Slashdot Mirror
Nose Scanners — the New Face of Biometrics?
An anonymous reader writes "Forget fingerprints and ID cards, this photo story shows how the latest thing in biometrics is nose scanning! Bath university researchers have claimed that the nose will soon be able to be used as a way of identifying a person. Apparently the 'PhotoFace system captures a 3D image of a person's face by taking several photos lit from different angles to throw shadows on the face and then building a model of facial features. The software determined that there are six main nose shapes: Roman, Greek, Nubian, Hawk, Snub and Turn-up.' Some cool pictures make this worth a click — but what happens if a person breaks their nose?!"
Biometrics are going to use your DNA for verification, which is the only fool-proof system. I mean, come on, how would you fake someone else's DNA? ::cough::GATTACA::cough::
Living With a Nerd
will they scan also the inside of the nose ?!? It would be very awful to analyze...
Seriously. Wow. What a waste of energy and resources. It's called a nose mold, costs like ten cents. Security theater at it's finest.
This is really a bad idea. The nose is actually one of the few parts of the body that grows (and changes) your entire life. Never mind swelling from colds, etc.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Imagine Hollywood movie studios requiring this. Or California's gov.
Add a CowboyNeal option and you've got the next Slashdot poll.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
For the first time ever, scientists at the Slashdot institute have actually managed to produce an article summary that is longer than the article linked, as well as providing new information not available in the article itself! How is this possible?
Another stupid idea. Next is the ear scanner, the hair scanner, the tooth scanner (all of the above is out in the public, for someone to make a replica of any part of your body that is out in the open, is just a matter of time). Then they'll move to more private areas I guess and then the internal organs, which will of-course go through a phase of vaginal and anal scanners.
This is dumb. Of-course Michael Jackson could use this better than others, he changed his nose shape more often than other people change their hair color and his nose was not out in the public.
You can't handle the truth.
This would finally have enabled Douglas Adams to use the awesome power of his nose for the forces of good.
He had a famously large hooter.
See this link for Douglas's own views on his nose.
Michael Coyne
http://turthalion.blogspot.com
Rhinoplasty makes this pointless.
Well done folks... Well done.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I'm Tycho Brahe, you insensitive clod!
Let's see... Nose completely free of boogers, but horrifically scarred by fingernails? Log in as root, must be the administrator.
Life just keeps piling on for the poor suffering adolescent geek. Now when he develops a giant zit on his nose, he doesn't just have to worry about the derision of his peers, but his nose-scanning locker won't open.
Will people now have to get clearance from the NSA/FBI/DOD in order to get a nose job?
On the positive side, if anyone beats you up and breaks your nose, they can now be sued for aiding and abetting terrorism by making the 'nose database' useless...
It would be just as secure and applying for an ID card would be a real hoot.
No sig today...
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/08/dna-samples-used-by-crime-labs-faked-in-research-lab.ars
Granted, they say it carries markers of having been lab-tampered, but that detecting the markers requires currently-unusual sophistication. Interesting, though.
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
Lemme get this straight. Bath, a town internationally known for its Rugby Football team, is proposing we use noses for biometric ID?
Rugby being the game for which the phrase "full contact sport" is not so much an understatement as a warning of imminent loss of life? Like American Football only without the pads and helmets? The game where a broken nose is probably the most common injury?
The Bath Rugby team probably have only one intact nose between all 15 players.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
I'd rather see the words: "Please insert nose to verify identity." than "Processing colonic map." on the ATM of the future.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
Why don't they just scan the whole face?
As if the nose were more unique than the rest of the face plus the nose.
A nose by any other name would still smell
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Come on, TSA!
You've already got the millimeter body scanners rolling out across the US and rest of the world. Kick it up a notch! Go straight for the biometric genital scanning!
Pfft, privacy. You don't need privacy. You need safety. Now drop your drawers!
Fingerprints can be faked, it is well known with scotch tape and talc powder, noses change over time, and are only useful to weight other factors. Thats why we also scan your tongue, your eyes, and of course your butt. ( Just drop your pants and sit on the butt scanner - no, it's not a photocopier. )
- With apologies to Monsters vs Aliens
...
Don't let the security-crazed among us start thinking about what other stickout-y parts of the human anatomy they could photograph from six angles, digitize and put on our passports. All to keep the children and kittens safe, of course.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Seriously. No one cares for biometrics. Aside from making for very sick dismemberment jokes in spy movies, biometrics haven't done much to go mainstream.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
...cut off your nose to spite your face.
And they stole it from an opposing prop forward.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
In case they want to do ears, rugby players used to have them ripped off before they started taping them to their heads them, now cauliflower ear is a more common injury.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Seriously?! Don't they know that a nose job is the second most popular plastic surgery?
Oh great. Now I'm going to have to deal with Cyrano de Bergerac being on the no-fly list.
I mean look at how his nose "morphed" over the years! I think some of the shapes it went through weren't even human, not according to this software.
This made me think of the great Woody Allen movie "Sleeper", but I couldn't think of a joke quickly (would the technology still recognize the leader after the steamroller incident?). I didn't read every comment, but I didn't notice any about plastic surgery (many about broken noses though). I wouldn't have summarized this story on slashdot, or my summary would have included the word "ridiculous" at least once.
I'm scared. The next step of biometrical scanner will be the colon deepness. May god have marcy of our souls.
I smell a rat!
Don't forget anyone who feeds you too many donuts..
which is totally what she said
It would be a denial of service attack.
Running afoul of felony battery laws while also breaking DMCA protections!
There was an old cartoon from back in the 80s when the first really painful desktop security measures were put in place... back when people still ran unpatched OSs and downloading updates (via dial-up modem) wasn't common.
I think it was "The Fifth Wave" series. Wish I could find it to post a link.
Basically, it was a manager turning to an employee looking stubborn at his computer terminal and saying "Now c'mon, Bob, you know nose scanning is our best defense against unauthorized computer use!" The nose scanners were cups on thick cords hanging from the ceiling like airline oxygen masks.
Biometrics is a cute marketing trick, but it's no substitute for good security process. That's why I like signing in to my laptop using the "fingerprint" of a small area on the underside of my scrotum. Any legitimate reason to doff one's pants at work is good. "I'm just logging in." or "Whoops, there goes my screensaver. Zzzzzzzip...."
Erik
What's a Nubian?
Did the submitter read the story?
While able to process images more quickly than conventional biometric identification techniques such as whole face recognition, the system's recognition rates were comparatively low and researchers recommend it as an addition to existing biometrics rather than a replacement.
You know that a hooter is actually something else, right?
We have many ways of identifying people; biometrics is only one category. Every means of identifying a person is hackable in some way. I would feel much safer if authentication were based on multiple sources. In particular, GPS tracking, bluetooth presence, facial recognition, each time you enter a password, all should be used to build a continuous track of your location, with confidence ratings as you move between various protocols. Credit card purchases, boarding an airplane, logging in at work; all should verify that your location data says that you are where they think you are, with a continuous trail leading to that location, before granting access.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
The nose plays.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Fat failure.
Maybe we should patent the brain scan for ID since that will be the next idea?
Then they'll move to more private areas I guess and then the internal organs, which will of-course go through a phase of vaginal and anal scanners.
Somewhere in Japan, some mangaka is now making hentai based on this.
*VAGINAL SCAN UNSUCCESSFUL - DOUBLE-CHECK REQUIRED - PLEASE POSITION YOURSELF FOR ADDITIONAL AUTHENTICATION MS. HAJIMOTO*
"Uh...um...alright...OOOOH GOD..."
Seriously — the very tip — kinda like a rabbit does. (It is a real "chick-magnet", BTW.)
When posing for an ID-picture, I always move it a little bit so that it looks a different on the picture from what is is in normal (relaxed) position. I don't think, the described method would identify me from those pictures...
You can train yourself to do it, BTW — an hour or two in front of the mirror and you'll "get it".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
How useless is this, at any given point there has to be about 50-100 people in Beverly Hills that have the same nose.
~Syberz
It doesn't really matter what the biometric is of, the whole idea has been shown to fail. It turns out that a key feature necessary for authentication is that a credential can be revoked and a new one issued whenever it has been compromised. That is just not practical for biometrics. If it can be measured, someone can capture that measurement and create a fake.
As shown on Mythbusters, the more expensive the fingerprint reader was, the easier it was to fake it out, but all of them failed one way or another.
If we start lining up and shooting marketing departments, we might one day be able to produce a biometric system that would only fall for very difficult surgical duplications (and so raise the bar quite high), but such systems would likely cost several orders of magnitude more than other equally secure methods that we already have available. Meanwhile, in those few cases where the access is important enough to resort to the surgical approach and someone does so, we're right back to the inability to issue a new ID.
by trimming their nose hair.
Broken nose... Lose fingers to a saw... go blind...
It simply stands as a standard that there is no standard that is 100% effective or unbreakable or loss-proof. Things can only be "More Secure" or "Less Secure". Generally the more secure they are, the easier it is to lose them as well.
The only major difference between passwords and biometrics is that one is knowledge-based and one is physical. Neither are fully secure. There is the difference between how easy it is to potentially steal or duplicate somebody's biometric signature versus how easy it is to steal or duplicate a password of similar relative "strength" in any given situation. Compare the process of stealing an 8-digit numeric key code versus duplicating somebody's fingerprint in a way that the scanner will recognize for example.
But with the low recognition rate, and the recommendation to use this as an additional layer of security, itreally is just that, an addition layer. Just like IP access lists. The duplicated fingerprint will do you no good as the nose knows!
So yeah, looks like they reach in but failed to pick a true winner (sorry). But as an extra layer of entropy, the speed makes it potentially more useful than face recognition, and due to the multiple angles and shadows, it doesn't suffer from "Photo in front of the camera" problems.
@Whee
Wouldn't work for the likes of Cher and Heidi Montag. Their plastic surgeries change their identity every few weeks !
Not in the UK.
> but what happens if a person breaks their nose?!"
You just need to phone DHS and reactivate your face.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
What do they do on the days where it's somebody else's turn?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...scanning a person's ass cleavage for identity purposes ? Recent research has shown that ass cleavage is in shape, length and depth absolutely unique to any person. With the added advantage the ass cleavage has over the nose: it cannot break.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
burka
...enough said.
My thoughts exactly. As an American who has only recently started playing the sport of rugby football, even my limited experience has painfully demonstrated how reconfigurable the human nose is.
As a sidenote, being kicked in the face while laying at the bottom of a ruck sure does make you feel alive =)
goon 1 "My prop forward has no nose!"
...
goon 2 "Your prop forward has no nose?"
goon 1 "My prop forward has no nose!"
goon 2 "How does he smell?"
Fill in the rest your self.
The above comments are the ravings of a lunatic and should be ignored completely.
> but what happens if a person breaks their nose?"
Segmented curvilinear correction. A broken nose only changes shape in the broken spot, almost always the bridge. The majority is intact. The database results will have those hits that match, say, 5 of the 6 measures. Those will then be subjected to 'morphing' within the constraints of the average (more likely within the standard deviation) of how bridges that most often fit with that nose type are bent and in what way. The Segment that doesn't fit will have the bent or Curved piece 'unbent' or made to fit a Linear model by a Correction algorithm. The result will be a correlation measure for that sixth piece to go along with the five segments already matched. It's not a certain measure, but it'll give a smaller number of likely possibles to start with, and if there's no positives, lesser correlations to look at.
What makes this article bogus (I won't call Bullshit because it looks like they really believe this will work) is variants on Groucho nose glasses. A simple fake nose will fool it. It doesn't even have to be a complete fake nose; flesh colored putty packed on to certain areas will make it a different nose.
> Some cool pictures make this worth a click
Cool my ass. I've worked with police sketch artists. They have a book with all the examples in their software of all the parts of the face used as variables. Noses sans face are some of the ugliest pieces of human anatomy.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Doesn’t matter if it’s any body part, or a card or anything “that you have”. As long as there is no accompanying “that you know”, it’s insecure. Period.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Rhinoplasty capital of the world?
That would be a denasal of service.