How much do I need to change my face to avoid facial recognition?(gizmodo.com)
gizmodo.com
How much do I need to change my face to avoid facial recognition?
https://gizmodo.com/how-much-do-i-need-to-change-my-face-to-avoid-facial-recognition-2000533755
263 comments
> and no one will care because it already happens to them at the airport, so why make a fuss about it at the grocery store or on a public sidewalk.
You may be overestimating how many unique/different people travel through airports, especially more than once or twice to notice the tracking. People who travel once or twice total in their life by air, (are usually easy to spot), far more concerned with getting through a confusing hectic situation then noticing or even knowing that using facial recognition is new and not simply a special thing (because 9/11). And, the majority of Americans have travelled to zero or one country, last time I saw numbers on it. That country is usually Mexico or Canada where they drive (or walk).
I think once it starts trying to hit close to home where people have a routine and are not as stressed by a new situation and have the bandwidth to--at a minimum--take a pause, will ask questions about what is going on.
You may be overestimating how many unique/different people travel through airports, especially more than once or twice to notice the tracking. People who travel once or twice total in their life by air, (are usually easy to spot), far more concerned with getting through a confusing hectic situation then noticing or even knowing that using facial recognition is new and not simply a special thing (because 9/11). And, the majority of Americans have travelled to zero or one country, last time I saw numbers on it. That country is usually Mexico or Canada where they drive (or walk).
I think once it starts trying to hit close to home where people have a routine and are not as stressed by a new situation and have the bandwidth to--at a minimum--take a pause, will ask questions about what is going on.
I’m thinking it will only be a matter of time before (if it’s not already the case) that things like self-checkout systems that do HQ faces level video for facial recognition and identification, akin to any number of dystopian novels/movies where some protagonist cannot move around without face covering because there are scanners, or even something like Idiocracy where the public is so conditioned that they immediately report someone who does not obey the government regime’s requirement to have some barcode.
Was in Canada two years ago to snowboard. They were taking everybody's pictures as they were going through customs. I remember going to the counter with my Mom and the guy asked us what we would be doing and I before I even answered he waved me through. My Mom looked at me and said, "We obviously didn't fit the profile they're looking for."
You're right about just trying to get through the process. I was the only one in our family who was like, "No idea why they were taking pictures of everybody when they just whisked us through customs." My Dad snapped that it was because of 9/11 and we weren't lawbreakers so just deal with it.
The comment was interesting since my Dad worked for Lockheed Martin for 30 years and used to travel constantly. He mentioned the idea of a "high trust society" is now gone forever and facial recognition and other technologies are now necessary to give that trust back to the general public so they can feel safe with air travel.
You're right about just trying to get through the process. I was the only one in our family who was like, "No idea why they were taking pictures of everybody when they just whisked us through customs." My Dad snapped that it was because of 9/11 and we weren't lawbreakers so just deal with it.
The comment was interesting since my Dad worked for Lockheed Martin for 30 years and used to travel constantly. He mentioned the idea of a "high trust society" is now gone forever and facial recognition and other technologies are now necessary to give that trust back to the general public so they can feel safe with air travel.
It’s pretty much too late by the time that happens. People’s general indifference regarding privacy never ceases to amaze me, we really put up no fight whatsoever
I wonder if there isn't a case to be made for some really bad faith projects as demonstrators for just how creepy this shit is.
Privacy advocacy orgs should have contests for tracking people using publicaly available video feeds, or something of the sort.
Let people search their license plate to see how easy it is to track all of your movements. Maybe put up a few high res webcams in the vicinity of a legislature building for maximum effect.
Privacy advocacy orgs should have contests for tracking people using publicaly available video feeds, or something of the sort.
Let people search their license plate to see how easy it is to track all of your movements. Maybe put up a few high res webcams in the vicinity of a legislature building for maximum effect.
I don't have much hope in that approach. It might get some attention and trend for a day/week or so, but nothing happens and people move on to the next thing and the camera's remain
Also, practically, the advocacy groups would need to get access to the surveillance feeds or deploy their own hardware - which I just don't see happening
Also, practically, the advocacy groups would need to get access to the surveillance feeds or deploy their own hardware - which I just don't see happening
I've used this as a bit of a thought experiment, and also think it may do more harm than good--but a part of me wonders if it may be just thing to create change. A non-profit that works a bit like haveibeenpwned.com but with data sold by data brokers that anyone can look up, with corresponding source attribution. At one point, long ago I was of the idea that all data should be public/exposed or none of it (this ship already sailed with data brokers and such. Don't know how it could be undone).
The problem I keep running into is a real world take on the Trolley problem[0].
Do you publicly publish all data, which:
1. Reduces its sellable value
2. Makes people aware of how much they are being tracked and profiled
3. Gives back a small bit of agency over ones data by knowing where to send delete/remove request to make data brokers honour local laws
However, doing so would also:
1. Give easy access to abuse victim data, putting them in further harm
2. Give actual stalkers an easier path to their targets
3. Other harm that I can not fathom at this point in time
I don't know the answer, maybe mask the address part, or do like Strava and set a blocking geo fence around home/work addresses. For location tracking keep it months behind and remove/mask anything remotely related to health services (mental and physical).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
The problem I keep running into is a real world take on the Trolley problem[0].
Do you publicly publish all data, which:
1. Reduces its sellable value
2. Makes people aware of how much they are being tracked and profiled
3. Gives back a small bit of agency over ones data by knowing where to send delete/remove request to make data brokers honour local laws
However, doing so would also:
1. Give easy access to abuse victim data, putting them in further harm
2. Give actual stalkers an easier path to their targets
3. Other harm that I can not fathom at this point in time
I don't know the answer, maybe mask the address part, or do like Strava and set a blocking geo fence around home/work addresses. For location tracking keep it months behind and remove/mask anything remotely related to health services (mental and physical).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
I’d prefer the passive data never existed, it’s actively collected and that activity can be banned. Meaning, when I’m on strava I’m actively collecting data and have opted in to that. But, if I’m jogging, I didn’t opt in to the cameras on every pole using facial recognition to triangulate my location (my face + camera location = my location) and so I think this is a bit of an overreach.
Just like everyone though, I’m just going to gripe here and move on with my life as the mass surveillance infrastructure rollout proceeds
Just like everyone though, I’m just going to gripe here and move on with my life as the mass surveillance infrastructure rollout proceeds
But, will they even realize when/where they're being surveilled?
Out of sight, out of mind. If there isn't a large video camera tracking them as they move across a shop or down the street, I'm not sure many people will even notice.
Out of sight, out of mind. If there isn't a large video camera tracking them as they move across a shop or down the street, I'm not sure many people will even notice.
Is there a tipping point where familiarity leads to normalization, or does it instead give people the clarity to resist?
Also there's the possibility people aren't particularly bothered by it as long as it gets used for reasonable purposes, to catch the bad guys. My main annoyance with surveillance in London is it wasn't good enough to catch the bastards who snatched my phone.
From a practical point of view to avoid getting caught if you look at the phone snatchers, they wear hoodies, balaclava type cycle masks and generic black tracksuit like clothing. If you look at the photos of the NYC shooter he slipped up in not wearing a balaclava type mask and in having distinctive clothing and backpack.
From a practical point of view to avoid getting caught if you look at the phone snatchers, they wear hoodies, balaclava type cycle masks and generic black tracksuit like clothing. If you look at the photos of the NYC shooter he slipped up in not wearing a balaclava type mask and in having distinctive clothing and backpack.
> My main annoyance with surveillance in London is it wasn't good enough to catch the bastards
Well that’s the norm with all surveillance: it pretty much never helps you and might hurt you, regardless of the promises. Obviously after decades of constant spying, men are still getting ads intended for women and vice versa, and yet micro targeting is changing election outcomes. Banks and governments watch every single transaction, but it doesn’t reduce the administrative burden of compliance for tax paperwork. Airport experiences are worse than ever and at greater expense, but anyone with a few brain cells to rub together knows that it’s just security theater. Even more basically.. google reads all your email and searching for that exact phrase you know you read or wrote just a few weeks ago somehow turns up zero results.
This will all just get worse, because as the amount of data collected increases, everyone can be suspected of something just because of coincidence. Your insurance company is getting the memo about your poor diet or know that you’re driving too fast, and just won’t bother to find out about your healthy exercise regimen or that your job is driving an ambulance! To be presumed innocent you’ll need to opt into more data collection or disclosures of course, that’s the way it goes, but this only makes things worse because the extra data is just more stuff that can be used in a case against you.
Well that’s the norm with all surveillance: it pretty much never helps you and might hurt you, regardless of the promises. Obviously after decades of constant spying, men are still getting ads intended for women and vice versa, and yet micro targeting is changing election outcomes. Banks and governments watch every single transaction, but it doesn’t reduce the administrative burden of compliance for tax paperwork. Airport experiences are worse than ever and at greater expense, but anyone with a few brain cells to rub together knows that it’s just security theater. Even more basically.. google reads all your email and searching for that exact phrase you know you read or wrote just a few weeks ago somehow turns up zero results.
This will all just get worse, because as the amount of data collected increases, everyone can be suspected of something just because of coincidence. Your insurance company is getting the memo about your poor diet or know that you’re driving too fast, and just won’t bother to find out about your healthy exercise regimen or that your job is driving an ambulance! To be presumed innocent you’ll need to opt into more data collection or disclosures of course, that’s the way it goes, but this only makes things worse because the extra data is just more stuff that can be used in a case against you.
> Quickly they showed me a video of my entire time with all my movements at the airport so they could pinpoint the employee.
This is just as interesting as it is creepy, but that's the world we live and this is hacker news. So, how quickly was was quickly. You made your report, they get the proper people involved, and then they show you the video. How much time passed before you were viewing the video?
For someone that plays with quickly assembling an edited video from a library of video content using a database full of cuepoints, this is a very interesting problem to solve. What did the final video look like? Was it an assembled video with cuts like in a spy movie with the best angles selected in sequence? Was it each of the cameras in a multi-cam like view just starting from the time they ID'd the flight you arrived on? Did they draw the boxes around you to show the system "knew" you?
I'm really curious how dystopian we actually are with the facial recognition systems like this.
This is just as interesting as it is creepy, but that's the world we live and this is hacker news. So, how quickly was was quickly. You made your report, they get the proper people involved, and then they show you the video. How much time passed before you were viewing the video?
For someone that plays with quickly assembling an edited video from a library of video content using a database full of cuepoints, this is a very interesting problem to solve. What did the final video look like? Was it an assembled video with cuts like in a spy movie with the best angles selected in sequence? Was it each of the cameras in a multi-cam like view just starting from the time they ID'd the flight you arrived on? Did they draw the boxes around you to show the system "knew" you?
I'm really curious how dystopian we actually are with the facial recognition systems like this.
> I'm really curious how dystopian we actually are
No idea how widespread it is, but in Singapore airport the system is tightly integrated. You are "tagged" when you check in, and "tagged out" as you board, with your appearance associated with your intended flight details. If you miss your flight or otherwise spend too much time in the secure zone, you are highlighted in the system and will eventually be approached. Arriving passengers are also given a time limit to take their next action, be it clear immigration or enter transit, and lingering will also trigger a response.
All in the name of safety and security but I can't help but feel a measure of discomfort with it all.
No idea how widespread it is, but in Singapore airport the system is tightly integrated. You are "tagged" when you check in, and "tagged out" as you board, with your appearance associated with your intended flight details. If you miss your flight or otherwise spend too much time in the secure zone, you are highlighted in the system and will eventually be approached. Arriving passengers are also given a time limit to take their next action, be it clear immigration or enter transit, and lingering will also trigger a response.
All in the name of safety and security but I can't help but feel a measure of discomfort with it all.
Fun fact: ~80% of Singaporeans live in public housing and all the entryways to those buildings are filled with (offical) police security cameras, including two in each lift. The cameras extends to the nearby carparks, carpark gantry (to ID the driver), bus stops (and on the bus) so all movement can be monitored. Private housing do not have such police security cameras because the estate is gated and have their own security guards, not that crime is much of an issue there. Dystopia for the masses?
This tech isn't new. My company uses Axis cameras and Axis has some pretty advanced video analytics software https://www.axis.com/en-us/products/analytics
It records the license plates of all cars entering and leaving the parking lots. You can associate names to faces which we do for all employees and the system automatically records when people enter and leave buildings. You can even just tell it to find all people with a blue shirt in a particular camera in a time window. It can automatically detect people shouting.
It records the license plates of all cars entering and leaving the parking lots. You can associate names to faces which we do for all employees and the system automatically records when people enter and leave buildings. You can even just tell it to find all people with a blue shirt in a particular camera in a time window. It can automatically detect people shouting.
Those sorts of systems run in realtime. They neither know (or care) who you are. They work by identifying people and pulling out appearance characteristics (like blue coat/red hair/beard/etc) and hashing them in a database. After that, it's straightforward to track similar looking people via connected cameras, with a bit of human assistance.
Here's a marketing video for a multi-camera tracking system which does just that.[1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07inDETl3LQ
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07inDETl3LQ
the stock footage they used looked like it came from Person of Interest.
Twenty (!) years ago I got home from a drug store shopping trip and realized I had been charged for some expensive items I didn't buy. I called, they immediately found me on their surveillance recording, saw the items were actually bought by the previous person in line, and quickly refunded me. No face recognition was involved (they just used the timestamp from my receipt), but the experience immediately made me a fan of video monitoring.
I worked in a retail/pc repair place about 10 years ago. Boss phoned me one day to say X (customer) device is missing have I seen it? I immediately knew it had been stolen and who by. I was on my own in the shop, 10 minutes before closing and I had been busy for the previous hour so the device was in the front of the shop instead of stored away securely like they normally would be. I was able to find the video within about 30 seconds of getting in and pinpoint the guy. I actually recognised him and was able to tell the police where I saw him somewhat frequently (as I lived nearby too).
Without it, I think all the gingers would have pointed at me rather than me being tired and making a mistake.
Without it, I think all the gingers would have pointed at me rather than me being tired and making a mistake.
It's a different thing though. In your case they used a timestamp to manually look at footage and confirm an identity. In OP's case, automated recognition is used to identify and track people, in aggregation mass.
I was talking with an employee at a grocery store, who told me that management one day decided to review the surveillance footage, and fired a bunch of employees who were caught pilfering.
I had a friend who was a checker at a large local chain, and before shift one day he popped into the security office (he was friends with the head of security) to say hi, and they had every camera in the front of the store trained on the employee working the customer service desk.
Someone got fired that day.
Someone got fired that day.
Surprising how common it is. The first hardware I ever designed on the job was a device to detect employee theft.
I'm not in the least surprised. People steal from businesses routinely, it's all part of the anti-business mentality.
Case in point - one time the cash machine on the bank exterior disbursed an extra 20 to me. I counted it carefully, sure enough, an extra one. So I went around to the other side, went in, and handed it to the teller with an explanation. She about fell over in shock.
It's kinda sad, actually.
Case in point - one time the cash machine on the bank exterior disbursed an extra 20 to me. I counted it carefully, sure enough, an extra one. So I went around to the other side, went in, and handed it to the teller with an explanation. She about fell over in shock.
It's kinda sad, actually.
An added layer of complexity
The thing with you example is that there is a "time and location bound context" due to which the false positive rate can be _massively_ reduced.
But for nation wide public search the false positive rate is just way to high for it to work well.
Once someone managed to leave a "local/time" context (e.g. known accident at known location and time) without leaving too many traces (in the US easy due to wide use of private cars everyone) the false positive rate makes such systems often practically hardly helpful.
But for nation wide public search the false positive rate is just way to high for it to work well.
Once someone managed to leave a "local/time" context (e.g. known accident at known location and time) without leaving too many traces (in the US easy due to wide use of private cars everyone) the false positive rate makes such systems often practically hardly helpful.
No too sure modern private cars are all that good at letting you avoid leaving time/location traces.
Making it opt-out instead of opt-in means that that vast majority of people won't care, or have better things to do.
You don't have to have your photo taken to enter the US if you're a citizen, but who wants to deal with the hassle? And on and on it goes.
You don't have to have your photo taken to enter the US if you're a citizen, but who wants to deal with the hassle? And on and on it goes.
wrong. photo taken at sfo inbound customs.
go ahead and decline while the cop is holding your passport.
go ahead and decline while the cop is holding your passport.
I fly back to the US pretty often (I am a US citizen living abroad) and have declined every time. This is in SFO. They are generally fine with it. But most people won't risk it.
It's much, much more annoying in Ireland, where US immigration happens in Dublin (an affront to Irish sovereignty, but that's another matter) - so being delayed can mean missing your flight.
It's much, much more annoying in Ireland, where US immigration happens in Dublin (an affront to Irish sovereignty, but that's another matter) - so being delayed can mean missing your flight.
> (an affront to Irish sovereignty, but that's another matter
I’ll bite. Why do you think it’s an affront to their sovereignty? It’s entirely voluntary and it’s something the Dublin airport (and the dozens of other airports in Canada) actively seek out to get direct access to the domestic side in the US.
The US does not force any airports into these arrangements.
I’ll bite. Why do you think it’s an affront to their sovereignty? It’s entirely voluntary and it’s something the Dublin airport (and the dozens of other airports in Canada) actively seek out to get direct access to the domestic side in the US.
The US does not force any airports into these arrangements.
I think it's absurd to have US immigration policy enforcement on Irish soil (I suppose there's a diplomatic carve-out for whether the post-immigration area is "US soil" or whatever, but still).
As said policies become increasingly inhumane I think Ireland should consider removing this arrangement. But you are right, Dublin Airport themselves do benefit since it makes them more attractive, especially as a transfer airport for people going to the US from Europe.
As said policies become increasingly inhumane I think Ireland should consider removing this arrangement. But you are right, Dublin Airport themselves do benefit since it makes them more attractive, especially as a transfer airport for people going to the US from Europe.
I can't even imagine a situatuion where this is not preferable. For example, if the US immigration check happens in Ireland, they can't detain you or mess with you in ways in which Ireland doesn't approve of, which they could if you were on US soil.
If anything, it seems to me that the USA agreeing to perform immigration checks in Ireland and accept them when you reach the USA is a(n extremely mild) limitation to US sovereignty, not to Irish sovereignty.
If anything, it seems to me that the USA agreeing to perform immigration checks in Ireland and accept them when you reach the USA is a(n extremely mild) limitation to US sovereignty, not to Irish sovereignty.
Is it “absurd”? If you’re going to be rejected access to a country, wouldn’t it be better before you get on the plane? Seems the opposite of absurd, it seems preferable.
UK based travellers travelling to Europe via either the Eurostar or Le Shuttle go through French immigration on UK soil before departing, this facilitates easy exit in France. Makes perfect sense to me, as a UK national I don't see this as impinging on UK Sovereignty.
The programme is there for the convenience of the US. Would they allow Ireland to operate a corresponding facility on US soil?
(The popularity of that airport for CIA torture flights also doesn't help the case, even if not directly linked)
(The popularity of that airport for CIA torture flights also doesn't help the case, even if not directly linked)
The programme is there for the convenience of the airlines. If someone arrives in the US and is denied entry, the airline is on the hook to fly them back. It's much better for them for the traveler to be denied before even boarding.
More critically, it opens up a huge number of routes for the airlines because the US destination no longer S to be an international airport with a CBP presence.
The program is there for the convenience of Irish travelers. They can clear immigration and then when they arrive they are treated as domestic arrivals and save a lot of time.
It provides a good amount of convenience for US citizens, certainly.
Let's talk about Toronto or Vancouver to set aside CIA whatever. What particular convenience does it provide for the US government to do it there vs on the US side? AFAICT that would save the airline that brought a person who got denied a bit of trouble - vs having to take them back to their departure airport - but not be a particularly huge convenience or burden for either government at a higher-up level.
Let's talk about Toronto or Vancouver to set aside CIA whatever. What particular convenience does it provide for the US government to do it there vs on the US side? AFAICT that would save the airline that brought a person who got denied a bit of trouble - vs having to take them back to their departure airport - but not be a particularly huge convenience or burden for either government at a higher-up level.
> What particular convenience does it provide for the US government to do it there vs on the US side?
It reduces legal accountability (I know the US courts have generally exempted border operations from the constitution anyway, but that interpretation could change in the future) and makes it easier to prevent people from e.g. landing and claiming asylum (yes there are measures to penalise airlines and oblige them to return passengers, but they're not always fully effective). More subtly it means there's less pressure to have reasonable border rules, since turning someone away before they board is lower-stakes. And having an official, pseudo-law-enforcement presence in a country is valuable almost in itself.
It reduces legal accountability (I know the US courts have generally exempted border operations from the constitution anyway, but that interpretation could change in the future) and makes it easier to prevent people from e.g. landing and claiming asylum (yes there are measures to penalise airlines and oblige them to return passengers, but they're not always fully effective). More subtly it means there's less pressure to have reasonable border rules, since turning someone away before they board is lower-stakes. And having an official, pseudo-law-enforcement presence in a country is valuable almost in itself.
I would argue higher legal accountability as they are subject to the host country's laws. If you are at a US airport, you are at the whim of US border officials. If you are at a Canadian airport, you have the right to turn around and leave.
> If you are at a Canadian airport, you have the right to turn around and leave.
Well maybe. What happens when you try to exercise that right? If it turns out that those US border officials falsely imprisoned you (under Canadian law - if the Canadian courts are even willing to hear the case), what consequences will they face?
Well maybe. What happens when you try to exercise that right? If it turns out that those US border officials falsely imprisoned you (under Canadian law - if the Canadian courts are even willing to hear the case), what consequences will they face?
> The programme is there for the convenience of the US. Would they allow Ireland to operate a corresponding facility on US soil?
FWIW, I recall reading that the program in Canada is reciprocal, and it is simply the case that Canada hasn't decided to operate any corresponding facility in the US.
FWIW, I recall reading that the program in Canada is reciprocal, and it is simply the case that Canada hasn't decided to operate any corresponding facility in the US.
That is correct. IIRC, Bermuda is also part of the agreement, and I would be very much surprised if Ireland doesn't operate on the same rules.
CIA torture flights?
When the US government wants to torture people from another country, it gets around legal protections by having the CIA illegally fly them to a third country. Many of those flights went via Ireland. See e.g. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/wikileaks-memo-tells-o...
Nothing to do with US immigration pre clearance.
The last few times flying back from EU through CDG, security funnels all US passports (and Brazil and South Korea maybe?) through a face ID gate for passport control. There was no signage communicating an opt out policy, although it’s my understanding that opting out is allowed. Flight connections have always been fairly tight though, so I didn’t press the issue unfortunately, and was unsure of the rules at the time. I opt out domestically, although it seems this is so infrequent they just have the camera scanner running as soon as you walk up, before you can even get close enough to request normal screening.
When I took a US ferry to Canada, Canada border officials were on the boat so we could do all the paperwork before we arrived.
some airports laid back. others like sfo must have an ongoing bust quota contest.
> holding your passport.
When my spouse and I crossed through US customs this past spring, they called us by our names and waved us on before even getting our passports out to hand to the customs officer. This was at BWI, fwiw.
When my spouse and I crossed through US customs this past spring, they called us by our names and waved us on before even getting our passports out to hand to the customs officer. This was at BWI, fwiw.
Customs or immigration?
For whatever reason most Americans use the word "customs" when they are, in fact, referring to immigration, when traveling internationally.
Because entry is handled by CBP - Customs and Border Protection.
Immigration - which is the process of becoming a US permanent resident and/or citizen - is handled (mostly) by USCIS.
Other visas are handled by the State Department (foreign ministry).
Not an expert, but this is my understanding.
Immigration - which is the process of becoming a US permanent resident and/or citizen - is handled (mostly) by USCIS.
Other visas are handled by the State Department (foreign ministry).
Not an expert, but this is my understanding.
My understanding is that immigration gets you in the country, even as a tourist, and customs gets your stuff in.
That's how other countries normally do things, but America is a little weird.
I was simply trying to explain why the US refers to entry as “customs”.
Customs as it existed a few decades ago barely exists in many/most countries today except pro-forma. You used to routinely get your bag searched. Now, with very few exceptions, you just walk through the green door. Part of it (of course, this may change) is that there used to be a lot of financial incentive to buying items abroad and importing in your luggage.
I have Global Entry but I don't think the US even has a customs form any longer.
I have Global Entry but I don't think the US even has a customs form any longer.
>a lot of financial incentive to buying items abroad and importing in your luggage
>very few exceptions
You've got it backwards. If you're an American you're probably traveling through freeports or low tax regimes like Singapore, UK, etc. and don't realise how regressive most regimes are. In places like Hungary, Angola, SEA -- where tax can be in the range of 30-50% you will be lucky not to be shaken down by a customs agent before leaving the luggage carousel.
>very few exceptions
You've got it backwards. If you're an American you're probably traveling through freeports or low tax regimes like Singapore, UK, etc. and don't realise how regressive most regimes are. In places like Hungary, Angola, SEA -- where tax can be in the range of 30-50% you will be lucky not to be shaken down by a customs agent before leaving the luggage carousel.
As an American, I've traveled through a lot of countries and don't have much experience over the past couple of decades with being shaken down by customs agents. But perhaps if I looked differently and/or had several large pieces of luggage which I don't travel with.
I seriously pisses me off that they make the font so small on the opt-out signage and you get told by a uniform to stare at the camera like you have no choice. Everything you don't fight for ends up getting taken.
I tend to just stop and read the fine print for things that might matter or if I have the time, even if I'm holding up a queue. I've spent several minutes at the entrance gate to a parking building because of the giant poster of T&Cs. I ask librarians to find books for me because the catalogue computer has a multi-screen T&C that I can't be bothered reading. I've turned away a customer from by business because their purchasing conditions included an onerous indemnification clause which they refused to alter. I discovered you don't need ID to travel on local flights because the T&C led me to calling the airline who gave me a password to use instead. I've also found several mistakes in T&Cs that nobody probably notices because nobody reads them.
I just experienced one of these facial scanners in the UK while boarding a plane for the US. The thought had occurred to me that this could become the norm and that there’s nothing one could actually do about it and that we are already living in the dystopian future we feared, where no one can truly ever be anonymous. But I also wondered about various problem scenarios. If the scanner couldn’t match your face, would they deny you entry? If so, what would happen if someone had plastic surgery or some other condition that altered their face? What if this technology becomes so pervasive that your face is scanned everywhere you go? Where does any of this end?
See my comment up top re: plastic surgery that alters your face.
This reminds me of the early days of applying speech recognition. Some use cases were surprisingly good, like non-pretrained company directory name recognition. Shockingly good and it fails soft because there are a small number of possible alternative matches.
Other cases, like games where the user's voice changes due to excitement/stress, were incredibly bad.
Other cases, like games where the user's voice changes due to excitement/stress, were incredibly bad.
What you describe at the end has already happened in China. Municipalities (at least the large ones) routinely have cameras with facial recognition everywhere in public. The police has power to pull up this kind of information without warrants (it's China, so what do warrants even mean).
Start masking up w/a consistent alterface now, because once everyone gets base-lined, then you're going to be stopped because you don't look like you.
And the biggest problem is that all this surveillance is one-side: "they" can see everything we do but we can't see what they do.
I think the best we can hope for is that government officials are subject to more surveillance than regular people. Everyone is going to have at least some surveillance.
The individual tracking systems were getting secretly installed at a local to me state school about 10 years ago. It's got to be pretty advanced by now.
Don’t assume that this development is inevitable.
Some countries have strong privacy laws, such as Switzerland.
Some countries have strong privacy laws, such as Switzerland.
Trading-off of your biometric data for that convenience
a bit after 911 i figured the airport dystopia would eventually ooze out. after soaking deep within the nextgen.
rub my jeans sailor. no 3d xrays for me.
rub my jeans sailor. no 3d xrays for me.
You have zero expectation of privacy in public
There's a huge difference between the historical intent of that principle and the way that these days everyone in a given space can be exhaustively recorded and tracked 24/7.
For sure, and I think a key change here is asymmetry. Previously in public I'd have a reasonable chance of knowing that somebody was watching or following me. Between cameras, networks, and high-capacity recording, that's all out the window.
I'd feel much better about if we heavily surveilled the use of surveillance. E.g., every access is recorded both in terms of metadata and in terms of generating video of whoever's looking. And if I'm in something they're looking at, I get notified (barring temporary legal exceptions for open investigations and the like).
I'd feel much better about if we heavily surveilled the use of surveillance. E.g., every access is recorded both in terms of metadata and in terms of generating video of whoever's looking. And if I'm in something they're looking at, I get notified (barring temporary legal exceptions for open investigations and the like).
The availability of cheap sick is what makes the lack of privacy naturally different. There was a time where a police department could identify a suspect, talk to a judge, and then had that person followed for a while, dedicating multiple people to the efforts. With enough cameras and disk space, you now identify a person, and they were pre-followed for who knows how long.
Then again, it depends on where you are. One could have thought that finding a specific guy in NYC after you had him on camera at a given time would be easy, but they aren't so easy to locate immediately.
Then again, it depends on where you are. One could have thought that finding a specific guy in NYC after you had him on camera at a given time would be easy, but they aren't so easy to locate immediately.
This saying isn't even true. Many countries have cultural expectations and legal structures providing some level of privacy in public. The very first GDPR fine issued stemmed from a business security camera that needlessly recorded people on the sidewalk.
How can you expect privacy when an unlimited number of cameras could be recording you?
Merely recording is a necessary, but not sufficient condition to invasion of privacy.
You reasonably can't. As a society, we need to choose between individual privacy and the pervasive use of invasive cameras. Regulations can be made to protect one or the other. The US seems to be going one way, the EU another.
How can you regulate the use of cameras in private company buildings or outside? Is it currently illegal for a EU company to have every square foot of a office building covered by 2 cameras and have a sophisticated analytics program that records exactly where every employee is at any time and what they are likely doing?
Pass and enforce regulations? For instance, it's illegal in the US to put a security camera facing directly into your neighbors bedroom. In you office example, I suspect they have at least the same protections we have in the US about recording in bathrooms.
But there is a legitimate public safety argument for some level of surveillance so it is a very tricky balance to get right.
[deleted]
The ease of mass surveillance and analysis/tracking makes it worse. Machine powered automatic analysis and tracking is more than just video recording. I hope that difference is apparent.
I actually have, by law even :)
>why make a fuss about it at the grocery store or on a public sidewalk.
Because my business is my business and nobody else's. Full stop.
Because my business is my business and nobody else's. Full stop.
When you're in public or at a grocery store, it's no longer just your business, though?
That’s the American privacy concept. It’s different in other countries.
No, that's kind of just a fact? When you're in public, you're interacting with others, meaning your actions (or lack thereof) no longer only impacts yourself.
So, it stops being solely your business, and starts to become slightly others', as well.
So, it stops being solely your business, and starts to become slightly others', as well.
You see no difference between
Being seen by others, being recorded incidentally, being recorded constantly, and being recorded and analyzed by machines in real time?
Being seen by others, being recorded incidentally, being recorded constantly, and being recorded and analyzed by machines in real time?
Of course I see a difference among those. Where did I indicate anything to the contrary, or on the topic at all?
How am I supposed to take you privacy advocates seriously when you make such wild logical leaps?
How am I supposed to take you privacy advocates seriously when you make such wild logical leaps?
Because your statement makes no point unless it is a defense of current technology.
Most people don't expect others to look away while you pick your nose at the grocery store. The statement about defending privacy in public is almost always about tracking and the ease of it.
Most people don't expect others to look away while you pick your nose at the grocery store. The statement about defending privacy in public is almost always about tracking and the ease of it.
That wasn't the statement I was replying to, though?
Please re-read the thread, without injecting your own pre-conceived notions into it? The statement was simply this:
"Because my business is my business and nobody else's. Full stop."
When it comes to being in public or at a grocery store, this is simply untrue. Being in public involves interacting with other people, at which point it inherently ceases to be just your business, and starts to be others', too.
That entitles them to some amount of say in it, however small it might be, depending on the context.
No where did I say anything about the degree of surveillance?
Please re-read the thread, without injecting your own pre-conceived notions into it? The statement was simply this:
"Because my business is my business and nobody else's. Full stop."
When it comes to being in public or at a grocery store, this is simply untrue. Being in public involves interacting with other people, at which point it inherently ceases to be just your business, and starts to be others', too.
That entitles them to some amount of say in it, however small it might be, depending on the context.
No where did I say anything about the degree of surveillance?
I did inject my preconceived notion into it. You are correct.
Because usually, when someone says "my business is my business", they don't mean "no one has the right to look at me when I'm out in public". That kind of statement about my business being mine in public, is usually tied to tracking and/or persistent, shareable surveillance video.
Because usually, when someone says "my business is my business", they don't mean "no one has the right to look at me when I'm out in public". That kind of statement about my business being mine in public, is usually tied to tracking and/or persistent, shareable surveillance video.
>That kind of statement about my business being mine in public, is usually tied to tracking and/or persistent, shareable surveillance video.
Sorry for the late reply.
Exactly.
From a fairly broad perspective, I do mean "my business is my business," but as another commenter noted, it's not only my business. And I agree. It's also the concern of those with whom I interact, both directly (e.g., talking to a cashier as I make a purchase at a grocery store) or indirectly (e.g., whether or not I litter).
In those cases, it's also the cashier and whoever maintains the street's business as well. Which is so blindingly obvious I didn't think it needed explication. My apologies for any confusion.
In any case, I find the idea that I, Nobody9999, should be tracked, surveilled and/or otherwise profiled, in the course of my everyday activities to be quite offensive.
Unfortunately, unless I want to live "off the grid" (i.e., cower in a leanto out in the woods somewhere), I have to submit to some of that. And more's the pity.
But that doesn't mean I have to like it. Nor does it mean I have to pretend it's not a direct affront to my (and everyone else's) privacy.
Sorry for the late reply.
Exactly.
From a fairly broad perspective, I do mean "my business is my business," but as another commenter noted, it's not only my business. And I agree. It's also the concern of those with whom I interact, both directly (e.g., talking to a cashier as I make a purchase at a grocery store) or indirectly (e.g., whether or not I litter).
In those cases, it's also the cashier and whoever maintains the street's business as well. Which is so blindingly obvious I didn't think it needed explication. My apologies for any confusion.
In any case, I find the idea that I, Nobody9999, should be tracked, surveilled and/or otherwise profiled, in the course of my everyday activities to be quite offensive.
Unfortunately, unless I want to live "off the grid" (i.e., cower in a leanto out in the woods somewhere), I have to submit to some of that. And more's the pity.
But that doesn't mean I have to like it. Nor does it mean I have to pretend it's not a direct affront to my (and everyone else's) privacy.
I was that other commenter, and you just disagreed with me (again!) in my sibling reply.
I'm really confused, and you're not making any sense.
I'm really confused, and you're not making any sense.
But the original statement is still a false statement, is it not?
If others are free to observe you while you are in public with them, are they not also free to do whatever they wish with that information? Same as you are free to attempt to share as little as possible with them. Public spaces are commons, and private spaces are subject to the rules of their owners, as you are also bound by them, in some form.
Once you leave your own property, what you do ceases to be your business alone, and begins to also be someone else's. There are clearly matters of degree, but it's also impossible to be in public without broadcasting copious amounts of personal information. If others in public are equipped to collect that information in whatever form it takes, why is that suddenly wrong?
Disagreeing with that tells me that by saying "my business is only my business, and nobody else's" you really mean "no one has the right to observe me/interact with me in public". Otherwise, you'd have to agree with my earlier statements, right?
If others are free to observe you while you are in public with them, are they not also free to do whatever they wish with that information? Same as you are free to attempt to share as little as possible with them. Public spaces are commons, and private spaces are subject to the rules of their owners, as you are also bound by them, in some form.
Once you leave your own property, what you do ceases to be your business alone, and begins to also be someone else's. There are clearly matters of degree, but it's also impossible to be in public without broadcasting copious amounts of personal information. If others in public are equipped to collect that information in whatever form it takes, why is that suddenly wrong?
Disagreeing with that tells me that by saying "my business is only my business, and nobody else's" you really mean "no one has the right to observe me/interact with me in public". Otherwise, you'd have to agree with my earlier statements, right?
>If others in public are equipped to collect that information in whatever form it takes, why is that suddenly wrong?
Legally, it may not be. But it's creepy and invasive. Doxxing is a net negative to society. And more than individuals catching me in photos or videos incidentally, is the problem of surveillance and tracking, something I have mentioned repeatedly and you have failed to acknowledge. First came CCTV, then comes ubiquitous cheap video storage, now comes AI that can analyze that video in real time for identification and behavioral analysis.
I'll flip your question on its head: why is it the default that people should consent to ubiquitous machine-based activity monitoring by all their peers and their government, just because the technology exists? What's the benefit?
If society has lived without ubiquitous surveillance and automated behavioral analytics and tracking for all history, why is it suddenly right?
Legally, it may not be. But it's creepy and invasive. Doxxing is a net negative to society. And more than individuals catching me in photos or videos incidentally, is the problem of surveillance and tracking, something I have mentioned repeatedly and you have failed to acknowledge. First came CCTV, then comes ubiquitous cheap video storage, now comes AI that can analyze that video in real time for identification and behavioral analysis.
I'll flip your question on its head: why is it the default that people should consent to ubiquitous machine-based activity monitoring by all their peers and their government, just because the technology exists? What's the benefit?
If society has lived without ubiquitous surveillance and automated behavioral analytics and tracking for all history, why is it suddenly right?
>But the original statement is still a false statement, is it not?
It is not. Full stop.
It is not. Full stop.
>So, it stops being solely your business, and starts to become slightly others', as well.
Whose? And under what circumstances? Please be specific and include appropriate legal precedents. Thanks!
Whose? And under what circumstances? Please be specific and include appropriate legal precedents. Thanks!
Depends on the state and city, there's no federal law. Madison Square Garden (notoriously) use facial recognition to ban all lawyers from their venue who work at firms engaged in active litigation against them. This was upheld in May [1][2] since in NYC you can collect biometric data for commercial use without consent as long as it's signposted and you're not selling the data [3].
[1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-yor...
[2] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/madison-square-gard...
[3] https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYC...
[1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/new-yor...
[2] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/madison-square-gard...
[3] https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/newyorkcity/latest/NYC...
Gee, I wonder if some self righteous asshole is "lurking about...week old comments" So they can make themselves feel better by blathering on for no apparent reason.
I guess we'll see, won't we?
I guess we'll see, won't we?
I don't know about case law, but when you walk into a grocery store, it certainly becomes their business!
Where's the case law and precedent that says your business is only your own, even when on a public sidewalk or in a grocery store? If you're going to make such unreasonable demands, can we start with your own claims, since you made them first?
Where's the case law and precedent that says your business is only your own, even when on a public sidewalk or in a grocery store? If you're going to make such unreasonable demands, can we start with your own claims, since you made them first?
If you want to get your mind blown, bring up traffic light cameras in Texas where people use "I have the right to privacy" to literally mean they should be able to run a red light [and potentially T-bone someone].
Public roads should be a clear case where your business is everyone else's business since you're hurtling down the road in an increasingly heavier vehicle, but we're far from being able to acknowledge that.
Public roads should be a clear case where your business is everyone else's business since you're hurtling down the road in an increasingly heavier vehicle, but we're far from being able to acknowledge that.
This only doesn't blow my mind because I've noticed a distinct trend among the most vocal "right to privacy" folks: they want to get away with anti-social behavior.
I'm admittedly biased from spending a few years steeped in the cryptocurrency community, where literally everything has a hidden (or not!) self-serving agenda, however. But even beyond that realm, I see far too many privacy advocates whose examples of "reasons why you should want privacy" end up being examples of hiding bad behavior (infidelity, etc). If you couple this with anti-social people being privacy advocates out of necessity, it ends up reflecting very poorly on the privacy community as a whole.
I'm admittedly biased from spending a few years steeped in the cryptocurrency community, where literally everything has a hidden (or not!) self-serving agenda, however. But even beyond that realm, I see far too many privacy advocates whose examples of "reasons why you should want privacy" end up being examples of hiding bad behavior (infidelity, etc). If you couple this with anti-social people being privacy advocates out of necessity, it ends up reflecting very poorly on the privacy community as a whole.
Thank you for giving us this dystopian future, AI bros
"Hum," a new novel by Helen Phillips, addresses this question precisely.
The premise: A woman who's not well off financially after losing her job signs up for a study in which an advanced robot surgically alters her face ever so minimally so as to use her as a test case for the company's state-of-the-art/bleeding edge (sorry) facial recognition software.
She signed up because having become unemployed with no prospect of future employment, her husband's job as a gig-handyman which is mostly pest control and pays terribly, and two young children, she fears being evicted from their apartment.
The study offers a huge payment in advance, enough for their family to live in comfort for 10 months without any other income source.
One problem soon becomes apparent: in altering her appearance ever so slightly, her family and everyone she knows are taken aback: she look just like she used to, but somehow not quite: the study is intended to see how surveillance video handles faces in the uncanny valley — by creating them.
NO — I have not ruined the book if you're thinking about reading it: my introduction above happens early on, following which the story explodes in unexpected, compelling directions.
This book is beautifully written: it's sci-fi, the sixth book by a highly regarded and awarded novelist.
Read the first 19 pages (of 244) here: https://www.amazon.com/Hum-Novel-Helen-Phillips/dp/166800883...
The premise: A woman who's not well off financially after losing her job signs up for a study in which an advanced robot surgically alters her face ever so minimally so as to use her as a test case for the company's state-of-the-art/bleeding edge (sorry) facial recognition software.
She signed up because having become unemployed with no prospect of future employment, her husband's job as a gig-handyman which is mostly pest control and pays terribly, and two young children, she fears being evicted from their apartment.
The study offers a huge payment in advance, enough for their family to live in comfort for 10 months without any other income source.
One problem soon becomes apparent: in altering her appearance ever so slightly, her family and everyone she knows are taken aback: she look just like she used to, but somehow not quite: the study is intended to see how surveillance video handles faces in the uncanny valley — by creating them.
NO — I have not ruined the book if you're thinking about reading it: my introduction above happens early on, following which the story explodes in unexpected, compelling directions.
This book is beautifully written: it's sci-fi, the sixth book by a highly regarded and awarded novelist.
Read the first 19 pages (of 244) here: https://www.amazon.com/Hum-Novel-Helen-Phillips/dp/166800883...
Their conclusion reminds me of this lady in China, Lao Rongzhi, who was a serial killer along with her lover, Fa Ziying [0]. They both went around the country extorting and killing people, and, while Fa was arrested in 1999 via a police standoff, Lao was on the run for two decades, having had plastic surgery to change her face enough that most humans wouldn't have recognized her.
But in those two decades, the state of facial recognition software had rapidly increased and she was recognized by a camera at a mall and matched to a national database of known criminals. At first police thought it were an error but after taking DNA evidence, it was confirmed to be the same person, and she was summarily executed.
In this day and age, I don't think anyone can truly hide from facial recognition.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7D3mOHsVhg
But in those two decades, the state of facial recognition software had rapidly increased and she was recognized by a camera at a mall and matched to a national database of known criminals. At first police thought it were an error but after taking DNA evidence, it was confirmed to be the same person, and she was summarily executed.
In this day and age, I don't think anyone can truly hide from facial recognition.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7D3mOHsVhg
> and she was summarily executed.
Nitpick: Summary execution means execution without due process. As per Wikipedia there was a quite thorough legal process all the way to the supreme court.
"On September 9, 2021, Lao was sentenced to death by the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court for intentional homicide, kidnapping, and robbery. She was also stripped of her political rights for life and had all of her personal property confiscated. Lao appealed her conviction in court, and the second trial was held on August 18, 2022 at Jiangxi Provincial Higher People's Court. Although Lao admitted to being an accomplice to Fa, she claimed to have only done so in fear of losing her own life, as Fa had physically and sexually abused her throughout their relationship. On November 30 of the same year, the court upheld the death sentence. On December 18, 2023, the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court carried out the execution of Lao Rongzhi, with the approval of the Supreme People's Court."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa_Ziying_and_Lao_Rongzhi
Nitpick: Summary execution means execution without due process. As per Wikipedia there was a quite thorough legal process all the way to the supreme court.
"On September 9, 2021, Lao was sentenced to death by the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court for intentional homicide, kidnapping, and robbery. She was also stripped of her political rights for life and had all of her personal property confiscated. Lao appealed her conviction in court, and the second trial was held on August 18, 2022 at Jiangxi Provincial Higher People's Court. Although Lao admitted to being an accomplice to Fa, she claimed to have only done so in fear of losing her own life, as Fa had physically and sexually abused her throughout their relationship. On November 30 of the same year, the court upheld the death sentence. On December 18, 2023, the Nanchang Intermediate People's Court carried out the execution of Lao Rongzhi, with the approval of the Supreme People's Court."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fa_Ziying_and_Lao_Rongzhi
Your overall point holds that there was China's version of due process and plenty of elapsed time between her capture and subsequent execution. Therefore it was not a summary execution. Nowhere close. Moreover, to call this out is not a nitpick, it's an important factual correction of the OP.
However I would nitpick that while summary executions do include those without due process, the defining characteristic is simply speed. If the execution happened uncharacteristically fast compared to typical executions, even if all due process afford to her was followed, then she was still summarily executed.
However I would nitpick that while summary executions do include those without due process, the defining characteristic is simply speed. If the execution happened uncharacteristically fast compared to typical executions, even if all due process afford to her was followed, then she was still summarily executed.
Nitpicking continued: As per e.g. Wikipedia definition it refers explicitly to the process (and not the speed): "In civil and military jurisprudence, summary execution is the putting to death of a person accused of a crime without the benefit of a free and fair trial. The term results from the legal concept of summary justice to punish a summary offense, as in the case of a drumhead court-martial, but the term usually denotes the summary execution of a sentence of death."
In practice a free and fair trial can't be very fast though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_execution
In practice a free and fair trial can't be very fast though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_execution
Thanks, I used the wrong word, I should have meant that she was executed soon after conviction, which is not usually the case in many other countries.
Hmm, "cameras reported a 97.3% match". I would assume that for a random person, the match level would be random. 1÷(1 −.973) ~ 37. IE, 1 in 37 people would be tagged by the cameras. If you're talk China, that means matching millions of people in millions of malls.
Possibly the actual match level was higher. But still, the way facial recognition seems to work even now is that it provides a consistent "hash value" for a face but with a limited number of digits/information (). This be useful if you know other things about the person (IE, if you know someone is a passenger on plane X, you can very likely guess which one) but still wouldn't scale unless you want a lot of false positives and are after specific people.
Authorities seem to like to say DNA and facial recognition caught people since it implies an omniscience to these authorities (I note above someone throwing out the either wrong or meaningless "97.3% value). Certainly, these technologies do catch people but they still limited and expensive.
Possibly the actual match level was higher. But still, the way facial recognition seems to work even now is that it provides a consistent "hash value" for a face but with a limited number of digits/information (). This be useful if you know other things about the person (IE, if you know someone is a passenger on plane X, you can very likely guess which one) but still wouldn't scale unless you want a lot of false positives and are after specific people.
Authorities seem to like to say DNA and facial recognition caught people since it implies an omniscience to these authorities (I note above someone throwing out the either wrong or meaningless "97.3% value). Certainly, these technologies do catch people but they still limited and expensive.
The "97.3%" match is probably just the confidence value - I don't think a frequentist interpretation makes sense for this. I'm not an expert in face recognition, but these systems are very accurate, typically like >99.5% accuracy with most of the errors coming from recall rather than precision. They're also not _that_ expensive. Real-time detection on embedded devices has been possible for around a decade and costs for high quality detection have come down a lot in recent years.
Still, you're right that at those scales these systems will invariably slip once in a while and it's scary to think that this might enough to be considered a criminal, especially because people often treat these systems as infallible.
Still, you're right that at those scales these systems will invariably slip once in a while and it's scary to think that this might enough to be considered a criminal, especially because people often treat these systems as infallible.
> I would assume that for a random person, the match level would be random. 1÷(1 −.973) ~ 37.
Why would you assume that?
Why would you assume that?
The only way a percentage match means anything here, is that the facial recognition software returns a probability distribution of representing the likelihood that the person identified is each member of the set. I'm sure that 97.3% is actually low for most matches, since she had extensive plastic surgery.
Another related thing to consider, if she had plastic surgery what are the odds that among a billion people there isn’t someone whose face looks more like her original face than her face looks like her original face.
[deleted]
This could help with the discussion: "Human face identification after plastic surgery using SURF, Multi-KNN and BPNN techniques" <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40747-024-01358-7>
How do you know that story is true? Would the police say if they made a mistake? Would anyone be able to find out the truth or accuse them?
The person they executed admitted to being Lao Rongzhi, admitted to participating in the crimes, but claimed she was not responsible because of abuse she suffered at the hands of Fa Ziying. While false and forced confessions are absolutely a thing, hers doesn’t really fit that pattern. She acknowledged being involved, showed remorse for the killings, but distanced herself from them and minimized her involvement in violence, focusing on the robberies. After being presented with DNA evidence, it doesn’t appear that she ever claimed not to be Lao again nor did her defense seem to ever attempt to put that forward, but both of them put forward a rigorous defense to attempt to save her.
Anything is possible, but it seems from her own actions for years up until her execution that it was in fact her and she only denied it to the local police initially, hoping to be let go.
Anything is possible, but it seems from her own actions for years up until her execution that it was in fact her and she only denied it to the local police initially, hoping to be let go.
By that logic, how do you know any crime story from anywhere in the world is true and not just a cover up by cops?
[deleted]
If what you’re trying to do is to publish prepared images of yourself, that won’t be facially recognized as you, then the answer is “not very much at all actually” — see https://sandlab.cs.uchicago.edu/fawkes/. Adversarially prepared images can still look entirely like you, with all the facial-recognition-busting data being encoded at an almost-steganographic level vs our regular human perception.
My understanding is that this (interesting) project has been abandoned, and since then, the face recognition models have been train to defend against it.
Very likely correct in the literal sense (you shouldn’t rely on the published software); but I believe the approach it uses is still relevant / generalizable. I.e. you can take whatever the current state-of-the-art facial recognition model is, and follow the steps in their paper to produce an adversarial image cloaker that will fool that model while being minimally perceptually obvious to a human.
(As the models get better, the produced cloaker retains its ability to fool the model, while the “minimally perceptually obvious to a human” property is what gets sacrificed — even their 2022 version of the software started to do slightly-evident things like visibly increasing the contour of a person’s nose.)
(As the models get better, the produced cloaker retains its ability to fool the model, while the “minimally perceptually obvious to a human” property is what gets sacrificed — even their 2022 version of the software started to do slightly-evident things like visibly increasing the contour of a person’s nose.)
Do you know if this is still being worked on? The last "News" post from the link was 2022. Looks interesting.
“Asking our governments to create laws to protect us is much easier than…”
A bit naive that, it’s too late since data is already mostly available and it just takes a different government to make this protection obsolete.
That’s why we Germans/Europeans have tried to fight data collections and for protections for so long and quite hard (and probably have one of the most sophisticated policies and regulations in place) but over time it just becomes an impossibility to keep data collections as low as possible (first small exceptions for in itself very valid reasons, then more and more participants and normalization until there is no protection left…)
A bit naive that, it’s too late since data is already mostly available and it just takes a different government to make this protection obsolete.
That’s why we Germans/Europeans have tried to fight data collections and for protections for so long and quite hard (and probably have one of the most sophisticated policies and regulations in place) but over time it just becomes an impossibility to keep data collections as low as possible (first small exceptions for in itself very valid reasons, then more and more participants and normalization until there is no protection left…)
It's not too late. Maybe it is for us: but in 100 years, who will really care about a database of uncomfortably-personal details about their dead ancestors? (Sure, DNA will still be an issue, but give that 1000 years and we'll probably have a new MRCA.) If we put a stop to things now (or soon), we can nip this in the bud.
It's probably not too late for us, either. Facial recognition by skull shape is still a concern, but only if the bad guys get up-to-date video of us. Otherwise, all they can do is investigate our historical activity. Other types of data have greater caveats preventing them from being useful long-term, provided we not participate in the illusion that it's "impossible to put the genie back in the bottle".
It's probably not too late for us, either. Facial recognition by skull shape is still a concern, but only if the bad guys get up-to-date video of us. Otherwise, all they can do is investigate our historical activity. Other types of data have greater caveats preventing them from being useful long-term, provided we not participate in the illusion that it's "impossible to put the genie back in the bottle".
So what you're suggesting is we do whatever we can to avoid hitting 2 degrees of universal facial recognition precision? Given that the 1.5 degree target is now inevitably impossible.
Mass surveillance takes active maintenance, and most of its direct consequences cannot outlive the last of those subject to it. Alteration of the chemical composition of the atmosphere is expected to persist for millennia, with consequences that won't be felt for centuries. They're analogous only in that the same societal forces drive both: but trying to tackle those forces head-on is operating on such a high level of abstraction that you'd be wasting your time.
Start small. Get your kid's school to take the CCTV out of the toilet rooms. There's no such problem as "facial recognition" or "mass surveillance": there are many specific instances of it. Fight those.
Start small. Get your kid's school to take the CCTV out of the toilet rooms. There's no such problem as "facial recognition" or "mass surveillance": there are many specific instances of it. Fight those.
But the Germans still ask people to register their religion, ostensibly so the government can give tax money to the relevant religion. Sorry, but the German government asking people to provide their religion to the government just reminds me of something unpleasant.
If that's your only nitpick then just look at France that has similar privacy protections, and doesn't collect religious data.
I've often wondered what would happen if I wandered around with a bright IR led flashing on my lapel at about 30 or 60 Hz and sufficiently invisible to human eyes yet low wavelength enough to get into most CMOS chips and dazzle the camera.
I think this on shopping trips routinely. I don't like being surveiled and even though I have nothing to hide (I've never shoplifted in my life!) I hate the persuasive nature of it all. I don't even mind being followed by a human that much, but I do mind algorithmic analysis that is far more effective, scary, and invasive. Sadly I think the answer to this experiment would be being asked to leave or an uncomfortable chat with a policeman. Nevertheless I silently would like someone braver than me to try it. You're allowed to wear a light on your clothes -- why not make it an IR one?
I think this on shopping trips routinely. I don't like being surveiled and even though I have nothing to hide (I've never shoplifted in my life!) I hate the persuasive nature of it all. I don't even mind being followed by a human that much, but I do mind algorithmic analysis that is far more effective, scary, and invasive. Sadly I think the answer to this experiment would be being asked to leave or an uncomfortable chat with a policeman. Nevertheless I silently would like someone braver than me to try it. You're allowed to wear a light on your clothes -- why not make it an IR one?
I guarantee that it’ll trigger an alarm to the shop security and there’ll be officer to see you immediately.
You "guarantee" that? I think it's a possibility, but very far from universal.
Maybe not "every shop," but ones with a security guard monitoring the video who's actually doing his job, trying to "dazzle the camera" would definitely draw extra attention to you, which is probably not what you want.
"Dazzle the camera" is an idea that sounds good when you fail to think about the whole system, and instead hyperfocus on one component.
"Dazzle the camera" is an idea that sounds good when you fail to think about the whole system, and instead hyperfocus on one component.
Bear in mind that lots of large, sophisticated shops have policies of not intervening when someone is blatantly shoplifting.
I think you're overestimating the appetite for confrontation that many shops have.
Not, again, that confrontation is impossible, just that it's not guaranteed.
I think you're overestimating the appetite for confrontation that many shops have.
Not, again, that confrontation is impossible, just that it's not guaranteed.
How much do I need to change my face to avoid facial recognition?
Taboo opinions inspired by W.O.P.R. Avoid playing the game:
- Stay clear of areas with cameras when possible. Revenue impacting.
- Do Zoom or Jitsi calls with businesses and associates when you can.
- Become self sufficient. Stop spending money when it is not required and have healthy groceries delivered to you. Reduce tax revenue.
- Work from home if your company permits it. Go mostly off grid.
- Hire someone to run errands for you when they can not be avoided. Pay cash to a neighbors kid to run into town.
I know none of this will be popular with anyone but I am that guy.
Taboo opinions inspired by W.O.P.R. Avoid playing the game:
- Stay clear of areas with cameras when possible. Revenue impacting.
- Do Zoom or Jitsi calls with businesses and associates when you can.
- Become self sufficient. Stop spending money when it is not required and have healthy groceries delivered to you. Reduce tax revenue.
- Work from home if your company permits it. Go mostly off grid.
- Hire someone to run errands for you when they can not be avoided. Pay cash to a neighbors kid to run into town.
I know none of this will be popular with anyone but I am that guy.
Not a bad piece, all told, though the general practical advice hasn't really changed in the decade-plus since I last touched the stuff: stop looking up (in general), keep as much of your face obscured as practical, try mixing up patterns to make it difficult for algorithms to match you over time, know where cameras are and how to avoid them, and if you do have to enter a known surveillance area, exit it as quickly and discreetly as possible - and adjust outfits between surveillance areas if you're particularly paranoid.
That said, let me just help dash any hopes of fooling government surveillance right now. Any competent Nation State that has an axe to grind with you specifically, already has you in their dragnet. They already have enough information to match your face in grainy analog B&W surveillance footage from an ancient grocery store camera. You're not beating those short of significant cosmetic surgery or prosthetics of some sort, and even then, if they want you badly enough then they'll just pull partial prints off something you touched and validate that way.
Always remember the first rule of security: if someone really wants something you have badly enough, there's nothing you can do to stop them. With that in mind, plan accordingly. It's why I don't go to protests myself, or otherwise engage with events where I know facial recognition tech is deployed: I'm in that data set, multiple times, with pristine reference materials, simply by virtue of past work (not including the updates via passport photos or Global Entry access). My safest bet is simply not to put myself in that position in the first place, and that's likely yours as well.
That said, let me just help dash any hopes of fooling government surveillance right now. Any competent Nation State that has an axe to grind with you specifically, already has you in their dragnet. They already have enough information to match your face in grainy analog B&W surveillance footage from an ancient grocery store camera. You're not beating those short of significant cosmetic surgery or prosthetics of some sort, and even then, if they want you badly enough then they'll just pull partial prints off something you touched and validate that way.
Always remember the first rule of security: if someone really wants something you have badly enough, there's nothing you can do to stop them. With that in mind, plan accordingly. It's why I don't go to protests myself, or otherwise engage with events where I know facial recognition tech is deployed: I'm in that data set, multiple times, with pristine reference materials, simply by virtue of past work (not including the updates via passport photos or Global Entry access). My safest bet is simply not to put myself in that position in the first place, and that's likely yours as well.
The thing about biometrics as discussed in more intelligent circles,
is "compromised once compromised for all time". It's a public key or
username not a password.
Fortunately that's not true of governments. Although your government may be presently compromised it is possible, via democratic processes, to get it changed back to uncompromised.
Therefore we might say, it's easier to change your government than it is to change your face. That's where you should do the work.
Fortunately that's not true of governments. Although your government may be presently compromised it is possible, via democratic processes, to get it changed back to uncompromised.
Therefore we might say, it's easier to change your government than it is to change your face. That's where you should do the work.
biometrics are also way less unique then people think
basically the moment you apply them to a huge population (e.g. all of US) and ignore temporal and/or local context you will find collisions
especially when you consider partial samples weather that is due to errors of the sensors used or other reasons
Innocent people have gone to prison because of courts ignoring reality (of biometric matches always just being a likelyhood of matching not ever a guarantee match).
basically the moment you apply them to a huge population (e.g. all of US) and ignore temporal and/or local context you will find collisions
especially when you consider partial samples weather that is due to errors of the sensors used or other reasons
Innocent people have gone to prison because of courts ignoring reality (of biometric matches always just being a likelyhood of matching not ever a guarantee match).
[deleted]
> If you wore sunglasses and then did something to your face (maybe wear a mask or crazy dramatic makeup) then it would be harder to detect your face, but that’s cheating on the question—that’s not changing your face, that’s just hiding it!
So sunglasses and a mask then. Who cares if it’s ‘cheating’.
So sunglasses and a mask then. Who cares if it’s ‘cheating’.
You need to:
1. move the distance between your eyes from the center of your face a random amount
2. move both eyeballs up or down a random amount
This will defeat a vast majority of simple systems. However there are far more sophisticated ones that are slower and require more resolution:
1. mess your jaw line, cheek bones, nose bones, and depth your eyes sit inside your head
Finally the creme de le creme which even identical twins are as different as dogs and cats:
1. get the white of your eyes tatoo'd with new vasculature.
1. move the distance between your eyes from the center of your face a random amount
2. move both eyeballs up or down a random amount
This will defeat a vast majority of simple systems. However there are far more sophisticated ones that are slower and require more resolution:
1. mess your jaw line, cheek bones, nose bones, and depth your eyes sit inside your head
Finally the creme de le creme which even identical twins are as different as dogs and cats:
1. get the white of your eyes tatoo'd with new vasculature.
Sunglasses are a simpler way to obfuscate your eyeball metrics.
Shouldn't gait play a role in identifying people in addition to facial recognition? Someone was suggesting dropping a small pebble in one of the shoes (or both) to change the walk natural pattern.
It could but I don't think it does. Has anyone built a gait recognition system? It would be tricky because it also varies simply depending on your shoes, if you're wearing a heavy backpack, if you're rolling a suitcase, etc.
It's also actually really easy to change your gait if you want. Just watch someone, and then copy how they walk. Start by paying attention to whether the hold their more fixed "center" of movement in their chest, abdomen, or waist (or where in between), then match their degree of stiffness or sway, and you're most of the way there. It's a pretty common acting exercise.
It's also actually really easy to change your gait if you want. Just watch someone, and then copy how they walk. Start by paying attention to whether the hold their more fixed "center" of movement in their chest, abdomen, or waist (or where in between), then match their degree of stiffness or sway, and you're most of the way there. It's a pretty common acting exercise.
I searched google scholar for "gait surveillance" articles since 2023 and got 12,000 results. I'd be willing to bet some of them are in operation at this point.
Must be orders of magnitude harder, since it needs video instead of just one photo.
That said, I'm sure it exists.
That said, I'm sure it exists.
> Has anyone built a gait recognition system?
Years ago it was announced that some Chinese cities would use gait recognition for surveillance, but I don't know if the deployment stuck. I remember a video showing off the tech, although I can't look for it right now.
Years ago it was announced that some Chinese cities would use gait recognition for surveillance, but I don't know if the deployment stuck. I remember a video showing off the tech, although I can't look for it right now.
What about just a prosthetic nose that it's a bit wider and longer? Blending it in with makeup. I always assumed that's the easiest thing to change that would definitively mess with the metrics.
Remember when technology was going to liberate the common man? It turns out the tyrants are almost always in a better position to use it for tyranny.
Eh, they cant control messages as well. Communication worldwide is easier than ever.
But yes, weapons are stronger too.
Things aren't black and white.
But yes, weapons are stronger too.
Things aren't black and white.
> Eh, they cant control messages as well. Communication worldwide is easier than ever.
They totally can (see China, People's Republic Of), it's just in many places the authorities have not yet chosen to.
It's pure fantasy to think you'll be able to run around an resist (or even just ignore) Big Brother with a cell phone running Signal.
Computer technology has an asymmetry that, despite 90s-era propaganda, actually favors the tyrants. It's time we acknowledge that.
> But yes, weapons are stronger too.
Not in any way that's meaningful when discussing tyranny.
They totally can (see China, People's Republic Of), it's just in many places the authorities have not yet chosen to.
It's pure fantasy to think you'll be able to run around an resist (or even just ignore) Big Brother with a cell phone running Signal.
Computer technology has an asymmetry that, despite 90s-era propaganda, actually favors the tyrants. It's time we acknowledge that.
> But yes, weapons are stronger too.
Not in any way that's meaningful when discussing tyranny.
Basically, the trend is you have human rights.
But moving anywhere at all by any means at all is a privilege. Driving is a privilege, walking is a privilege, flying is a privilege, biking is a privilege.
Of course electronic payment systems are a privilege, health care is a privilege, internet is a privilege, school is a privilege, jobs are a privilege.
But moving anywhere at all by any means at all is a privilege. Driving is a privilege, walking is a privilege, flying is a privilege, biking is a privilege.
Of course electronic payment systems are a privilege, health care is a privilege, internet is a privilege, school is a privilege, jobs are a privilege.
CV Dazzle (2010) attempted this to counter the facial recognition methods in use at that time.
https://adam.harvey.studio/cvdazzle
https://adam.harvey.studio/cvdazzle
D-ID (YC S17, [1]) promised that they would do the same. They have been quite silent on whether they ever achieved their target and nowadays they've pivoted to AI so no idea whether they ever actually succeeded.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14849555
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14849555
It looks like that makeup style might not work so well anymore, at least according to this tweet I found:
https://x.com/tahkion/status/1013568373622362113
It seems like the woman in the example is using a CV Dazzle makeup style and it doesn't fool the algorithm.
Other makeup styles work better, although I think that's probably just a short term solution (tweet is from 2018) before any new trendy makeup style is added to the training dataset.
It seems like the woman in the example is using a CV Dazzle makeup style and it doesn't fool the algorithm.
Other makeup styles work better, although I think that's probably just a short term solution (tweet is from 2018) before any new trendy makeup style is added to the training dataset.
[deleted]
It’s trivial to also implement gait analysis to help visually identify someone if a face isn’t available. Then when you do get a glimpse of the face you can link the gait and the face identity.
At Tianfu Airport in Chengdu, there are large screens with cameras attached that recognize your face and tell you which gate to go to. Convenient but scary, like many things in China.
> I think you could not realistically change your face to fool state-of-the-art facial recognition. I think during the pandemic they changed the systems to rely heavily on the shape of people’s eyes, because so many people were wearing masks over their noses and mouths. I don’t honestly know how people could realistically change the shape of their eyes to fool these systems.
There are multiple common cosmetic surgeries that involve eye shape.
> And now your face won’t match your driver’s license or passport, so traveling will be really difficult for you. So, honestly, why bother?
My drivers license photo went un-updated for over a decade. I didn't look remotely similar to my teenage self, and not a single person cared. Excepting one airport security person who commented on how old the photo was.
There are multiple common cosmetic surgeries that involve eye shape.
> And now your face won’t match your driver’s license or passport, so traveling will be really difficult for you. So, honestly, why bother?
My drivers license photo went un-updated for over a decade. I didn't look remotely similar to my teenage self, and not a single person cared. Excepting one airport security person who commented on how old the photo was.
Need emp charges like in metal gear. A bunch of metallic confetti fills the air while you dash past the security cameras big and small
What's funny is the metallic confetti would inevitably have a serial number on it that they could trace to who bought it. Taser rounds already have this built in.
The timing of this with respect to AI/FR being a hotly reported technology used in the search of the UnitedHealthcare Insurance CEO is kinda gross.
But such are the times.
But such are the times.
Don't know about the gross part (seems relevant, exactly how they pursued the suspect). However, kind of amazed you're the only reference on here.
The part of the UnitedHealthCare situation that seemed kind of amazing from a personal perspective was how little the suspect actually seemed to look like the public photos released.
If I were calculating "confidence", that would have been relatively far down in the percentages. Vaguely similar to a lot of euro-background ethnicity faces. Maybe there were other photos the police had and didn't release. However, from what was available, with two photos showing the mask removed and one with somebody smiling, not a great match.
Tried four reverse images searches online. Started with 1920x1280 release (blurry), and got down to two (2) ~550x550 images of the cropped face. Results from four attempts were:
The part of the UnitedHealthCare situation that seemed kind of amazing from a personal perspective was how little the suspect actually seemed to look like the public photos released.
If I were calculating "confidence", that would have been relatively far down in the percentages. Vaguely similar to a lot of euro-background ethnicity faces. Maybe there were other photos the police had and didn't release. However, from what was available, with two photos showing the mask removed and one with somebody smiling, not a great match.
Tried four reverse images searches online. Started with 1920x1280 release (blurry), and got down to two (2) ~550x550 images of the cropped face. Results from four attempts were:
1) Complained about quality, gave back electro-music looking guy in rainjacket
2) Not a valid face on both photos
3) Gave back police publicity photos as only results
4) Not a valid face on both photos
Between not wanting to be seen and sun protection, I'm tempted to go full Burka (even though I'm not religious).
What often is fully ignored in such articles is the false positive rate.
Like e.g. where I live they tested some state of the art facial recognition system on a widely used train station and applauded themself how grate it was given that the test targets where even recognized when they wore masks and capes, hats etc.
But what was not told was that the false positive rate while percentage wise small (I think <1%) with the amount of expected non-match samples was still making it hardly usable.
E.g. one of the train stations where I live has ~250.000 people passing through it every day, even just a false positive rate of 0.1% would be 250 wrong alarms, for one train station every single day. This is for a single train station. If you scale your search to more wider area you now have way higher numbers (and lets not just look at population size but also that many people might be falsely recognized many times during a single travel).
AFIK the claimed false positive rate is often in the range of 0.01%-0.1% BUT when this system are independently tested in real world context the found false positive rate is often more like 1%-10%.
So what does that mean?
It means that if you have a fixed set of video to check (e.g. close to where a accident happened around +- idk. 2h of a incident) you can use such systems to pre-filter video and then post process the results over a duration of many hours.
But if you try find a person in a nation of >300 Million who doesn't want to be found and missed the initial time frame where you can rely on them to be close by the a known location then you will be flooded by such a amount of false positives that it becomes practically not very useful.
I mean you still can have a lucky hit.
Like e.g. where I live they tested some state of the art facial recognition system on a widely used train station and applauded themself how grate it was given that the test targets where even recognized when they wore masks and capes, hats etc.
But what was not told was that the false positive rate while percentage wise small (I think <1%) with the amount of expected non-match samples was still making it hardly usable.
E.g. one of the train stations where I live has ~250.000 people passing through it every day, even just a false positive rate of 0.1% would be 250 wrong alarms, for one train station every single day. This is for a single train station. If you scale your search to more wider area you now have way higher numbers (and lets not just look at population size but also that many people might be falsely recognized many times during a single travel).
AFIK the claimed false positive rate is often in the range of 0.01%-0.1% BUT when this system are independently tested in real world context the found false positive rate is often more like 1%-10%.
So what does that mean?
It means that if you have a fixed set of video to check (e.g. close to where a accident happened around +- idk. 2h of a incident) you can use such systems to pre-filter video and then post process the results over a duration of many hours.
But if you try find a person in a nation of >300 Million who doesn't want to be found and missed the initial time frame where you can rely on them to be close by the a known location then you will be flooded by such a amount of false positives that it becomes practically not very useful.
I mean you still can have a lucky hit.
What does 'false positive' mean? That it thinks it is someone else, or that it thinks it is a target of an investigation?
When the actual is negative but the inference is positive, rate of that.
This is a very handy guide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusion_matrix
This is a very handy guide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusion_matrix
That wasn't what I was asking. I was asking what the failure mode was.
False positive would, in this case, mean wrongly identifying an unrelated person a the search target.
I'm of two minds when it comes to surveillance. I don't like that businesses, airports, etc do it but it is their property. I don't like that they can run video feeds through software, either in real time or after the fact, to so easily find and track my every move. But again, its their property.
Where the line is always drawn for me, at a minimum, is what they do with the video and who has access to it.
Video should always be deleted when it is no longer reasonably needed. That timeline would be different for airports vs convenience stores, but I'd always expect the scale of days or weeks rather than months or years (or indefinitely).
Maybe more importantly, surveillance video should never be shared without a lawful warrant, including clear descriptions of the limits to what is needed and why it is requested.
Where the line is always drawn for me, at a minimum, is what they do with the video and who has access to it.
Video should always be deleted when it is no longer reasonably needed. That timeline would be different for airports vs convenience stores, but I'd always expect the scale of days or weeks rather than months or years (or indefinitely).
Maybe more importantly, surveillance video should never be shared without a lawful warrant, including clear descriptions of the limits to what is needed and why it is requested.
The complicating factor is that it isn't just "their property", it's an essential destination of many people's ability to function in society, which makes them adjacent to public utilities. If the water retailer which services your home started adding substances which could be used to track and identify their customers, you'd be pretty unhappy. Private ownership doesn't absolve an entity from public accountability, especially when there is extremely little option to not engage them.
> The complicating factor is that it isn't just "their property", it's an essential destination of many people's ability to function in society
That's a much bigger can of worms, one that reaches well beyond just airports. Many modern societies are extremely complex and assume individual access to a long list of resources and services.
Its a pretty slippery slope though. People can absolutely choose not to fly, it isn't a basic requirement for life. The slippery slope leads to larger and larger government - as long as society continues to create implied requirements on the individual it seems reasonable to give more and more power to a central authority to ensure everyone can have that access.
It sounds reasonable enough, though there isn't a good guardrail built in to avoid eventually building a totalitarian or communist state as so many things are now " basic necessities."
That's a much bigger can of worms, one that reaches well beyond just airports. Many modern societies are extremely complex and assume individual access to a long list of resources and services.
Its a pretty slippery slope though. People can absolutely choose not to fly, it isn't a basic requirement for life. The slippery slope leads to larger and larger government - as long as society continues to create implied requirements on the individual it seems reasonable to give more and more power to a central authority to ensure everyone can have that access.
It sounds reasonable enough, though there isn't a good guardrail built in to avoid eventually building a totalitarian or communist state as so many things are now " basic necessities."
I don't suppose anyone here knows the answer, but claims of matching accuracy like this make me wonder why basic touch ID so often fails and I need to delete my fingerprints and re-enroll. I always figured it was because of rock climbing tearing up my fingers and making the prints gradually different enough that they no longer match. Is it really easier to fool a fingerprint match than a face match? Or was I just wrong all along and the sensors suck? But if the sensors suck, why does deleting and re-enrolling work?
Kidding. (But maybe not?…)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groucho_glasses
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groucho_glasses
It feels increasingly like the only way to avoid such facial recognition is to suddenly grow a religious conviction that your face should not be seen by strangers
Religious laws and convictions have been born from similar situations.
Like a burka?
There are numerous religions and cultures which practice some level of covering of the face or head. Burkas are only one example.
Not a great reference, but:
"Religious Head Coverings: A Comprehensive Guide"
<https://headcoverings-by-devorah.com/religious-head-covering...>
Wikipedia has a listing as a section of this article:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_headgear#Religious>
(Many of these cover only the top of the head or a part of the head, e.g., yarmulke, fez, kofia. Others are more comprehensive.)
The non-religious and/or cultural coverings might also be of interest.
Not a great reference, but:
"Religious Head Coverings: A Comprehensive Guide"
<https://headcoverings-by-devorah.com/religious-head-covering...>
Wikipedia has a listing as a section of this article:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_headgear#Religious>
(Many of these cover only the top of the head or a part of the head, e.g., yarmulke, fez, kofia. Others are more comprehensive.)
The non-religious and/or cultural coverings might also be of interest.
This has been answered since the 80s. This much:
https://i.imgur.com/7cuDqPI.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/7cuDqPI.jpg
Can wearing realistic face masks and contact lens that changes iris color possibly fool modern face recognition software?
Maybe just wear a burka?
The face ID feature on Bryan Johnson's phone no longer recognized him after many months of his intense health regimen: https://twitter.com/bryan_johnson/status/1777789375193231778
Looks like he hangs out with RFK on his Twitter. Boo
Is the tech to do facial recognition at this accuracy available to public ?
Last time I checked there was deepface https://github.com/serengil/deepface/tree/master but it was far to work as well as that
Last time I checked there was deepface https://github.com/serengil/deepface/tree/master but it was far to work as well as that
First order approximation is 10 years’ worth of aging, or 5 years’ worth for a child under 16. These are the timelines in which you must renew your American passport photo.
Apple Face ID is always learning as well. If your brother opens your phone enough times with your passcode, it will eventually merge the two faces it recognizes
Apple Face ID is always learning as well. If your brother opens your phone enough times with your passcode, it will eventually merge the two faces it recognizes
[deleted]
citation?
First hand experience. Try it yourself?
Google photos only has pictures of my mom from her 60s onwards, but when I put a sepia toned scan of my mom as a 9 year old, google photos asked me "is this [your mom]?"
To circumvent facial recognition, wear a mask. Nearly all of the BLM rioters wore masks and very few (if any) were caught. Most of the J6 people didn't wear a mask and almost all of them were caught. Wear a simple surgical mask like was common during covid.
Whether we ultimately outlaw facial recognition or not is unimportant. Cameras and data are now so cheap that soon we will be able to track every public movement of every person in the country, making crime impossible. Once you leave your house, a street camera will see, and trace the movements of you or your car into the city and as you go about your business, with or without your face. It will follow you until you return home or check into a hotel or fall asleep in your car. Your address is public information so this isn’t a privacy violation. The current cost of storing 24 hour footage of the entire urban street area of the USA is just $100 billion annually, far less than the current total of $300 billion spent on criminal justice.
This will bring an end to crime and herald a massive revival of public trust and socialization.
This will bring an end to crime and herald a massive revival of public trust and socialization.
I get your point but the literature on this I’ve read leans towards:
- ubiquitous surveillance is here (your point broadly)
- the data engineering to work the data isn’t quite there, or isn’t full spectrum in the manner you argue (what prevents your theory as of now)
However, what is clunky tech today can be scaled and effective tech tomorrow, so maybe your argued future is possible, if not likely.
https://www.mitre[.]org/news-insights/publication/decipherin...
- ubiquitous surveillance is here (your point broadly)
- the data engineering to work the data isn’t quite there, or isn’t full spectrum in the manner you argue (what prevents your theory as of now)
However, what is clunky tech today can be scaled and effective tech tomorrow, so maybe your argued future is possible, if not likely.
https://www.mitre[.]org/news-insights/publication/decipherin...
Kudos for offering an alternative view exploring the potential upsides, but I'd take issue with "Whether we ultimately outlaw facial recognition or not is unimportant.". Making use of all that data to fight crime would absolutely require it to be legal to capture. Edit: sorry - just realised what you mean. The footage is legal to capture and use in criminal investigations, but not using face recognition.
I imagine somehow billionaires will be able to hide their money in stateless accounts and healthcare CEOs will still be able to murder people by the thousands and monopolistic web stores will be able to condemn their workers to death by locking them in their warehouses during tornados. Funny how that works.
It will bring an end to poor people crime. Rich people crime will become uncontestable. Welcome to the new feudalism, same as the old.
It will bring an end to poor people crime. Rich people crime will become uncontestable. Welcome to the new feudalism, same as the old.
The article correctly points out that the amount of information available in a controlled environment. makes it not even that same problem. If I have data on your irises and blood vessels and cranium shape, good luck evading a match if I get you where I can get the same measurements. On the street there are some hacks, like measuring gait, that can compensate for less face data, but evading a useful match that's not one of a zillion false positives is much easier.
I was traveling internationally earlier this year and I have grown a heavy beard since my passport photo was taken. None of the automated immigration checkpoints had any trouble identifying me.
Believe they focus on the eyes/nose shape and spacing.
Which makes me wonder: what about contact lenses that can mess up with the measurement of the eyes distance, like for example having a drawing of the iris (surrounded by a portion of white sclera) that is slightly offset from the real one?
yes, they mainly focus on bone structure especially around eye nose area
beards are to easy to change, and masks had been very common for some time and cover more then beards
beards are to easy to change, and masks had been very common for some time and cover more then beards
I would be very surprised if every large grocery store isn't already trackin every customers movement. It would be relatively cheap to implement.
Ready for the cocktail:
>You walk in the store and are ID'd on camera
>You buy everything and use your credit card, which is linked to your ID, since the checkout has a camera too.
>You use your email once, or your address once, with that same credit card, all connected... now they have your email and home address. You significant other has the same address? Everything is linked.
If you really want to get crazy, you can combine voting records too. Based on primary ballot numbers, you can figure out if someone voted D or R in the primary with an address.
Imagine all the stuff you can get from an email address too..
>You walk in the store and are ID'd on camera
>You buy everything and use your credit card, which is linked to your ID, since the checkout has a camera too.
>You use your email once, or your address once, with that same credit card, all connected... now they have your email and home address. You significant other has the same address? Everything is linked.
If you really want to get crazy, you can combine voting records too. Based on primary ballot numbers, you can figure out if someone voted D or R in the primary with an address.
Imagine all the stuff you can get from an email address too..
More so than the face, gait recognition is even more hard to fool. A person’s gait is as unique as a fingerprint.
Changing face doesn't matter. You will simply not be allowed to enter some area without a successful scan.
I wonder if adding stickers, tattoos, or makeup that look like eyes above or below your real eyes would do it.
That is, for now, 100% effective. I'm a former lead software scientist for one of the leading FR companies in the world. Pretty much all FR systems trying to operate at real time use a tiered approach to facial recognition. First detect for generic faces in an image, which collects various things that are not human faces but do collect every human face in an image. That's tier 1 image / video frame analysis, and the list of potential faces is passed on for further processing. This tier 1 analysis is the weakest part, if you can make your face fail the generic face test, it is as if you are invisible to the FR system. The easiest way to fail that generic face test is to not show your face, or to show a face that is "not human" such as has too many eyes, two noses, or a mouth above your eyes in place of any eyebrows. Sure, you'll stand out like a freak to other humans, but to the FR system you'll be invisible.
Wrt. cameras with depth sensors like face unlock this isn't supper likely to work.
Wrt. public cameras which don't have such features and are much further away and aren't supper high resolution either it maybe could even somewhat work.
Wrt. public cameras which don't have such features and are much further away and aren't supper high resolution either it maybe could even somewhat work.
There’s even a make-up trend of “enlarging” the eyes by painting the waterline of the lower eyelid white, that could be used as a justification for walking around like this even in a totalitarian police state.
In the current state of policing, this would just be probable cause or fits the description of type of things. Sure, you might not be identifiable by facial rec, but you'd be recognizable by every flatfoot out there, or even the see something say something crowd.
Might as well just wear a face mask and sunglasses. If your FaceID can't recognize you, neither can the other systems.
Might as well just wear a face mask and sunglasses. If your FaceID can't recognize you, neither can the other systems.
> If your FaceID can't recognize you, neither can the other systems.
FaceID can't recognize me if I tilt my head a bit too much to one side.
FaceID can't recognize me if I tilt my head a bit too much to one side.
Juggalo makeup is supposedly extremely effective.
Just make sure you don't how how magnets work for plausible deniability.
Just make sure you don't how how magnets work for plausible deniability.
I don't even have to pretend!
> Juggalo makeup is supposedly extremely effective.
Yeah, it's supposed to be better than black metal makeup and even better than that early-2010's anti-detection makeup:
https://consequence.net/2019/07/juggalo-makeup-facial-recogn...
https://adam.harvey.studio/cvdazzle
Although that was around 2018-2019 so, given how quickly face recognition is evolving, I wonder if juggalo makeup works anymore. Besides, as mentioned by many of the interviewees in OP's article, there's a balance between changing or hiding your facial features and looking "suspicious" or "unnatural" which is of course context dependent. Concerts are safer to "cheat" than airports.
Yeah, it's supposed to be better than black metal makeup and even better than that early-2010's anti-detection makeup:
https://consequence.net/2019/07/juggalo-makeup-facial-recogn...
https://adam.harvey.studio/cvdazzle
Although that was around 2018-2019 so, given how quickly face recognition is evolving, I wonder if juggalo makeup works anymore. Besides, as mentioned by many of the interviewees in OP's article, there's a balance between changing or hiding your facial features and looking "suspicious" or "unnatural" which is of course context dependent. Concerts are safer to "cheat" than airports.
What about you infrared LEDs on my face?
Oh, that guy:
<https://xkcd.com/1105/>
(Different mechanism, similar result.)
<https://xkcd.com/1105/>
(Different mechanism, similar result.)
I think we should push for legal frameworks that govern biometric data collection and usage
The people you may need to protect yourself from, might be the people writing and enforcing the laws. What you need, is a deterrent from people abusing systems.
> Soon, the only real defense may be federal regulation.
That doesn't sound like much of a defense!
That doesn't sound like much of a defense!
according to the DMV and Passport office just having bangs is enough to fool the system
> I think during the pandemic they changed the systems to rely heavily on the shape of people’s eyes, because so many people were wearing masks over their noses and mouths. I don’t honestly know how people could realistically change the shape of their eyes to fool these systems.
Eh party contacts maybe? I use those a lot.
Eh party contacts maybe? I use those a lot.
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I welcome such tracking and surveillance.
It is too easy to get accused of something. And you have no evidence to defend yourself. If you keep video recording of your surroundings forever, you now have evidence. AI will make searching such records practical.
There were all sorts of safe guards to make such recordings unnecessary, such as due process. But those were practically eliminated. And people no longer have basic decency!
It is too easy to get accused of something. And you have no evidence to defend yourself. If you keep video recording of your surroundings forever, you now have evidence. AI will make searching such records practical.
There were all sorts of safe guards to make such recordings unnecessary, such as due process. But those were practically eliminated. And people no longer have basic decency!
> It is too easy to get accused of something. And you have no evidence to defend yourself. If you keep video recording of your surroundings forever, you now have evidence.
This assumes that you have access to those recordings. If you're live-logging your life via something you're wearing all day every day, maybe - but if the government decides to prosecute you for something, what are the odds that you'll be able to pull exonerating evidence out of the very system that's trying to fuck you?
Even if a system doesn't care, it's still a hassle. Case in point: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/michigan-s...
> An African American man who was wrongly convicted of a fatal shooting in Michiganin 2011 is suing a car rental company for taking seven-years to turn over the receipt that proved his innocence, claiming that they treated him like “a poor black guy wasn’t worth their time”.
I found this article while looking for another story that's virtually identical; I believe in that one it was a gas station receipt that was the key in his case, and he ended up spending very minimal time in jail.
How many people are in jail now because they weren't able to pull this data?
This assumes that you have access to those recordings. If you're live-logging your life via something you're wearing all day every day, maybe - but if the government decides to prosecute you for something, what are the odds that you'll be able to pull exonerating evidence out of the very system that's trying to fuck you?
Even if a system doesn't care, it's still a hassle. Case in point: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/michigan-s...
> An African American man who was wrongly convicted of a fatal shooting in Michiganin 2011 is suing a car rental company for taking seven-years to turn over the receipt that proved his innocence, claiming that they treated him like “a poor black guy wasn’t worth their time”.
I found this article while looking for another story that's virtually identical; I believe in that one it was a gas station receipt that was the key in his case, and he ended up spending very minimal time in jail.
How many people are in jail now because they weren't able to pull this data?
If people are sitting in cells for lack of that data, the standard of proof is too low.
i recently tried one of those cashierless amazon stores. it was an odd jolt, this feeling to be trusted, by default. It was vaguely reminiscent off one in my childhood, when, after my parents had sent me on an errand to the local grocer, I'd forgotten the money and the clerk/owner let me just walk out since they knew me. Presumably they and my mom would take care of the balance later.
I live now in a city where small exchanges are based on a default of of mistrust (e.g. locking up the tide-pods behind a glass case - it's not a meme). The only super market near (not even _in_) my food desert started random bag checks.
The modern police state requires surveillance technology, but abusive authority has flourished in any technological environment. the mafia had no problem to terrorize entire neighborhoods into omerta for example, without high technology. i'm sure there's other examples.
i don't know the right answer, but considering the extent to which anti-social and criminal attitudes are seemingly allowed to fester, while everybody else is expected to relinquish their dignity, essentially _anonymize_ themselves, it makes me less and less have a kneejerk response to the expansion of technologically supported individualization.
I live now in a city where small exchanges are based on a default of of mistrust (e.g. locking up the tide-pods behind a glass case - it's not a meme). The only super market near (not even _in_) my food desert started random bag checks.
The modern police state requires surveillance technology, but abusive authority has flourished in any technological environment. the mafia had no problem to terrorize entire neighborhoods into omerta for example, without high technology. i'm sure there's other examples.
i don't know the right answer, but considering the extent to which anti-social and criminal attitudes are seemingly allowed to fester, while everybody else is expected to relinquish their dignity, essentially _anonymize_ themselves, it makes me less and less have a kneejerk response to the expansion of technologically supported individualization.
It'll may help, but the police will realistically not make an effort into proving your innocence. You'll have to dig that evidence up yourself.
Netflix has a documentary, Long Shot, on someone who was proven innocent of a murder as footage of them at a baseball game was found at the time of the murder. They had to get help finding that footage, as the police wouldn't check.
The prosecutors absolutely did not care that video footage, and phone evidence, placed him at another location, and continued to insist on his guilt. The judge eventually dismissed the charges.
Netflix has a documentary, Long Shot, on someone who was proven innocent of a murder as footage of them at a baseball game was found at the time of the murder. They had to get help finding that footage, as the police wouldn't check.
The prosecutors absolutely did not care that video footage, and phone evidence, placed him at another location, and continued to insist on his guilt. The judge eventually dismissed the charges.
Would you be happy for such systems to scale with income and power?
Surely those with larger means have a bigger impact if they're acting nefariously? And it'd be a HUGE issue for society if our rich and powerful were wrongly accused, and couldn't implement their efficiencies and expertise across the market.
Surely those with larger means have a bigger impact if they're acting nefariously? And it'd be a HUGE issue for society if our rich and powerful were wrongly accused, and couldn't implement their efficiencies and expertise across the market.
who cares if you're tracked because you have nothing to hide, right?
now imagine you're the wrong religion after the regime change.
"I have nothing to hide" is a stupid argument that leads to concentration camps
now imagine you're the wrong religion after the regime change.
"I have nothing to hide" is a stupid argument that leads to concentration camps
Seems like the Nazis managed to do the Concentration Camps thing without facial recognition software.
But they did have tremendous data processing abilities for their time!
I don't think keeping the data processing abilities of modern gov'ts below that of 1930's Germany is really a plausible plan for avoiding concentration camps.
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America and Canada used facial recognition for their ww2 concentration camps.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Canad...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Canad...
The Nazis utilised the best information-management tools of the time, including IBM computers (fully supported by IBM throughout the war) and punch cards (as another commenter notes: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42359352>). Those tattoos worn by concentration camp survivors were IBM-assigned identifiers.
Nazis also used census and other civil data sources. Deliberate destruction of such records in the Netherlands is one of the legacies of WWII:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_the_Netherlan...>
This and other legacies of 20th-century genocide are chief reasons why European attitudes toward rampant data collection and exchange are far harsher than in the United States. Though I'd argue still not nearly harsh enough.
Nazis also used census and other civil data sources. Deliberate destruction of such records in the Netherlands is one of the legacies of WWII:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_the_Netherlan...>
This and other legacies of 20th-century genocide are chief reasons why European attitudes toward rampant data collection and exchange are far harsher than in the United States. Though I'd argue still not nearly harsh enough.
pessimizer(1)
Data means power and freedom. With access to data you can defend yourself from legal persecution! In past people were lynched and killed for false accusations! With evidence they would have a chance!
Hostile regime will kill you anyway. But there is a long way there. And "soft hostile" may throw you into prison for 30 years, or take your your house and family. Or will not enforce punishment on crooks. All fully legally in "proper democracy".
And "wrong religion" and "leads to concentration camps" really is a stupid argument, given what is happening last year. People today are just fine with concentration camps and genecide! It is just absurd argument used to defend corrupted status quo!
If you have a "wrong religion" change it! People did that all the time.
Hostile regime will kill you anyway. But there is a long way there. And "soft hostile" may throw you into prison for 30 years, or take your your house and family. Or will not enforce punishment on crooks. All fully legally in "proper democracy".
And "wrong religion" and "leads to concentration camps" really is a stupid argument, given what is happening last year. People today are just fine with concentration camps and genecide! It is just absurd argument used to defend corrupted status quo!
If you have a "wrong religion" change it! People did that all the time.
> With access to data
That's the key problem. Why do you assume you'll have access to this data?
That's the key problem. Why do you assume you'll have access to this data?
When I was in Mexico I filed a report with the airport after an employee selling timeshares was overly aggressive and grabbed my arm and try to block me from leaving. Quickly they showed me a video of my entire time with all my movements at the airport so they could pinpoint the employee.
Like the article says I think it is just a matter of time until such systems are everywhere. We are already getting normalized to it at public transportation hubs with almost 0 objections. Soon most municipalities or even private businesses will implement it and no one will care because it already happens to them at the airport, so why make a fuss about it at the grocery store or on a public sidewalk.