The Powerful AI Tool That Cops (Or Stalkers) Can Use To Geolocate Photos In Seconds 21
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: A powerful AI tool can predict with high accuracy the location of photos based on features inside the image itself -- such as vegetation, architecture, and the distance between buildings -- in seconds, with the company now marketing the tool to law enforcement officers and government agencies. Called GeoSpy, made by a firm called Graylark Technologies out of Boston, the tool has also been used for months by members of the public, with many making videos marveling at the technology, and some asking for help with stalking specific women. The company's founder has aggressively pushed back against such requests, and GeoSpy closed off public access to the tool after 404 Media contacted him for comment.
Based on 404 Media's own tests and conversations with other people who have used it and investors, GeoSpy could radically change what information can be learned from photos posted online, and by whom. Law enforcement officers with very little necessary training, private threat intelligence companies, and stalkers could, and in some cases already are, using this technology. Dedicated open source intelligence (OSINT) professionals can of course do this too, but the training and skillset necessary can take years to build up. GeoSpy allows essentially anyone to do it. "We are working on something for LE [law enforcement] but it's ," Daniel Heinen, the founder of Graylark and GeoSpy, wrote in a message to the GeoSpy community Discord in July.
GeoSpy has been trained on millions of images from around the world, according to marketing material available online. From that, the tool is able to recognize "distinct geographical markers such as architectural styles, soil characteristics, and their spatial relationships." That marketing material says GeoSpy has strong coverage in the United States, but that it also "maintains global capabilities for location identification." [...] GeoSpy has not received much media attention, but it has become something of a sensation on YouTube. Multiple content creators have tested out the tool, and some try to feed it harder and harder challenges. Now that it's been shut off to the public, users have to request access, which is "available exclusively to qualified law enforcement agencies, enterprise users and government entities," according to the company's website.
The law enforcement-version of GeoSpy is more powerful than what was publicly available, according to Heinen's Discord posts. "Geospy.ai is a demo," he wrote in September. "The real work is the law enforcement models."
Based on 404 Media's own tests and conversations with other people who have used it and investors, GeoSpy could radically change what information can be learned from photos posted online, and by whom. Law enforcement officers with very little necessary training, private threat intelligence companies, and stalkers could, and in some cases already are, using this technology. Dedicated open source intelligence (OSINT) professionals can of course do this too, but the training and skillset necessary can take years to build up. GeoSpy allows essentially anyone to do it. "We are working on something for LE [law enforcement] but it's ," Daniel Heinen, the founder of Graylark and GeoSpy, wrote in a message to the GeoSpy community Discord in July.
GeoSpy has been trained on millions of images from around the world, according to marketing material available online. From that, the tool is able to recognize "distinct geographical markers such as architectural styles, soil characteristics, and their spatial relationships." That marketing material says GeoSpy has strong coverage in the United States, but that it also "maintains global capabilities for location identification." [...] GeoSpy has not received much media attention, but it has become something of a sensation on YouTube. Multiple content creators have tested out the tool, and some try to feed it harder and harder challenges. Now that it's been shut off to the public, users have to request access, which is "available exclusively to qualified law enforcement agencies, enterprise users and government entities," according to the company's website.
The law enforcement-version of GeoSpy is more powerful than what was publicly available, according to Heinen's Discord posts. "Geospy.ai is a demo," he wrote in September. "The real work is the law enforcement models."
Minority Report? (Score:2)
Isn't that what parts of Minority Report showed? Places where a crime was supposedly going to occur then locating that place?
Re: (Score:2)
This is at least a semi-public service with limited access.
But this also tells me that there are most likely other systems that are purely in the hands of various agencies around the world.
Re: (Score:1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
Re: Minority Report? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Whose going to be the new Arnolds? (Score:5, Insightful)
Login Walled Source (Score:2)
Please avoid linking to sites that require a "Free" account (together with an weekly e-mail).
"GeoSpy" (Score:2)
Called GeoSpy...
... and a new Privacy Rapist is born!
Damn shame (Score:5, Interesting)
Understandable, but I've family history photos that include potentially identifiable features where I cannot identify the location. An AI tool that can offer suggestions would be very helpful to me.
Re:Damn shame (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
If you have a compelling story, you might want to reach out to GeoWizard (https://www.youtube.com/@GeoWizard).
He has a video serie called Geo Detective where he tries to locate the exact place a photo was taken.
Thank goodness we can trust the police! (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet another reason to take every opportunity to poison the data pool. It's somewhat ironic that the most efficient way to modify photos in ways that would make them useless for this kind of spying would probably be to use...AI.
No GeoGuessr? (Score:5, Informative)
The techniques described are basically what the top people on GeoGuessr already do.
For anyone who doesn't know, it's a game where the site shows you an image (from Google Street View) and you have to identify the location. The closer you get to the actual location, the higher your score.
Now, there are difficulty levels - it can give you just an image and that's it, or it lets you pan around to see more of the area. And for the beginners, it lets you walk around Street View.
And yes, there are experts at it who can basically ace the image location using just the provided image.
There are lots of tools and tricks they use - some relying on the medium (the color of the Google Street View vehicle can get you the country), but other aspects of the image they have to tease out.
To me this is just GeoGuessr in reverse, but there are many experts who even ask users to send them their photos for them to guess the location. And many are able to.
I'm surprised there's even a need for this (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Intersecting Venn diagrams (Score:5, Insightful)
The article talks about “ Law enforcement officers with very little necessary training, private threat intelligence companies, and stalkers” as though these are separate categories. But of course, there’s plenty of LEOs who are or have been stalkers, and probably even more stalkers to be found in private threat intelligence companies. Because stalkers as a group like to work in places where they have access to information (and powers to abuse) that helps them stalk their victims.
It's... what? A banana? (Score:3)
"We are working on something for LE [law enforcement] but it's ," Daniel Heinen, the founder of Graylark and GeoSpy, wrote in a message to the GeoSpy community Discord in July.
So we're just not finishing our sentences now?
Re: (Score:2)
They got him before he
It's like those crime shows (Score:4, Interesting)
You know, when the "expert" determines that "the only place where this particular plant grows is X" and "the only place where this kind of animal is found is Y" (the animal was identified based on teeth mark patterns, you know)...and there's only a tiny area where X intersects with Y so that's where we look for our suspect!
Yeah that, but more magical.
High accuracy? (Score:2)
That's not what the article says;
The system wasn’t fully accurate, but “it goes from the entire world down to a few kilometer search area,”
If there are some signs in the image or common landmarks in the background it may do much better.
Anyone can do what this tool does (Score:1)
This tool may be a little faster, but especially for stalking people with a social media presence pretty much anyone can easily analyze images that people post online on instagram or X or whatever to figure out location.
So many people post images that have buildings you could easily find via Street View or the like. Or heck how many people bother to strip geotagging metadata a phone adds anyway before uploading? Even if a service strips geodata before images go out to the public that opens you up to insi
But is it admissible in court? (Score:3)
Like with all things AI, it's probably going to have a HUGE error rate. I hope this is not admissible as evidence. I fully support law enforcement using all reasonable tools to gather information, but I don't support buggy AI used to convict someone.