Fear the Future

As if the Blues Brothers problem listed below wasn't enough, now there is another reason to hate the world. We now have the capability to identify almost anyone in a matter of seconds, simply by taking their picture.

A CMU research team led by associate professor Alessandro Acquisti took candid photos of 93 random students on campus using a $35 webcam. Within seconds the researchers were able to determine the identities of a third of their photogenic guinea pigs, using off-the-shelf facial recognition software from PittPatt, a software company recently acquired by Google, and publicly available profile photos from Facebook. The researchers had an even higher rate of success using the same technology to identify more than 100,000 Pittsburgh singles with otherwise pseudonymous accounts on a dating site, adding yet more complexity to the world of online dating.

You know what?  The end can't come fast enough for me.  You hear that?  Start operation omega anytime now, brother, I'll be ready, god dammit.