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Smart Phones Could Know Their Users By How They Walk
mirgens writes "Technology Review has a short article on new work on gait analysis with the accelerometers built into many smart phones. The work was done at the Norwegian Information Security Laboratory ('Nislab'). The need for more security on mobile devices is increasing with new functionalities and features made available. To improve device security, Nislab proposed gait recognition as a protection mechanism — in other words, if somebody else walks away with your phone, it locks up. While previous work on gait recognition used video sources, for instance to identify people in airports or secure buildings, the Nislab researchers collected the gait data using a Google G1 phone containing the AK8976A embedded accelerometer." What if you're running from a mugger and want to dial 911?
What if you're running from a mugger and want to dial 911?
Then don't lock out emergency functions - similar to the way that (in the US at least) phones without a valid subscription can still call 911.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I'm worried that this sort of thing would lead to phones that won't allow me to answer when they detect that I might be driving.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Phone locks up when you're stumbling drunk - for some people that's a good thing!
I don't think we need to worry about security software locking up the phone, my g1 experiences were chock full of being locked out due to bad memory management.
this is as stupid as recognising a user by their typing, or their fingerprint etc.
you lose a finger it changes your typing rhythm. you lose a leg it changes how you walk.
This means you have to have a way to override the protection system, which means an equal or better protection system to do that, so why not just use that anyway...
How's it going to work for ladies who carry phones in handbags etc (many don't use the same bag all the time).
;).
Those ladies actually have a high chance of getting their phones stolen - the thieves steal the bag with the phone inside etc. Many ladies typically don't wear any garments that have pockets. Or worse there are pockets but they are sewn shut so that you don't use them by mistake and make an ugly looking bulge
As for guys, it might work, but I doubt a significant number of us would intentionally buy a phone with this. If us guys wanted an antitheft phone we'd just buy a really cheap phone. Or "customize" it to the point where its fence value drops immensely.
A way to reduce phone theft is by phone makers making their phone IMEIs very hard to change (and ensuring that they are unique), and the cellular providers blocking stolen phones (even globally).
The New iPhone: John Cleese Edition!
The phone would call for you. That is why it is called a SMART phone.
Great!!! I've always wanted a phone that won't work if I am jogging, riding a horse, skiing, walking on ice, sprain my ankle, having a gout attack, riding a bicycle, fleeing for my life, .... When can I expect to be able to buy this wonder?
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Next time I strain my ankle, I cannot use my phone for a week. :)
What about driving in car? Not even other passenger can pick the phone, we must park sideways and walk a few meters to unlock the phone
What an excellent idea :))
If you're trying to dial the cops while running from a mugger I predict an encounter with a sturdy lamppost, street sign or news stand in your very near future.
This sounds like a bit of a fail. I was running recently and fell down. It was serious and I had a limp. So how would I call for an ambulance with one of these phones?
From TFA: "they were only able to achieve a 20 percent Equal Error Rate (EER), which means that one time out of five, the phone registered either a false positive or a false negative when trying to determine the identity of the user. And that's with the phone in a hip holster, oriented in the same way every time."
Also, I recently injured my leg - would I be unable to use my phone with my new limp?
I just see it now. Neo running down the road, grabs the phone off the guy standing at the corner while in full stride, tries to call for help and it locks up on him. He can't ask for instructions to get to the exit and guesses his way around and walks into 3 agents who kill him.
Wait that kinda happened anyway so it wouldn't save us from 2 horrible sequels.
>> What if you're running from a mugger and want to dial 911?
> Then don't lock out emergency functions - similar to the way that
> (in the US at least) phones without a valid subscription can still call 911.
The editing on /. gets worse each day. What is more interesting of a question would have been "are walks as unique as fingerprints, and can this be used to violate privacy" How is this quantified, and could the police put you on a suspect list because your "walk" is similar to who they think committed some crime? Those are interesting questions. As for 911, as the parent points out, that would be obvious to anyone with any life experience.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Without having done any reading, research or anything, I am guessing the same technique could be married to known gait characteristic of early onset Multiple Sclerosis. I do know it is quite specific and is usually undiagnosed till a drastic stage. For example, you push the brake pedal and the car doesnt seem to slow very well. Well before that stage is a gait change. Then "duck walking" where the step seems exaggerated. Was just a thought having learned from seeing a family member go thru the symptoms.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
...My phone becomes dead weight. Or when I'm dancing. Or doing -anything- besides walking exactly how I normally walk. How about when I walk with my wife? She's 5'2", I'm a foot taller. I normally walk a lot faster by myself, but she has short legs. This is one of those ideas that should have never made it past the "Hey, you know what would be cool?" phase.
Speaking of 911 and accelerometers...
I've long wondered if you could write a smart phone app that monitors the accelerometer for a roll over collision and calls 911 like OnStar. You could have it enabled only when the phone is in a car dock or something. Perhaps for sudden jolts like a rear-end collision it could say "I'm going to call 911 in one minute unless you tell me you're alright."
Interesting. It might be difficult to get the software flexible enough to deal with all possible paces for the same person, but consider this: each person's legs are a specific length. The way a person walks is intimately tied to the length of their legs, as well as the shape of their hips and their overall weight. It is not unreasonable to suspect that sufficiently-accurate accelerometers could distinguish between peoples' movement no matter how fast they were moving (walking, running, whatever).
The main way to fool the device, I think, would be to purposefully chop your steps short. But that is very difficult to do for very long, and of course you couldn't very well imitate somebody else by doing so.
I do not buy that placing the phone in a different bag would have any effect on the estimated gait. Also, things like riding in a car or on a bicycle would look extremely different from walking, so the device obviously shouldn't lock up in those situations. Furthermore, it would be impossible to distinguish between being a passenger and a driver, making the very possibility of locking a phone when it detects you're in a car problematic. Anyway, obviously as an anti-theft device, this will, if it is successful, be marketed as a feature to consumers, meaning that the owner of the phone can choose whether or not to use it. If the phone is routinely locking itself due to this feature, users will simply turn it off.
You had me until, "Somehow I can talk on a cell phone without disregarding all awareness of my environment, it comes from not being a bovine idiot with a deer-in-headlights outlook on life."
Every single one of them thinks the same thing. Newsflash: you're one of them.
Welcome to our new Orwellian Information security overlords!
must resist bee gees joke...
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Or you stub your toe, or are sore from a run, bought a new pair of shoes....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Or turn around and defend yourself with a .45 caliber bullet.
Wow, I remember reading about this a long long time ago. There's a reference to an article of 2007 in there, but this must have been around 2000. Sadly I can't seem to find the link to that article (oh, surprise), Well, I guess most things are bound to be invented at least twice with the amout of people with grants out there...
even a unactivated iphone call dial 911 with no sim card
Don't completely disable the phone. If the gait analysis comes up "wrong" then require the user to enter his password again.
If you are a passenger, you are just outta luck.
In that case, such legislation would never get out of committee because it would impose an undue burden on people who carpool or ride public transport. All seats in a car or especially a bus (except one) are reasonably safe for making phone calls.
I've always wanted a phone that won't work if I am [...] riding a bicycle
Bad example. Riding a bike while talking on the phone is like riding a bike with 0.08% ethyl alcohol in your blood.
Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk
I'm a woman's man: no time to talk
There's no way this feature is going to be 100% accurate, and certainly not in 1.0. Every "recognition" technology ever has an error rate, and this will be no different. If it's intended as a security feature, the developers will have to calibrate it to err on the side of denying access, otherwise they'll open themselves up to criticism (and probably legal suits) over its failure to provide the advertised security. This means that there will be false positives, in which the phone denies its legitimate owner access (wearing new shoes, walking on unusual surface, injured, tired, listening to "Beat It"), and that will get the phone chucked across the room in pretty short order.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
if your gait changes because you've lost a leg you have to take it... somewhere
But would crutch gaits even be recognized by the system, or would they be rejected for being too far out of bounds? What about a gait like this?
The way a person walks is intimately tied to the length of their legs
This is true in most but not all cases. Gaits like a bear walk or a crutch walk or a tripedal fist walk might not be close enough to the typical human bipedal gait to get recognized. So in order for the phone to qualify under some countries' accessibility laws, it will have to consider a wide variety of unusual gaits. (Yes, there is a ministry of silly walks, and it's part of physiatry.)
I wonder if the 10 steps it takes the average American to and from their SUV is enough to differentiate by gait - or waddle....
Sherlock Holmes is/was/is a master of many things, including mimicking the gait of another, so this won't impact his activities. Listen does anyone really want this? Some days my back is hurting, some days my legs are hurting, I'm pretty sure I don't walk the same every day. I like to make calls sitting down. I like to borrow my girlfriend's phone to make a call sometimes. I don't really make calls while skipping down the street, but I would like the option to do so. The downsides and frustrations of this technology would seem to overwhelm any benefits. And it won't stop Sherlock! Pschaw!
these guys would love it! http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-08/lahood-weighs-urging-u-s-ban-on-all-driver-phone-use-in-cars.html
so now we could use a phone to assassinate somebody with out them having to actually answer the call. though, if it's an explosive in the unit itself, a better way to ensure a kill is if the phone is up against their head. but if it a GPS bomb fired from a drone/plain i'm sure close is good enough.
Every single one of them thinks the same thing. Newsflash: you're one of them.
That's a (+eleventy, insightful) right there.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
If passwords are as unique as walks, this could be used to violate privacy!!
Don't quote me on this.
Just because it's not bulletproof enough for you to use it to unlock your bank account, for instance, doesn't mean it's pointless. Maybe if a company phone has multiple users, it could update the company phone list with the person who's currently using it?
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
I've got bad knees. Some days, the pain is so great to just bend my knee that I limp.
I guess on those days, I don't need to be calling anyone, anyway.
How long would this take to establish your gait? Front pants pocket? left or right? Back pocket? Cargo pocket? Coat pocket? Surely holding it up in your hand wouldn't work, as an arm is going to counteract the bouncing of a step and hold it steady. Maybe held lightly swinging in the hand.
And what if I was carrying a backpack? Or briefcase? Or....really, did these guys think this through all the way?
Do you actually believe that calling 911 would do anything to help you? Why are you running? Turn around and shoot the muggers, that way they won't mug anyone else.
Oh Crap, I'm an optimist.....
very cool ! here`s another one http://www.shop-overzicht.com/
If you want to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk.
There has been research and even products made to do the same thing in recognizing the distinct patterns or each users' typing. I recall first hearing of this in the early 90s, and it probably goes back further than this. Here's two examples:
http://cs.unc.edu/~fabian/papers/fgcs.pdf
http://www.securitysoftwarezone.com/keystroke-recognition-review273-7.html
These passive biometrics are all great(TM) solutions -- they take advantage of highly idiosyncratic, repetitive, and difficult to forge characteristics of each individual, and use technology to accurately recognize these characteristics and authenticate their targets.
Except these solutions fail at unacceptable rates when they encounter real-world exceptions. As mentioned by others, gait and keystroke cadence are both consistent, but easily changed by injury, illness, drugs, varying clothing, and just mood.
At least this research group recognizes this and points to the need for a *suite* of passive biometric indicators. But, they think a 1% false positive error rate is acceptable -- one chance in 100 that the thief gets in!?! It needs to be at least 3 orders of magnitude better.
Looks to me like another example of technologists getting enamored of their technology and failing to actually solve the basic problem.
My mum doesn't own a phone, I lend her mine when she is going out and I'm staying home. She is a bit of a technophobe and has trouble even unlocking the keypad with two keystrokes, let alone entering a password!
A phone with this enabled would be near impossible to lend to her. I'm not saying it's a bad idea but it'd need to be something that can easily be disabled.
This story is old/a dupe. This was announced quite a while back. I can't find a lot of the old info thanks to this recent story but here's one from last year and I'm sure there are some from a couple years ago..
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1655066&dl=GUIDE&coll=GUIDE&CFID=108009773&CFTOKEN=58257172
0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
How about a different ring tone depending on how your walking/strutting? If you like barely moving, or standing still, it goes quiet for stalking mode. Big ass strut will play whatever the popular tone is for picking up the ladies.
lets see, the "on the bed stand and it's shaking" mode so it will go silent and not interupt your session with a crack ho.
Be seeing you...
You can tell by the way I use my walk,
That my ID's right and I'm OK to talk.
Call it StrideID, pay the rights money to whoever owns the BeeGees catalogue, and if you want to make a check out to "A. Coward" while you're spreading it around, I'll gladly cash it.
Geez, I want a phone! These manufacturers should stop adding anti-theft/anti-use/anti-whatever features and focus on making it work better as a phone.
This is just going to make cellphones more and more expensive to add in more bells and whistles which some people never use.
Is it not possible to funnel money used for development of things like this into the cellular system? I would like subsidized calling. How about a free cellphone service?
Something like that is actually making progress. Think about it like this: How does this new feature benefit society?
Every single one of them thinks the same thing. Newsflash: you're one of them.
That's a (+eleventy, insightful) right there.
Not until a burden of proof is satisfied. Until then, you're just agreeing with something because it's what you already believe. Believe whatever you want, that doesn't make it truth without evidence. That doesn't change just because an AC said something you don't like and now you're desperately trying to take him down a peg or two. Really, how petty and unbecoming of you.
You don't want to disable 911 or its international equivalents period. If the guy who mugged me is calling 911 on my stolen phone, chances are someone someone's life is at risk. I certainly wouldn't want to find out that some child hit by a car died because I'd installed some stupid app and the mugger saw it and was *trying* to do the right thing and call 911..
... you are either a deer that has been shot in the leg, or a rap artist. Please pull up pants to unlock phone.
senario
I need to use my phone, which pants was I wearing? which pocket was it in? which shoes? was I drunk or sober? Oh that's right, I banged my knee on a door so I'm limping, so then I stop limping, wear my blue jeans, with my old joggers, and put the phone in my left front pocket, and walk around the block for half an hour, then my phone will unlock, offs!
not only that you could bind your creditcard to your geolocation so basicly have update your smartphone your location like in google latitude and if you have creditcard use that it monitors the possible location, .. to prevent creditcard abuse.
As one of the authors I do agree with you that 20% EER is not the best. Since submitting this article we already went down to 10%. On gait with normal accelerometers (so not the low quality ones in the phones) we even get down to 1.5%. Still not as good as fingerprint, but on the other hand, it is unobtrusive. If you hurt your leg permanently, then just make a new reference template. If it is just temporary, then you need to realize that this gait recognition is just an extra security measure, so you no longer need to lock your phone every time you stop using it. You principally do this because you do not want a third person to have access. With gait recognition, the phone uses the gait to recognize this third person by a different gait and will lock it then for you. A sensible implementation would unlock the phone if normal gait is detected from the correct person, but also by using a normal PIN mechanism.
From what I've experienced, phones in Europe can call emergency numbers, usually 112 in most of the EU, even without a SIM card. Depending on the country, a SIM-less phone can also call other emergency numbers; in Italy that would be 118 (ambulance), 115 (fire department) and 113 (state police).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_telephone_number#Europe