Please leave us a comment down below about your experience or if you have any suggestions for the new blog posts. Please subscribe to receive the latest blog posts as they are published on the website, and we’ll see you next time!