Thank you @inge for sending me into the the weird part of the internet. Again.
Apparently a Russian company called “Boobs Dev” (yes, seriously) has developed a game where players can… have sex with Stalin:
“It promises violence, nudity and blood, and users can use it as a tool for “revenge” or, should they wish, to “help the leader reach worldwide supremacy,” apparently by seducing him.”
I don’t know about Stalin, but the TechCrunch article… we always knew it was coming. We were just discussing Adam Greenfield’s work on smart cities with @RobvanKranenburg (topic here).
The system also uses its facial recognition systems to detect ethnicities and labels them — such as “汉族” for Han Chinese, the main ethnic group of China — and also “维族” — or Uyghur Muslims, an ethnic minority under persecution by Beijing.
Where ethnicities can help police identify suspects in an area even if they don’t have a name to match, the data can be used for abuse.
It’s remarkable that something with this level of delicacy was simply leaked into TechCrunch!
Reminds me of this film: