Avoiding Facial Recognition of the Future

hypnosec writes "A New York-based designer has created a camouflage technique that makes it much harder for computer based facial recognition. Along with the growth of closed circuit television (CCTV) , this has become quite a concern for many around the world, especially in the UK where being on camera is simply a part of city life. Being recognized automatically by computer is something that hearkens back to 1984 or A Scanner Darkly. As we move further into the 21st century, this futuristic techno-horror fiction is seeming more and more accurate. Never fear though people, CV Dazzle has some styling and makeup ideas that will make you invisible to facial recognition cameras. Why the 'fabulous' name? It comes from World War I warship paint that used stark geometric patterning to help break up the obvious outline of the vessel. Apparently it all began as a thesis at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University. It addressed the problems with traditional techniques of hiding the face, like masks and sunglasses and looked into more socially and legally acceptable ways of styling that could prevent a computer from recognizing your face. Fans of Assassin's Creed might feel a bit at home with this, as it's all about hiding in plain sight."

Comments

Don't forget IR

[plover]

Add IR opaque contact lenses or eyeglasses. Otherwise a camera sensitive to IR could still locate your eyes easily using the Ghost Hunters effect.

I mean hey, if you're willing to paint your face like a zebra and wear a jellyfish wig, popping in a set of otherwise clear contacts should be nothing, right?

Re:Don't forget IR

[Grishnakh]

As I understand it, eyes alone aren't very helpful for facial recognition; the system also needs to see the nose and some other features to determine the dimensions of various points on your face and make a match. Notice the article talks about how effective it is to cover the bridge of the nose, as that's a critical area.

Re:Don't forget IR

[bhcompy]

Clearly no one here has read Snow Crash. All you need is Sushi K's Rising Sun hairdo

Re:Don't forget IR

[Anonymous Coward]

Gorilla mask?

Re:Don't forget IR

[bronney]

I am Chinese and my face is quite flat with no bridge you insensitive clod.

Re:Don't forget IR

[Grishnakh]

Huh? Everyone has a bridge, it's where your nose meets the rest of your face. Unless you have no nose at all, you have a bridge, it just looks different from others; that's what this software looks for as it's an identifying feature.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Bridge+of+the+nose
According to this, the bridge is the bony part of the nose. That is, the part that's part of the skull, rather than made of cartilage. Everyone has one.

Re:Don't forget IR

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Chinese and my face is quite flat with no bridge you insensitive clod.

Hah! I am Korean, and my face is even flatter than yours, bignose.

Re:Don't forget IR

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Lord Voldemort and I presume you have more of a nose than I do.

Re:Don't forget IR

[laejoh]

Worse, no one here has read Douglas Adams' description of the Somebody Else's Problem!

Re:Don't forget IR

[gr8dude]

Facial biometrics rely on a lot of data points, have a look at ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2007 - a standard that defines how law enforcement agencies exchange data about tattoos, scars, fingerprints, faces... http://www.nist.gov/customcf/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=51174 (free of charge, there are pictures :-)

Here's the specific excerpt you're interested in (public pic, no need to have a Facebook profile to view it):
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150344785953020&set=a.129747423019.106694.739418019&type=3&theater

Cure worse than disease?

[icebike]

It would seem anyone running around painted this way would attract more police attention than just wearing a slouch hat. Perhaps it might be easier to just get (make) an Infrared LED Hat. Or maybe, take control of your government and vote them out until they remove the cameras.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Anonymous Coward]

Police attention for odd modes of dress? They would eventually get slapped enough to back off.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Anon-Admin]

I agree, The best one I have seen so far was to hot glue IR Diodes to the brim of a baseball cap and wire them to a small battery pack inside the cap. All of the cameras are extremely sensitive to IR (So they can see at night) and it has the effect of whiting out your face to the camera but being unseen by anyone else.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[trikes57]

You can already buy hats with LEDs in the brim from places like Sears: http://www.sears.com/craftsman-4-led-hat/p-03493353000P
So a few bucks to change out the LEDs to IR LEDs and you are good to go.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Synerg1y]

Fake mustaches, wigs on short hair, for once Hollywood might actually be educational here in how they dress up their actors. The question is why bother? This needs to be addressed at the government level, as to why they feel they need to monitor their citizens (superiority complex???) and what the limitations are.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[gstoddart]

It would seem anyone running around painted this way would attract more police attention than just wearing a slouch hat

Oh? Judging by the first picture in the series, I could probably find someone not unlike that in the downtown of many large cities -- or a mall.

It isn't yet illegal to be eccentric compared to the rest of society.

Hell, I can think of some people I've met at tattoo/piercing places who might fool facial recognition. By the time you've got some extra piercings/implants, it can change quite a bit -- and those people often are already wearing theatrical contacts.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[icebike]

It would seem anyone running around painted this way would attract more police attention than just wearing a slouch hat

Oh? Judging by the first picture in the series, I could probably find someone not unlike that in the downtown of many large cities -- or a mall.

It isn't yet illegal to be eccentric compared to the rest of society.

Nobody said it was illegal.
Just that it would attract police attention. Wasn't avoiding that, after all, what the story was about?

Go ask the next person you see if they feel their mode of dress attracts more police attention than the average joe. Be prepared for an ear full, but once you wade thru that, you will they feel it does attract the attention of the average cop.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

All of the cameras are extremely sensitive to IR (So they can see at night).

Er no - it's because CCDs are IR sensitive. Which is why IR blocking film has to be placed under the lens. And no, the IR range visible by CCDs doesn't enable them to "see at night" (unless you shine an IR source on the subject). Those CCDs can't "see" heat signatures either (anymore than these techniques actually work - try V4l2 controls) - not unless you stick 'em in an Esky connected to a massively insulated lens and flood the Esky with liquid Nitrogen.

You can carry on with the fantasies now.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Hell, I can think of some people I've met at tattoo/piercing places who might fool facial recognition. By the time you've got some extra piercings/implants, it can change quite a bit -- and those people often are already wearing theatrical contacts.

You haven't *really* thought that through have you? Like painting your car with pink polka dots so no one will recognise it...

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[rubycodez]

News for you, big city police do it all the time. I'm from Chicago. Dress like a "delinquent punk" or gangbanger, get treated like one. Sorry, don't shoot the messenger. There needs to be a second consideration here, how to not set off the mental radar of the Man.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Or maybe, take control of your government and vote them out until they remove the cameras"

Unfortunately, most of the cameras are owned by private companies and are located on private property. And we on /. know the private corporations are sacrosanct, don't we!

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[sjames]

Clearly it's time to start holding Adam Ant fan conventions...

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[ironjaw33]

It would seem anyone running around painted this way would attract more police attention than just wearing a slouch hat.

With more and more automation in law enforcement, it isn't about fooling the police anymore, it's about fooling machines. As of late, law enforcement is pushing hard for automated electronic solutions which replace the venerable eyeball. GPS trackers are replacing stakeouts, speed and traffic light cameras replace traffic police, and facial recognition may be reducing the number of beat cops. When it comes to the state of the art with data mining and machine learning, there are a ton of corner cases to choose from -- a sight that may draw significant attention to a human being might be quickly discarded by an artificial neural network. Nobody will even care to look at the wig you're wearing as everyone's heads are now buried in their phones.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[cayenne8]

So, I'm guessing that this facial recognition software can't locate and recognize Lady Gaga?

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[na1led]

Everyone wear infrared lasers and blind these cameras, that will put a stop to them!

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[turkeyfish]

If this starts to catch on, expect the Tea Party and GOP to ban Braveheart fan clubs.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[turkeyfish]

"since only people who are up to no good care about the surveillance in the first place."

Perfect PC speech/mentality in our new police state, if you even remotely "look like" you are doing something wrong, its proof that you are. With anti-Talibanism on the rise, expect them to start detaining anyone with a beard or mustache, women who wear scarves, men who wear hats, etc. Coupled, with GOP efforts to eliminate the court system, just think of the money we can save by dispensing with trials all together. Instead we can have un-elected, privately contracted clothing censors, who only have to press and up or down button on their PC's, which will dispatch the drones.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[turkeyfish]

No worry, if anyone is seen wearing meat on their heads, a drone will be automatically dispatched to make sure that is is well done.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Grishnakh]

No, they wouldn't, at least not here in the USA. People have happily given up all the Constitutional rights regarding unreasonable search and seizure, and submit to being irradiated or groped every time they travel somewhere. No one's going to say anything if some "freaks" with weird hair-dos are harassed or assaulted by cops.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[turkeyfish]

I agree. It will be far simpler to require a chip be implanted in your brain before you are permitted to vote.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Walt Dismal]

My unibrow, third eye on the forehead, and Freddy Mercury mustache are all I need to go incognito without any attention. Also, I look like Lady Gaga. All of which makes me completely blend with the crowd, as long as the crowd is at a freak show or science fiction convention, or ComicCon.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Grishnakh]

Fake mustaches won't help, nor will wigs unless they obscure the face. Facial recognition works by measuring the distances between key points on the face, so facial hair doesn't affect it at all (unless you're like those guys who grew hair over their entire faces and ended up in a circus sideshow as ape-men).

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone dresses with baggy pants or too much eye makeup on a male where I live, and the local finest likely will be looking for a reason to give them a ride downtown.

I can't wait until the local cops start arresting people for "obstructing justice" due to too much eyeliner.

Oh well... they need a target for their new Tasers, LRAD, microwaves, and blinding walls, and CXW needs to fill up jail bed space so they make their quarterly numbers.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[turkeyfish]

The trick is to make if fashionable enough so that everyone is wearing one. Although the wealthy now have nearly all the money, everyone knows they are too cheap and don't want pay more taxes to hire enough cops. Sounds like a great decoy for burglars, robbers, and drug dealers. Just hire enough of the unemployed at minimum wage to keep the cops busy during the heist/deal. With the wealthy too cheap to pay taxes, there won't be enough cops to replay all the videos and question and monitor the thousands of additional suspects. To make matters worse, your ordinary criminal will begin to be seen like a Robin Hood, providing employment when the government and corporations fail to do so.

Clearly, the court system will have to be abolished to eliminate the cost of arresting and convicting all the false positives. Of course it takes the brilliant mind of a historian like Newt Gingrich to point this out. That's why he was paid $33,000/hr for his advice.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Grishnakh]

Hell, I can think of some people I've met at tattoo/piercing places who might fool facial recognition. By the time you've got some extra piercings/implants, it can change quite a bit -- and those people often are already wearing theatrical contacts.

Nope. Put all the tattoos you want on, it won't fool facial recognition. They showed this in the article with crazy tribal facepaint.

Piercings in your ears and lips aren't going to change anything either. However, if you put piercings in your cheeks to obscure your cheekbones, or better yet over the bridge of your nose, that should fool facial recognition algorithms. But I've never seen any of the piercings freaks mess with those areas.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[turkeyfish]

Except like anti-radar technologies the cameras will then instantaneously fire a high energy particle beam directly back at the offending light.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Grishnakh]

Yes, and expect the Democrats to publicly complain about this, yet when a vote comes up, they'll vote with their GOP buddies, and say "we had to compromise".

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Toonol]

Unfortunately, most of the cameras are owned by private companies and are located on private property. And we on /. know the private corporations are sacrosanct, don't we!

Not corporations. Private property is sacrosanct. Corporations just happen to have private property just like you and me.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Nutria]

if you even remotely "look like" you are doing something wrong

... it's wise for The Man to stop and question you.

I've been stopped and questioned by the police for being where someone of my race typically isn't, at a time when someone of my race is typically only in that that neighborhood to do illegal things. Since I was polite, had a straight answer and wasn't pissy about cops harassing an innocent person, they let me go on my way.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Synerg1y]

Interesting, what about something like a skin mold then?

Then again if it's anything like my alienware cam login, the technology is only moderately far along and a pain in the ass to use. It does work sometimes though under ideal conditions. I'm sure the feds prolly have something better.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Requiem18th]

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Grishnakh]

A skin mold might work if it makes your cheekbones look different, and definitely if it makes your nose look different (change the bridge, or the length of the nose). And anything that changes the distance between your eyes is sure to work, though that's obviously a little harder to fake.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[unrtst]

Never seen bridge piercings?!? https://www.google.com/search?q=bridge%20piercing&tbm=isch

They're pretty common, though I doubt they'll do much to throw off the facial recognition unless you use an abnormal stud (it's commonly just 2 small balls).

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, how hard would it be to train the AI to look out for other peoples reactions to an otherwise unremarkable person?

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Grishnakh]

Holy crap, that's nasty. I'd rather have clicked on a page showing open-heart surgery or something; these people turn my stomach.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[xaxa]

Oh? Judging by the first picture in the series, I could probably find someone not unlike that in the downtown of many large cities

Indeed, some of the dazzle patterns are great. I sent the link to a friend of mine, an amateur makeup artist. I'm planning on trying it the next time I go here [NSFW].

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Fnord666]

Never seen bridge piercings?!? https://www.google.com/search?q=bridge%20piercing&tbm=isch

They're pretty common, though I doubt they'll do much to throw off the facial recognition unless you use an abnormal stud (it's commonly just 2 small balls).

OK, the pic where the girl is wearing glasses that are designed to work with the bridge piercing is kinda cool.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Anonymous Coward]

I dress, as everyday wear, in all black, huge boots with spikes up the front and back, spiked gauntlets that extend over my hand in such a way that a clenched fist has 5 spikes on its knuckles, jacket with spikes on the shoulders, have long hair and am male. Also a big cloak if the weather is shit.

I have never, not once, been given more than a cursory glance by a police officer. Wait, that's not true - I've had a couple jokingly ask me "Now, sir, you're not going to make any trouble with all that now are you?". Cloak makes small shopkeepers nervous, and I'll ask if they want me to remove it before I move into the shop proper - but never have the law given me hassle.

I'd say it's more on how you carry yourself, than what you wear. Or perhaps British Bobbies aren't quite so petty.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[hellop2]

In other words you think people of certain races shouldn't be able to walk around freely without being interrogated by the police.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Nutria]

Pulling up in a squad car, sticking your head out the window and asking your business might technically be defined as "interrogation", but it's not what most people think of when they hear the word.

Specifically, it's right and just for a deputy to stop a white guy (me, for example) walking, at night, though a black neighborhood known to have high rates of drug dealing and prostitution. I wouldn't have minded them getting out and asking me to show some ID.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[drinkypoo]

Most security cameras don't have IR filters, presumably either to save a couple cents per camera, or maybe so that if you choose you can use them with an IR flood to get night vision. Virtually no black and white video cameras of any kind have IR filters, either. And the majority of older camcorders, too, and many of the newer ones, too; heck, even some MiniDV cameras have had an IR lamp on the front, let alone VHS-C and the like. It was fairly common on Sony cameras for a while.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[drinkypoo]

Nope. Put all the tattoos you want on, it won't fool facial recognition. They showed this in the article with crazy tribal facepaint.

It has been demonstrated that asymmetrical blocks of solid color can confuse some facial recognition schemes, especially when the colored areas intersect facial features.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Icyfire0573]

WTF; That is not what was said at all... Now, certainly you could IMPLY that the person was the only Russian on an Irish block and therefore wouldn't be involved in mischief?

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[korean.ian]

Ah...papers please comrade!

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[korean.ian]

News for you, big city police do it all the time. I'm from Chicago. Dress like a "delinquent punk" or gangbanger, get treated like one. Sorry, don't shoot the messenger. There needs to be a second consideration here, how to not set off the mental radar of the Man.

Ah yes - conform, or be put away. What does dressing like a gangbanger even mean? Big parka, hat turned sideways and baggy jeans? You'd be arresting half the young male population.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Grishnakh]

Right, that's true. But I don't generally see anyone tattooing those facial features. Most of even the most extreme people seem to stop with the neck.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Screen404-O]

I think you missed the point of the article. It is not about minimizing Police attention but to minimize automated detection. That in turn will maximize amount of time/money that would have to be spend to backtrack you. You may stand out in some crowd and maybe easy to fallow visually by a human (eather on camera or in person), but (at current technology) imposible to load the image in to computer and say "show me where this person has been in the past week, month, year". The biggest issue with cameras in London, is not that you are being watched now but that the the data is stored and at the later time, with help of facial recognition, easily, cheeply backtrack. It is just too expansive to throw people to review few hundred thousand cameras going even just a month back to create a profile of your movement even if you do standout.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Most security cameras don't have IR filters, presumably either to save a couple cents per camera, or maybe so that if you choose you can use them with an IR flood to get night vision. Virtually no black and white video cameras of any kind have IR filters, either. And the majority of older camcorders, too, and many of the newer ones, too; heck, even some MiniDV cameras have had an IR lamp on the front, let alone VHS-C and the like. It was fairly common on Sony cameras for a while.

Last time I looked Schott D263T and BK7 coating are IR filters. Maybe things have changed in the intervening two years.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Nutria]

You must be a college student. Definitely someone who doesn't know the meaning and implication of the phrase "patrol car".

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[AliasMarlowe]

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes

Alas, the techniques used by the Laughing Man in GITS are further away than facial recognition and CCTV, and even in that universe they were only practical for extreme hackers.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Turbine2k5]

Right, that's true. But I don't generally see anyone tattooing those facial features. Most of even the most extreme people seem to stop with the neck.

We say this as Mike Tyson walks up behind you...

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Opportunist]

When have you been to my country? Can happen at any time, and you better have some with you, or at least available in your home.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Opportunist]

Can work either way. I was going to a meeting at one day with the appropriate attire (suit, tie, shoes... you get the idea) and was asked for some ID because it "looked like I don't belong in those clothes".

I agreed, in general, I still found it quite odd.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Opportunist]

Actually, a lot of cameras, even those not supposed to "see in the dark" have crappy IR filters. Which is why you can often see IR leds in videos where they show off some IR tricks, which kinda blows the trick since you can actually see what's going on.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Opportunist]

Well, in my country at least, this is my least concern. Private cams MUST NOT show public property. You have to turn your own CCTVs in such a way that they don't show even the slightest amount of sidewalk or road, let alone point them to a window you do not own.

And while I generally love that, it really makes setting up a good surveillance system quite tricky.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Opportunist]

Erh... please elaborate, what should that accomplish? Blinding the person?

Oh wow, that would be sweet. The cams would be gone due to public pressure in a moment.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[drinkypoo]

Last time I looked Schott D263T and BK7 coating are IR filters. Maybe things have changed in the intervening two years.

Last time I checked spewing technobabble without context meant nothing. But this is slashdot.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[drinkypoo]

Right, that's true. But I don't generally see anyone tattooing those facial features. Most of even the most extreme people seem to stop with the neck.

Don't need a tattoo, can use paint; could also be a temporary tattoo, though when you can use paint, it seems a bit extreme. On the other hand, using temporary tattoos you could change up your patterns; I would not be surprised if face recognition systems could learn to recognize specific facial tattoos with the assistance of a human operator to correlate the images with past images. Remember Pris' facial airbrush work in Blade Runner? All wrong, since a line across both eyes has been shown to be ineffective, but still interesting.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Anonymous Coward]

Private property is sacrosanct.

Tell that to Randy Weaver...

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[TheP4st]

With anti-Talibanism on the rise, expect them to start detaining anyone with a beard or mustache, women who wear scarves, men who wear hats, etc.

Would not that be poetic justice?

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Anonymous Coward]

And you must be someone who was never a college student if you can't differentiate between the intent and meaning of "patrol" versus "interrogate and harass law-abiding citizens who just may be out for a walk".

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[rubycodez]

cops seem to also assume things about people for certain hair style or facial hair styles, visible tattoos, body piercings....

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[_0xd0ad]

Last time I looked, an IR LED showed up nice and bright on every digital camera I ever tried it with, so either the IR filters aren't perfect (likely) or they use cheap IR filters on most cameras (also likely).

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Opportunist]

The odd thing was that I really am a quite "normal" guy. No long hair, no facial tattoos, no piercings, ... part of the job. I don't have the slightest idea just WHY he thought he should stop me and interrogate me.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[slacker001]

Even if you didn't 'belong' in those clothes, what does it matter? How would the police be able to tell that based on your ID?

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Opportunist]

They don't. It's probably an attempt to instill the feeling of "uhoh, they got my ID, now if I do something bad they'll know".

Don't ask me, making sense of our police is kinda futile.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Last time I looked Schott D263T and BK7 coating are IR filters. Maybe things have changed in the intervening two years.

Last time I checked spewing technobabble without context meant nothing. But this is slashdot.

Like fuckwads who name drop "Sony" without knowing dick about the lenses?.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Last time I looked, an IR LED showed up nice and bright on every digital camera I ever tried it with, so either the IR filters aren't perfect (likely) or they use cheap IR filters on most cameras (also likely).

Depends on the model how much IR (and which parts of the IR spectrum) they let through. So a bit of both. Those LEDs have a very, very narrow spectral emission (there's a few different IR LEDs).

Will a bunch of LEDs on a hoodie cause problems with a good security camera - no. And post processing will deal with most of the problem.

The el-cheapo ones you see over the till in service stations (when they work) are mostly for deterrent/insurance purposes - they're so crap the picture is useless anyway. The purpose of those is mostly to stop employees conning the till - and so cops can fool moron thieves into pleading guilty. (tip - the ones in banks won't be affected by LEDs on a hoodie.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[drinkypoo]

Since I own a Sony camcorder without an IR filter, and have seen dozens more in the hands of friends and acquaintances, clearly I know enough to know that there are many Sony camcorders without IR filters. I have proven conclusively that mine lacks it with the aid of a remote control.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Since I own a Sony camcorder without an IR filter, and have seen dozens more in the hands of friends and acquaintances, clearly I know enough to know that there are many Sony camcorders without IR filters. I have proven conclusively that mine lacks it with the aid of a remote control.

No - you've proven something - just not what you believe.

You've demonstrated that your camera is sensitive to NIR (as it should be - it's the visible part of the IR spectrum). Not that your camera doesn't have IR filtering. There's a difference.

Your camcorder will have some degree of IR filtering - it's the nature of CCDs that they are mostly sensitive to IR (without massive cooling they're only sensitive to the non-heat, visible, part of the IR range - NIR and MIR, not the "heat" portion FIR). Without filtering your camera would be useless in daylight. If it's a reasonably expensive one (not like the cheapo cameras) it won't have a nasty piece of dark thick plastic - but it will have a nice coating on the lens (the compounds I quoted are what's used on high-end Sony security cameras). There's a difference between blocking all IR, and blocking enough, all the MIR for the visible spectrum to *not* be swamped.

If you paid more than a thousand for your camera it "might" have L3CCDs, which are what's used in the high-end security cameras (with a higher gate speed they're less sensitive to MIR and capable of sub 1 lux visible spectrum capture). More likely you just got better lenses instead of better low-light ability.

In general the cheaper the CCD (pMOS) or CMOS (which aren't quite as cheap) the more sensitive they are to the longer wavelength (more properly they just have a slower gate rate).

Regardless - the original point remains - CCD (or CMOS) cameras don't use IR to "see in the dark". They are (unfiltered) more sensitive to (M)IR than the visible spectrum, which is why they're filtered - or the (M)IR component would swamp any pictured you took in natural light. They don't "block" all IR (or everything would look blue). A bunch of IR LEDs (NIR and MIR) strung around a hoodie won't prevent an image from a (non-cheap) security camera identifying you. Either the image will be processed - or, if the camera is high end, the gate rate is too high to register the IR.
In the absence of strong visible light they will capture an image of something that's illuminated with a strong IR source (which is why the poster I replied to "thought" they "saw in the dark"). Processing a "hoodie with IR LED" "hidden" picture to reveal the face is no harder than dealing with an over exposure of natural light.

A cheap security camera isn't much good at identifying you IR or no IR - you'd just be another suss character wearing a hoodie.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[drinkypoo]

You're an ignorant fuckwit tool. There's several Sony camcorders from each generation which include an IR lamp, and IR lamps were actually sold as a pairing with Song camcorders, i.e. Sony HVL-HIRL IR. So when you know what the fuck you're talking about, you are invited to come back and make another comment. But until then, you need to fucking realize that Sony has sold numerous camcorders with this as a listed feature, and that your ignorance has no bearing on reality. In fact, it's also a standard feature in low-end security cameras these days, with many of them including IR LEDs for illumination. I have one sitting in my garage right now.

You, sir, are an ignorant asshole. Fuck off.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

You're an ignorant fuckwit tool. There's several Sony camcorders from each generation which include an IR lamp, and IR lamps were actually sold as a pairing with Song camcorders, i.e. Sony HVL-HIRL IR. So when you know what the fuck you're talking about, you are invited to come back and make another comment. But until then, you need to fucking realize that Sony has sold numerous camcorders with this as a listed feature, and that your ignorance has no bearing on reality. In fact, it's also a standard feature in low-end security cameras these days, with many of them including IR LEDs for illumination. I have one sitting in my garage right now.

You, sir, are an ignorant asshole. Fuck off.

Little boy can't read and throws a tanty.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[drinkypoo]

Little boy can't read and throws a tanty.

I don't wear panties.

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Little boy can't read and throws a tanty.

I don't wear panties.

Oooh saucy! and "you don't know what you're missing out on".

Have another squint. "tanty" not "panty".

Re:Cure worse than disease?

[drinkypoo]

YHBW(hooshed). HTH, HAND.

Fantasy becoming reality

[tatman]

And by that I do not mean cameras and facial recognition. I'm thinking about in games and books where the characters had strange hair and make up styles. Now, it's becoming plausible.

Re:Fantasy becoming reality

[deains]

And by that I do not mean cameras and facial recognition. I'm thinking about in games and books where the characters had strange hair and make up styles. Now, it's becoming plausible.

I looked through the photos, and immediately thought they looked like people out of some futuristic sci-fi show or movie. And then the penny dropped. Now we know why everyone in the future looks like that.

*shiver*

Re:Fantasy becoming reality

[shish]

Now, it's becoming plausible.

It's always been plausible (Go look at a goth nightclub :P), but now we know the reason that everybody in the future does it.

Re:Fantasy becoming reality

[Demonoid-Penguin]

And by that I do not mean cameras and facial recognition. I'm thinking about in games and books where the characters had strange hair and make up styles. Now, it's becoming plausible.

That's not what plausible means.

Re:Fantasy becoming reality

[AlienIntelligence]

And by that I do not mean cameras and facial recognition. I'm thinking about in games and books where the characters had strange hair and make up styles. Now, it's becoming plausible.

That's not what plausible means.

Time to update your dictionary to the 19th century???

plausible (plôz-bl)
adj.
1. Seemingly or apparently valid, likely, or acceptable; credible

The writer was very correct in his usage. Maybe you
haven't seen enough steampunk/cyberpunk movies?

-AI

Re:Fantasy becoming reality

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to update your dictionary. In the future it'll be cybergoth not cyberpunk. Now I know why the Twilight movies are so popular.

Re:Fantasy becoming reality

[Demonoid-Penguin]

And by that I do not mean cameras and facial recognition. I'm thinking about in games and books where the characters had strange hair and make up styles. Now, it's becoming plausible.

That's not what plausible means.

Time to update your dictionary to the 19th century???

plausible (plôz-bl) adj. 1. Seemingly or apparently valid, likely, or acceptable; credible

The writer was very correct in his usage. Maybe you haven't seen enough steampunk/cyberpunk movies?

-AI

Comprehension is not your strong point is it - people have had weird hair and make up since the sixties. Burgess didn't invent punk (or MM)

Plausible as in it's plausible that any of these things will help avoid recognition? No - not a hope. That's just fantasy - like the artists impression of how some one might look to avoid recognition.

Maybe you spend too much time watching movie and playing games.

Re:Fantasy becoming reality

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Now, it's becoming plausible.

It's always been plausible (Go look at a goth nightclub :P), but now we know the reason that everybody in the future does it.

I'm not sure that dress and makeup can be plausible - but I get what you're saying. New Romantics kind of implies there was an old Romantics.

You're not going to convince the ya-hoo spudnicks of that - they've seen everything - from their couch.

Ask them and they'll tell you Berlin is where people wear leather shorts and funny hats with a feather in - and those Japanese get around in kimonos. (sigh). People have been living out their gothic fantasies since Mary Shelley first published - but the spudnicks "think" the French cafe scene is from an episode of the Family Guy where they buy a croissant.

Show 'em pictures of glam rockers from the 70s and they'd think it was science fiction of the future.

People have been dressing up and disguising themselves since mud was discovered - but it doesn't have stop facial recognition techniques (especially the bullshit in the original article).

Subtler alternatives? Climber's sunglasses?

[rtfa-troll]

How would climber's sunglasses, which normally protect the nose and shield the eyes, work for this?

We need a new fashion

[Toe, The]

Also the hairdos are a bit ridiculous. If more than a couple people do this, then wouldn't "the watchers" just flag anyone with preposterous hair for additional scrutiny?

Perhaps the citizen answer is to make bulky glasses fashionable... glasses that have big flanges at the bridge.

As for the IR Hat, is that the new tinfoil?

Re:We need a new fashion

[Nadaka]

Not really, the LED hat actually has some effect for most security cameras currently in use.

And it doesn't have to be just a hat, it could be built into headphones or any other accessory close enough to the face to obscure it with glare.

Of course, anyone looking at the video feed will know that someone doesn't want to be identified due to the glare.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the citizen answer is to make bulky glasses fashionable... glasses that have big flanges at the bridge.

Done!

Replace the red LED with a big IR LED, and go grab some cupcakes!

Re:We need a new fashion

[cayenne8]

Not really, the LED hat actually has some effect for most security cameras currently in use.

I've been wanting to surround my license plate holder on my car with these IR LEDs....and see if they'd blank out my plate to the stupid speed/traffic light cameras....

Re:We need a new fashion

[sjames]

I'm pretty sure I saw some of those styles (the hair and makup) in the '80s. On the principle of everything old is new again, isn't it about time for that to come back around again?

Re:We need a new fashion

[icebraining]

I think the retro fashion is still in the '60s.

Re:We need a new fashion

[X0563511]

Yes, they should - because that's the way they tend to catch idiots misusing MIRTs - the pulse pattern is visible on the cameras.

Re:We need a new fashion

[AlienIntelligence]

Also the hairdos are a bit ridiculous. If more than a couple people do this, then wouldn't "the watchers" just flag anyone with preposterous hair for additional scrutiny?

Hey you insensitive clod, I used to wear my hair that way in the 80s!

-AI

Re:We need a new fashion

[turkeyfish]

Maybe veils will become popular again.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you could stop running red lights... just an option, y'know.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Grishnakh]

No, because glasses with a big flange at the bridge are noticeable too, and authorities would just look for those.

Instead, what we need is something like the old fake glasses with a fake nose attached. If the glasses have something that covers the bridge of the nose with something that still looks like a real part of your nose, but has different dimensions than your real nose, it'll throw off the recognition algorithms while still being totally innocuous looking, as long as the fake-nose part looks really real.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, stupid speed/traffic light cameras - how dare they catch you speeding* and/or running the lights**

*

• you were just going with the flow of traffic
• you were trying to escape faster traffic coming up behind you to avoid a rear-end collision
• you were following somebody who just did a hit&run until the lazy cops could finally join in on the chase
• the camera is wrong, man!
• it was only 8km/h over - that's nothing, it's all just a money grab

**

• you were just getting out of the way of police/ambulance/fire dept.
• you were trying to avoid a rear-end collision... again
• you were following that hit&run guy... still
• they rigged the yellows so it's unavoidable to run the red light, man!
• there wasn't any traffic coming from the other sides, it was totally safe to run that light - it's all just a money grab

Re:We need a new fashion

[publiclurker]

nonsense, people like the parent post are way too self-important to be expected to follow the law like us mere mortals.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Toe, The]

No, because glasses with a big flange at the bridge are noticeable too, and authorities would just look for those.

But if we can make it a fashion, then lots of people will have them.

Now... who on Slashdot is good at setting fashions? Oh. Dang.

Re:We need a new fashion

[interkin3tic]

Ah, the old "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide" argument. Foolish, as it assumes the invasion of privacy will always be used only to increase public safety, and never for more nefarious purposes, while history suggests this will not be the case.

Re:We need a new fashion

[cayenne8]

Yes, they should - because that's the way they tend to catch idiots misusing MIRTs - the pulse pattern is visible on the cameras.

Well, it would only be on the back of my car around the license plate...not in the front (no plate), so I doubt I'd be tripping anything like the MIRT off.....

Re:We need a new fashion

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really want a good way to hide your license plate. Buy one cheap license plate cover, the kind with the acrylic cover and a fancy bezel. Pick up a couple of low power laser emitters and spread prisms. Search online for laser light plane, assemble it all into the license plate cover. Find a transparent film you can apply over the inside of the acrylic cover to filter the laser light (wouldn't want to blind anyone). Before you know it, your license plate will be a glowing rectangle on camera, but perfectly visible to the unaided eye.

If you put in some extra research on the types of cameras used, you can find the wavelengths they pick up and plan your laser purchases accordingly.

Re:We need a new fashion

[mattack2]

They specifically said "speed/traffic light cameras", so you are the one inferring that they're trying to hide their identity for any other reason.

(BTW, it is illegal to try to hide/obscure one's license plate, so that would be yet another law they were breaking, along with speeding and/or going through red lights.)

Re:We need a new fashion

[SpaghettiPattern]

Maybe veils will become popular again.

Long before current discussions on veils became actual, Italy already passed laws to counter that. I's illegal in Italy to walk the streets unrecognisable. Wouldn't be surprised if subtle camouflage techniques all of a sudden would fall into the same category and hence would be illegal too over there. I guess we have to thank Mussolini for this.

Long before the event of Internet, registers were conceived whereby communications and stays could be documented. I once had to register for Internet access using one of these. The revision of the register I used dated 1937. I take it never changed since. Again one of the gems of Mussolini.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Japher]

Red light cameras take pictures of everyone at the light, not just those running it.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Farmer Tim]

I's illegal in Italy to walk the streets unrecognisable.

Attention Venice, you're under arrest.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Pikoro]

850nm should be enough for anybody.

Re:We need a new fashion

[bryan1945]

Must suck on Halloween.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Opportunist]

Yes, I don't want to be identified. Does that mean I have somehow broken the law? Is it not illegal to not want to be spied on, did they actually pour that into law already while I wasn't looking?

Yes, I have no interest in you, or anyone, knowing where I currently am, where I have been or where I will go. Why the hell should I have any interest in that?

Re:We need a new fashion

[Opportunist]

Who said he did? All he wanted is to have his license plate not being photographed. Which makes a lot of sense if you ask me, there's quite a few reasons why I wouldn't want that to happen, none of which have anything to do with doing anything illegal.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Neil Boekend]

Where do you live? Here in the Netherlands only those who run a red light get a flash.

Re:We need a new fashion

[cynyr]

Funny thing about where I live, the kind with the acrylic covers are illegal around here. In fact just about anything that would sit in between line of sight to that actual plate is illegal. You can get a "fix it" ticket in the winter for simply having too much road grime on it.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Also the MIRTs system requires a pulse pattern and I would assume that you would want continuous output for confusing the license plate reading system. So I don't think this would run afoul of the law.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I have thought about doing a similar thing but not to avoid the speed or red light cams but to avoid the automated license plate readers as it seems more departments and states are preparing for them with acquiring cameras and changing the license plate style to be more easily processed by these systems.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Bob the Super Hamste]

This tends to be on a state by state basis. In Minnesota, the state I live in, having something near the plate the would overexpose the image would not be considered illegal. From the Minnesota state statute 169.76 sub division 7:

Subd. 7.Plate fastened and visible.
All plates must be (1) securely fastened so as to prevent them from swinging, (2) displayed horizontally with the identifying numbers and letters facing outward from the vehicle, and (3) mounted in the upright position. The person driving the motor vehicle shall keep the plate legible and unobstructed and free from grease, dust, or other blurring material so that the lettering is plainly visible at all times. It is unlawful to cover any assigned letters and numbers or the name of the state of origin of a license plate with any material whatever, including any clear or colorless material that affects the plate's visibility or reflectivity.

As I wouldn't be covering the plate with anything and it would be clear of debris it would be fine and not run afoul of the law especially since I could prove to any cop or judge that the plate was legible because they could go and look at the damn thing. I have a feeling that the laws in other states are similar in that they deal with covering the plate with something not overexposing an image.I have thought about doing this not to avoid speed cams or red light cams as those have been banned in my state as unconstitutional at the state level, but more to avoid being automatically tracked.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Steve Martin have a slashdot account?

Re:We need a new fashion

[Bob the Super Hamste]

As I mentioned in a previous post in my state an license plate cover would be considered illegal so I couldn't do that. This does give me an idea of overexposing the image as you could probably do a similar thing to your front and read windshield. In my state I would go for IR as it seems Minnesota is getting ready for IR based plate reading with our new style of license plates so a few hundred watts of IR would probably overwhelm their system but it would be invisible to the human eye. I thought about creating a license plate holder that was all IR LEDs but that seemed too difficult to get the power necessary, pumping it out through the windshields would be much easier. This also would have the added benefit of obscuring the driver from any photos taken as well.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Politburo]

I know, it's so crazy that the police want your vehicle identification plate to be able to be used to identify your vehicle!

Re:We need a new fashion

[SkimTony]

Like encryption, the key is to have a lot of people doing this. Then, attempts to scrutinize people with "preposterous hair" would overtax the system. If two people are doing it, then your authorities will just target those two. If two thousand are doing it, then they'll have to pick and choose, and are back to square one.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw leg warmers for sale while shopping for Christmas. The fashions of the 1980's are definitely returning. God help us.

Re:We need a new fashion

[_0xd0ad]

Here in the USA they have to have at least 2 things to get you for running a red light: a photo of the intersection, with your clearly-identifiable vehicle outside of the intersection and the light clearly RED, and second, a photo of the same intersection during the same red light cycle, with your clearly-identifiable vehicle now inside of the intersection. In other words, they must prove that you entered the intersection after the light had turned red.

However, to get you for making a rolling right-turn-on-red they must have a video showing your approach to the intersection, because they must prove that you failed to come to a complete stop before you entered the intersection on red. And in order to get the video of your approach to the intersection, the camera must already be on and recording.

And even in the case of running the red light, the system must photograph the vehicle once before it runs the red light. To do this, it has to detect who is probably going to run the light. So if you come up to such an intersection fast and then stop hard, it may take your picture even if you manage to stop without running the red light. They won't ticket you, since a human reviews the photos. They'll see that you didn't actually run the light, and they will move on to the next recorded incident.

Re:We need a new fashion

[cayenne8]

Any suggestions, ideas about doing it in the IR thing out of the windshields?

Re:We need a new fashion

[X0563511]

I know - but my point being is the same cameras that end up catching people using MIRTs would be effected by your IR LEDs because the cameras must be picking up that wavelength. That might not be every camera out there, and it's easy to defeat (just not being cheap and actually putting an IR filter on the optics) - so do be careful.

Re:We need a new fashion

[X0563511]

See my other respone - I'm not saying to use the MIRT, I'm saying that the fact that the cameras can detect people using them means they are vulnerable to dazzling by IR LEDs.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Spugglefink]

yes, stupid speed/traffic light cameras - how dare they catch you speeding* and/or running the lights**

It's harder to avoid than it sounds when you drive an 18-wheeler.

Scenario 1: You're traveling about 5 mph below the speed limit, easing through the intersection while anticipating and trying to prepare for an abrupt light change. You pass the point of no return, the point after which if you try to stop suddenly you're going to wind up stopped in the middle of the intersection (and probably no longer in line with your trailer.) The light turns yellow. You floor it and go all in, achieving a final speed that's maybe 3 mph below the speed limit. The light turns red. You should have stopped on the green, driver. You should have known.

Scenario 2: You're turning. The light you're at allows three cars to turn before it's red again. You wait patiently for 15 minutes, three cars, five minute wait, three cars, five minute wait, three cars, five minute wait... You're up, you're all the way at the edge of the line, in gear, your foot barely off the clutch, staring at the light, forcing yourself to avoid distractions and avoid even blinking. You stay wound up and ready to spring for an excruciating five minutes, it turns green, and you leap into action as fast as human reaction time permits. After you've changed one gear, the light is yellow, and by your second gear, it's red. You're running the red light in full balls on view of the camera, and there ain't a damn thing in the world you can do about it but smile while your picture is taken.

It's not like the short yellow cycle of such intersections forces trucks to run every red light 100% of the time, but it does make it impossible to avoid running red lights 100% of the time. Red light cameras suck. I think it should be mandatory that intersections with red light cameras also have those advance warning "Prepare to Stop When Flashing" signs that are basically the real yellow light for big rigs. Even that would do nothing to fix the problem with turns. I've run plenty of red lights, and I hate that. The system is broken.

Re:We need a new fashion

[mattack2]

I agree that it varies by state.

However, if red light cameras are legal in that state, it seems to me that there is at least a logical argument that could be made in court that IR emitters make the license not "legible" nor "visible" to the cameras. This statute doesn't say the human eye is what they need to be legible/visible for.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Japher]

In addition to the point made by _0xd0ad, note that camera takes a picture of everything in its field of view which may include the car in front of or behind a car running a red light, and, depending on camera placement, cars which are legally stopped at the intersection. So no matter the country where the camera is deployed, it will probably be capturing innocent vehicles along with offenders.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Bob the Super Hamste]

That was an idea that I came up with after reading the parent's post and haven't had time to see how feasible it would be but a setup similar to the one described by the parent doesn't seem to hard but using high output LEDs instead of lasers. I would think having an acrylic/fiberoptic like connection between the diode and the windshield (similar to what printers and other devices have to move light from the diode to the outside) would work. Then having a clear IR reflective coating on the inside so it all goes out would be my thoughts. It may be costly given the cost of high output IR LEDs but then I don't know how much power would be needed.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Ok now I understand. From your parent post it sounded like you were indicating that a continuous blast of IR was tripping MIRT systems.

Re:We need a new fashion

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead, what we need is something like the old fake glasses with a fake nose attached.

Yes, lets bring back the Groucho Marx glasses! That will be completely inconspicuous.

Illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised about this, In the UK we are all bound by EU law, which clearly states "The right to a private family life" or something along those lines.
CCTV in public places, workplaces and even the local shopping centres is one thing, collecting our faces and being able to accurately identify us based on this spooky technology would fly in the face of this law (no pun)

Re:Illegal?

[trikes57]

"Family life" was probably chose to specifically eliminate any right to privacy in Public Life.

Re:Illegal?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hardly public if this CCTV network is almost outside your house and they use this technology to identify who is leaving/entering your house, see how the public/private quickly becomes blurred?

Re:Illegal?

[xaxa]

I'm surprised about this, In the UK we are all bound by EU law, which clearly states "The right to a private family life" or something along those lines.

So please, the next time you hear someone supporting the Tory's repealing of the Human Rights Act, convince them they're wrong.

A good place to start is asking which human right they'd remove. Or, for level 2, which group of people the rights shouldn't apply to; then in which countries the rights should not apply. At the moment the rights are universal, covering all humans -- British soldiers torturing someone in Iraq is illegal, regardless of the law in Iraq; and non-British people in Britain have the same right to e.g. a fair trial.

(Incidentally, the European Convention on Human Rights doesn't come from the EU, but the Council of Europe.)

Re:Illegal?

[PyroMosh]

No. I don't. Can your neighbors see this? Passers by on the street? How is the camera different?

I'll grant you that it's a difference of degree because the camera can watch 24/7. But it's not a difference in kind. If I am somewhere where I have a reasonable expectation to be seen by other people, I think it's silly to complain about privacy and cameras.

Re:Illegal?

[Opportunist]

The difference is actually the 24/7 aspect. You may assume that your neighbor sees you leaving your house, you may assume that your buddy meets you on the train to work, you may assume that your coworkers see you while you're at work, and the waiter at the restaurant will know where you had lunch.

But they don't come together and exchange that information to produce a profile of your daily life.

That's called stalking. And at least in my country, that's illegal.

Re:Illegal?

[PyroMosh]

But you're talking about the kind of behavior that would be considered reasonable for law enforcement before even obtaining a warrant. In fact, this behavior is sometimes required to build the evidence required to go to a judge for a warrant in the first place.

Stalking is illegal not because of simple privacy rules, or because the stalker might build a profile about you, but because it's a behavior that is frequently linked to violence.

Someone building a profile of your daily life may be undesirable. But can you make a case that it should protected against? I'm not certain that I have a right not to be skeeved out, nor that there is a case to be made for such a right to be enacted.

If you were to pass such rules, where would you place the limits on these restrictions? I've had daily commutes where I realized there was a car I'd see every day from my neighborhood to the same part of the city I worked in each day. I know what parking garage they parked in. I wasn't stalking them, we just took the same route on our commute five days a week. Is it different because I'm not a state actor? If that's the case, what about private cameras?

There are a lot of questions here, and I don't see a strong case for why there should be restrictions on what amounts to public information. But I'm open to hear ideas.

Re:Illegal?

[Opportunist]

Then put the person under surveillance. No problem there.

The difference here is the budget problem this creates if it's done blanket style. The cops would first of all be required to actually have at least more than a hunch to assume someone broke the law before they could start to shadow him 24/7. You can't just go out and don't like the nose of someone, then assign a surveillance team to his observation. It's simply not financially feasible.

That is not the case with cams. You could easily put 100% of the population under surveillance. Now all you need is a racist cop doing cam duty and making it his personal mission to prove that every black person out there is breaking the law. Rest assured, he will come up with enough evidence to at least put a fine on every black person in the country. Why? Because he could certainly come up with something to fine EVERYONE.

That's the main reason I could field against blanket profiling. That it will be abused. All you need is a law enforcement person with a personal agenda. Can you imagine what this would mean in the hands of a cop that already terrorizes his neighborhood with his personal crusade for what he deems "normal behaviour"?

And help you god if you should win a court case against him.

At last!

[rsilvergun]

A practical application for my Warhammer 40K painting!

Cyberpunk, eat your heart out

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome the new DIY beauty tips. Ten bux says Moxie Marlinspike shows up to a con with a full-face tattoo just for this purpose.

Re:Cyberpunk, eat your heart out

[Applekid]

Well, there is a SLIGHT problem with using a tattoo for this purpose. Which should become obvious on your second night on the town.

Re:Cyberpunk, eat your heart out

[AlienIntelligence]

I for one welcome the new DIY beauty tips. Ten bux says Moxie Marlinspike shows up to a con with a full-face tattoo just for this purpose.

Well, there is a SLIGHT problem with using a tattoo for this purpose. Which should become obvious on your second night on the town.

So, what you are saying is... Mike Tyson's tribal tat would be a BAD(?) idea? /s

=)

-AI

Reality catching up to comics

[ThunderBird89]

V for Vendetta and Doktor Sleepless are pioneers of this. Doktor Sleepless's masks carry the added bonus of jamming all RFID tags in a limited area, letting the wearer act free.

Re:Reality catching up to comics

[bryan1945]

Interesting idea- hundreds or thousands of people using Guy Fawks(?) masks while walking around. I'd love to see the law they would try to pass about that. They'd try the "can't conceal face thing", and then come back at them with "It's freaking winter and my face is freezing, so I want to wear a ski mask." Then it would get weird with them trying to target the masks specifically, or try to up set dates when you could wear cold-protecting face masks, etc.

Not sure about the RFID thing, unless you're trying to steal something?

Re:Reality catching up to comics

[ThunderBird89]

It's an in-universe thing. The city Doktor Sleepless is set in has its police duties contracted out, and people need to buy personal protection. Everyone wears multifunctional RFID-tags called Spyme (obvious pun is obvious), that carry personal information, including your protection status. If the nearby officer reads your tag and sees you haven't paid for this month, you might as well get eviscerated right in front of his eyes, and won't move a muscle.
The masks Sleepless gives to a gang jam these tags, and let the gang run free in the city with no fear of retribution.

Well, we will know where the rave is...

[Coldmoon]

The pictures seem to be in tune with the younger set and would not be out of place at your local college campus; especially when there is a rave going on somewhere.

Kids wearing face paint and outrageous hair styles are not going to be noticed other than with the usual disapproving glances from the geezers they pass along the way...

Re:Well, we will know where the rave is...

[Demonoid-Penguin]

The pictures seem to be in tune with the younger set and would not be out of place at your local college campus; especially when there is a rave going on somewhere. Kids wearing face paint and outrageous hair styles are not going to be noticed other than with the usual disapproving glances from the geezers they pass along the way...

What - like long hair, floppy hats and beards worked?

I don't think you quite understand the full picture

Use something else

[Obble]

I would suggest everyone start wearing Burkas.

The only down side to that is that it might attract some more attention as well since I am a man.

No plan is perfect :-(

Re:Use something else

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen man in burka at the mall before. Or they were very tall women with large manly hands...

Avoiding facial recognition of the past

[biodata]

Sure this was reported on here last March, but this was all I could find: http://thinkgeek.shill.slashdot.org/index2.pl?section=&color=indigo&index=1&view=popular&duration=-1&startdate=20110316&page=46

Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all well and good until masking your identity becomes the same thing as covering up your license plate. illegal

Re:Yeah...

[John Hasler]

isn't it already illegal in France?

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW it's already illegal in the US to cover your face in many (if not most) jurisdictions...

Re:Yeah...

[Bob the Super Hamste]

The solution then isn't to cover it but to overexpose the image so nothing of value shows up bonus points if you can leave a residual image on the sensor. I do wonder how much power one would have to pump out in a given area to cause a permanent residual image on the sensor?

Re:Yeah...

[CmdTako]

In 1845, the State of New York passed a law which authorized the pursuit and arrest of anyone who “having his face painted, discolored, covered or concealed, or being otherwise disguised, in a manner calculated to prevent him from being identified, shall appear in any road or public highway, or in any field, lot, wood, or enclosure.” So you're only 167 years to late.

And another old story

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we actually have some NEWS on Slashdot? This story has been around for years, usually described as the Adam Ant effect.

First Step - address the visual DB

[Gr8Apes]

The first step would be to stop making this easier for the government by posting and correctly tagging all those Facebook and flicker, etc, photos.

In fact, if you really want to start messing with this, get photo manipulation software, and on an entire sequence of photos stretch the nose a little, reduce the space between the nose and mouth, lengthen the chin, change the eyes a little, essentially changing all the standard measurements useful for visual identification, then "poison the well" by continuously posting these slightly altered shots up on these tracking sites and tag them appropriately. I'd personally even round robin tag them with friends names, or random ones if you don't already have a history to overcome, just to confuse the matter even more. (What, you didn't think that those pictures and info weren't available to the government, did you? They're the biggest, and free!, ID DB ever constructed)

All the other stuff, wrap around mirrored glasses that are IR/UV opaque etc will only assist in keeping them from making an easy match.

Re:First Step - address the visual DB

[KingSkippus]

Let me know when you're able to train your technophobe mom on using Photoshop to lengthen people's noses and stretching their chins, and when you're able to convince your sexting teenage cousin that it's not kosher throwing pictures of everyone up everywhere.

While I don't necessarily disagree with you, practically speaking, it's not going to happen. That genie is already out of its bottle. We need to start from the fundamental assumption that the data is out there and will be collected, and figure out from that what we need to do.

Re:First Step - address the visual DB

[Anonymous Coward]

Certainly. But we should also spread the word about the potential of facebook &Co. being used for bad, privacywise and freedomwise.

Those of us that can bare possibly being seen as obnoxious spoilsports should convince people to migrate to a distributed system owned and controlled by the users.

We should put a freedombox in every home (when thesoftware is ripe enough).
http://freedomboxfoundation.org/

Re:First Step - address the visual DB

[Gr8Apes]

Let me know when you're able to train your technophobe mom on using Photoshop to lengthen people's noses and stretching their chins, and when you're able to convince your sexting teenage cousin that it's not kosher throwing pictures of everyone up everywhere.

Funny enough, iOS users have this little app called "Fat Booth" which will handle both issues above as it is exceptionally easy to use and "fun", apparently. I'm sure there's an equivalent for Android out there as well. No computers even needed.

For the teenagers, the more off pictures, the better. If we could convince them at the same time to tag them with funny names, it'd resolve itself quickly.

While I don't necessarily disagree with you, practically speaking, it's not going to happen. That genie is already out of its bottle. We need to start from the fundamental assumption that the data is out there and will be collected, and figure out from that what we need to do.

Just a few users can poison the well pretty handily, at least for a targeted set of subjects. Once the integrity of the DB goes low enough, it becomes essentially useless.

Re:First Step - address the visual DB

[martin-boundary]

We need to start from the fundamental assumption that the data is out there and will be collected, and figure out from that what we need to do.

With those constraints, there's only one thing we can do. That's a technique called poisoning the well. It's a repurposing of spamming technology for Good(TM). The idea is to add sufficient contradictory information all over the place that the real information, which is also out there, cannot be separated from it, and thereby becomes too unreliable to be used.

Re:First Step - address the visual DB

[Gr8Apes]

Of course now we're both being tracked....

Re:First Step - address the visual DB

[Inda]

I've done that on my G+ profiel photo. The eyes are twice as big as normal. The aspect ratio changed. Truely munged.

My father commented on it. He said there was something different about me. "You've taken your glasses off" he finally said. That's a win in my book.

Re:First Step - address the visual DB

[biodata]

It should be pretty easy to knock up a website that can take in a pic, find the face, modify it subtly in a randomise way, and give the person their modified pic back. Maybe there could even be a Facebook app that would do it.

Yech!

[oldmac31310]

It's the eighties all over again.

Enough with the poor research.

[91degrees]

especially in the UK where being on camera is simply a part of city life.

The number of cameras in Britain is based on an extrapolation from a single street in London. It's not a particularly reliable figure.

Most of these cameras are privately owned. Do you really believe there's something about Britain that makes private businesses substantially more likely to employ CCTV than in other countries?

Re:Enough with the poor research.

[migla]

Most of these cameras are privately owned. Do you really believe there's something about Britain that makes private businesses substantially more likely to employ CCTV than in other countries?

The law, maybe? I don't think you can put up CCTV cameras willy nilly in some other countries even if you have a shop or pub or something.

Re:Enough with the poor research.

[shish]

I don't know what the figure being talked about is, but one time while waiting for a friend in London, I looked up, and found ~15 CCTV cameras in line of sight; even if that was an anomalously high area, it still seems a bit much...

Re:Enough with the poor research.

[Anonymous Coward]

What country would that be? Most any that I can think of allow such things quite freely. You can generally put up a camera anywhere on your private property in most any country.

Re:Enough with the poor research.

[turkeyfish]

"Do you really believe there's something about Britain that makes private businesses substantially more likely to employ CCTV than in other countries?"

Don't shatter my reality. All this time I just thought the Brits were just so jealous about not having their own Hollywood that they simply just wanted to be on big screen too.

Just think of all those folks who simply were born to mistakenly look like someone else, such a cruel fate.

Re:Enough with the poor research.

[turkeyfish]

Recently the media in South Africa got into a lot of trouble putting up cameras to monitor Nelson Mandella's house.

Re:Enough with the poor research.

[Oligonicella]

Not quite like him putting the cameras up on his own property, is it?

Re:Enough with the poor research.

[EdZ]

Additionally, the vast majority of CCTV cameras are:
a) Not networked, they record locally to a really cheap MJPEG DVR that overwrites itself every day or so
b) Really crap. Think distorted 320x240 at 5fps if you're lucky. And if you're unlucky, a 3x3 grid of those same feeds recorded at 640x480 with a lower bitrate than most MP3s.

Re:Enough with the poor research.

[fremsley471]

We live 3/4 mile from the centre of a large UK city. This is near enough that whilst there are some incongruous solo CCTVs attached to lampposts (assume these are incident-related), you have to walk almost to the centre before you're on camera all the way. This area also contains the highest concentration of pubs and clubs.

Our friends, a street away, were burgled in the night last year, the thieves escaping in their car. Two chances to get facial ID on CCTV were a local pub and a traffic camera. The pub had a spiders's web across the vital part of the picture, whilst the traffic camera had an 'awkward' reflection from a streetlight.

There were three burglars, the occupants were in the house, the cops really wanted to catch people as potentially very dangerous situation could occur later, but the CCTV was useless.

Re:Enough with the poor research.

[andrewbaldwin]

I agree - this meme deserves to die.

It has about as much credibility as my saying the population of the US is 80 Billion* based on extrapolating the population density of New York across the land area.

Can't we make a collective New Year's resolution to stop parroting stereotypes and to actually think/check sources/apply some critical analysis once in a while?

*rough order of magnitude - intended for illustration.

Re:Enough with the poor research.

[PseudonymousBraveguy]

Germany: You are only allowed to put up a camera on your private property if it is not possible to identify any persons not on your property

Re:Enough with the poor research.

[91degrees]

Ironically, I post saying how privacy in Britain isn't a bad as all that, and then this happens

baseball caps and hoodies

[Colin Smith]

Render CCTV pretty much 100% ineffective.

Or maybe it was just ineffective anyway.

Re:baseball caps and hoodies

[rubycodez]

that's what pick-pockets wear all right, but that attracts cop attention too.

Re:baseball caps and hoodies

[Sentrion]

My local Subway has a sign on the front door: "For security purposes, please remove hoods and sunglasses before entering." I usually comply, but I don't think I would if I was planning to rob the place.

Re:baseball caps and hoodies

[John Hasler]

I'm glad I don't live on the same planet you do.

Re:baseball caps and hoodies

[turkeyfish]

So do most banks now.

After airports have all the body scanners they need, places like Subway, Walmart, Drugstores, etc. will soon be the only viable markets. Expect these to be required in every store near you in the near future. After all, no one will object unless they have something to hide right?

Re:baseball caps and hoodies

[interkin3tic]

I don't know about that. The cost is still pretty high on those for a walmart. Even if the prices come down significantly, you'd need to pay someone to monitor the nudie pictures, which is an additional salary to be paying. They'd need to be armed, since detecting concealed weapons on someone is not too useful if you can't do anything about it. That requires training and insurance against shooting an innocent bystander, not cheap either.

TSA does it because cost is not an issue, they're spending our tax money. Airports all do it because they have to by law. Private establishments aren't going to be willing to pay that type of money, and since they aren't required to, they won't. If some business implements it, and they don't have a monopoly, their competitors aren't going to be wise to do it themselves, and will have an advantage in terms of costs and in terms of some of us still care about our privacy.

Re:baseball caps and hoodies

[Anonymous Coward]

you'd need to pay someone to monitor the nudie pictures

I'm sure they can find plenty of people who would do that for free....even given the demographic of Walmart shoppers (everything is a fetish to someone).

Re:baseball caps and hoodies

[Opportunist]

No problem there, my IR leds are on my glasses.

And no, I cannot take my glasses off, unless you want me to stumble over your furniture, sorry.

Re:baseball caps and hoodies

[Anonymous Coward]

Many local places have a sign on the door "No Firearms Permitted." I usually comply, but I don't think I would if I was planning to rob the place.

Re:baseball caps and hoodies

[Anonymous Coward]

TSA does it because cost is not an issue, they're spending our tax money.

TSA has a budget and no blank checkbook. That's not how government works. Congress passed a law saying

(a) Weapons and Explosives.â" The Secretary of Homeland Security shall give a high priority to developing, testing, improving, and deploying, at airport screening checkpoints, equipment that detects nonmetallic, chemical, biological, and radiological weapons, and explosives, in all forms, on individuals and in their personal property. The Secretary shall ensure that the equipment alone, or as part of an integrated system, can detect under realistic operating conditions the types of weapons and explosives that terrorists would likely try to smuggle aboard an air carrier aircraft.

Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Pub. L. No. 108-458, Â 4013(a), 118 Stat. 3719 (codified at 49 U.S.C. Â 44925(a)).

So that's what they did. Don't like it? blame these guys. Nearly everyone voted for it. You won't want to be soft on terrorism!!!

Human facial recognition?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could it be that we use the same techniques to identify faces? After looking at the pictures of the recommended makeup/techniques, they all looks a little off kilter and weird to me...

How do you not recognize a facial?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're pretty impossible not to notice but I doubt a computer could tell if it's a facial or just some goo

The terrorists have worked that out already

[Chrisq]

They just wear burkas.

Re:The terrorists have worked that out already

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Timothy McVeigh was infamous for wearing a burka.

Re:The terrorists have worked that out already

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG! You named one christian terrorist that had a different modus operandi then an islamist terrorist. You are a true paragon of tolerance and multiculturalism! Lets dismiss all the suicide bombers that hidden their 'gear' under a burka for sake of political correctness...

Re:The terrorists have worked that out already

[sentimental.bryan]

I don't believe any suicide bomber has done so in the UK (worn a burka). Apart from a single significant instance in 2004, the people with the greatest history of random slaughter in the UK, have been 100% white, without exception and indistinguishable from any other indigenous inhabitant of those blighted isles. The only 'white' country in which Islamists have carried out operations used Burka clad female suicide operatives has been (arguably) the Russian Federation, specifically Chechnya and Dagestan. The vast majority of the camera's in the UK are trained on the white, Christian, shoplifting, drunken assaulting, raping, whoring, speeding, drug dealing natives. Of course, most of the population think they were put there by the EU - because the Daily Mail tells them what happens.

Eh...

[king neckbeard]

I was kind of hoping this would be something that would make computer recognition fail while still being pretty subtle to human eyes. I'm not sure of the methods, but there are plenty of factors that we could make use of. For example, CCTV tend to be higher up than human height, and take 2D images. So, perhaps a technique may involve masking shadows from a certain set of angles in a subtle way that avoids detecting a face shape while not being too noticeable by normal people.

Re:Eh...

[dredwerker]

I was kind of hoping this would be something that would make computer recognition fail while still being pretty subtle to human eyes. I'm not sure of the methods, but there are plenty of factors that we could make use of. For example, CCTV tend to be higher up than human height, and take 2D images. So, perhaps a technique may involve masking shadows from a certain set of angles in a subtle way that avoids detecting a face shape while not being too noticeable by normal people.

A hat :)

Re:Eh...

[Anonymous Coward]

[snip]So, perhaps a technique may involve masking shadows from a certain set of angles in a subtle way that avoids detecting a face shape while not being too noticeable by normal people.

A hat :)

I am considered reasonably normal, and i would notice a hat quite fast... /mh

And now add plenty of false positives, too.

[Shackleford Hurtmore]

I read about his work a couple of years ago. He has come up with a good way to prevent a facial recognition algorithm getting "true positives", but I think to truly mess with The Man, how about my idea for a textile pattern to also generate lots of spurious "false positives": http://shacklemore.blogspot.com/2010/04/facial-recognition-camoflage.html Hopefully, if enough people wore this fabric, any real-time facial recognition algorithm would start getting CPU bound, and limited by the speed of running hundreds of database queries against it's back-end database.

Countershading

[Anonymous Coward]

They should also try counter shading :D
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/76/Abbott_thayer_countershading.jpg
On the left is a camouflaged shape, and on the right it has been countershaded

This is old news...

[cayenne8]

I saw this documentary many years ago, that explains how NOT to be seen..

;)

Re:This is old news...

[iter8]

I saw this documentary many years ago, that explains how NOT to be seen..

;)

Or perhaps, you hide the event of being there.

Re:Hooray for Surveillance!

[CanHasDIY]

After all, you don't need to hide if you haven't done anything wrong.

Right; because Justice is blind, and no one get jailed over bullshit.

now, do us all a favor and take a flyin' fuck at a rollin' doughnut, you hideous troll you.

Learn to change the distance between your eyes.

[John Hasler]

It's like wiggling your ears, only a bit harder. Come on, practice! You can do it!

You might want to work on shortening and lengthening your nose, too.

Re:Learn to change the distance between your eyes.

[turkeyfish]

I think Michelle Bachmann has this down pat, which is maybe why she was appointed to the Intelligence Committee.

yeah, but...

[Thud457]

do you want to go with the "America's Most Wanted" set or the "Seperated at Birth" ?
fun, but in different ways, see...

Re:yeah, but...

[Shackleford Hurtmore]

I think the "America's Most Wanted" shirt would make an ideal "freebie" to give out at to unsuspecting members of the public who I don't like the look of.

Accessorize!

[Brooklynoid]

This look would go nicely with my tinfoil hat.

Simple

[arthurpaliden]

Eye patch. Wear it on a different side depending on the day of the week.

Re:Simple

[turkeyfish]

I prefer those Groucho Marx Nose and Glasses costumes, since you can get them on discount come Halloween. This should be especially with those libertarians who can't quite break away from the GOP, when they sing "Whatever It Is, I'm Against It". That's important since they don't cover your mouth, so you can get the pitch right.

The End of the World:

[siphonophore]

When someone cross-references a 200GB torrent of amateur porn photos with the facebook database

Re:The End of the World:

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as facebook has very powerful datacentres and an API for facial recognition I can reasonably see this happening.

knee jerk

[spaceman375]

I've been looking forward to decent facial recognition for decades. Especially in "cash registers." No more PINs, signatures, passwords to make up and then remember, no card swiping, bumping, etc. Heck; no cards at all in my wallet for loss or picking. Despite following "The Dead" back in the day, no, you can't steal my face. Just smile at the camera and go. Want to log in? My desktop should just follow me around wherever the nearest screen is. No more carrying a keychain (or barcode chain). My car should just recognise me and not be willing to start for anyone else without checking with me first. Same thing with the locks on my house. Tech like this is a good thing. How it gets used should be controlled and applied ethically, not just shot down with a luddite approach in the name of privacy. Go back to your shrill call to "Think of the children."

Re:knee jerk

[pclminion]

My car should just recognise me and not be willing to start for anyone else without checking with me first.

You're at a remote campsite, out of cell range. You've been drinking. You trip over something and fall in the fire pit, burning your face beyond recognition. Your girlfriend tries to take you to the hospital, but the car doesn't start when she turns the key. You die of shock. Your girlfriend dies from exposure 12 days later.

Re:knee jerk

[Anonymous Coward]

That could never happen.
I mean, seriously, a slashdot reader with a girlfriend?

Re:knee jerk

[Anonymous Coward]

Your girlfriend says to herself "This is very bad! I must summon help" and activates the personal locator beacon she was carrying (because it's a "remote campsite" of course you took a beacon, right?). A helicopter shows up 20 minutes later and rescues both of you. "Thanks again emergency SAR resources, you saved our imaginary lives".

Re:knee jerk

[spaceman375]

Losing your keys is far easier than losing your face.

Re:knee jerk

[msk]

Your lantern has gone out. It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Re:knee jerk

[swilver]

Just make sure the system is not fooled by a good photo of you then.

Re:knee jerk

[Pecisk]

How this got modded insightful? I can make such scenarios thousands - with happy endings. It is mererly "OMG in some combination of very bad luck and not taking First Aid kit when traveling to campsite and with no help around I can die!". Wow, guess what. Even now you can still die in such combination.

Re:knee jerk

[PseudonymousBraveguy]

However, lending your key to somebody else is much easier than lending your face...

Integration into culture

[CAIMLAS]

Waiting for things like this to become integrated into your local gang culture like black hoodies and sunglasses in 5, 4, 3....

How about something easily removeable?

[Beorytis]

It needs to be removable if you're going to visit a place (like banks or government offices in the US) where covering your face is illegal. Also: Making your face less identifiable as a face has got to have some social implications. Are people going to be comfortable talking to you?

Re:How about something easily removeable?

[FatLittleMonkey]

Looking at the sample images on TFA, this doesn't make you unrecognisable (or untrackable) for human observers. On the contrary, it makes you stand out like crazy. So people enforcing "don't cover your face" rules wouldn't bother with this, because you'd be seen as highly distinctive and therefore retroactively identifiable if you do something like rob a bank. (Unlike a mask, or hoody+sunglasses; because they are generic and interchangeable.)

Instead, it makes it harder for automated systems to create easily searchable location databases, and eliminates real-time automated tracking. Which means someone would have to manually go through recorded footage, which raises the cost and effort, which limits such searches to specific crimes after the event.

(OTOH, if you need facial recognition for accessing bank accounts and government services, you're screwed. But then, during trials and roll-out, the failure rate will affect the rate of expansion of the technology. So if you're willing to take one for the team, being as hard to identify as possible increases the failure rate, slowing the rate of uptake for the rest of us.)

Re:How about something easily removeable?

[CmdTako]

It needs to be removable if you're going to visit a place (like banks or government offices in the US) where covering your face is illegal.

or New York(State) Go RTFA.

Treat the Disease, Not the Symptoms

[Phoenix666]

The disease is the out of control kleptocracy--corporations and the 1% dismantling everything good about our society. Learning different techniques to fool facial recognition software, etc, etc will only ever be used be a few while most will acquiesce. In short, it will make no difference to the trajectory of the path we're on.

The only, definitive way to put an end to all this crap is to tear down this failed system and start on America 2.0. America 1.0 got a lot of things right, and those things should be kept. But we also got some things wrong, and other things have developed that the original designers couldn't have foreseen. So let's wrest control back from the corrupt in that good old American way, non-violently if possible, by force of arms if necessary.

But sitting around, wasting time on weasel tactics like these is completely counter-productive. Let's act preemptively and use technology to destabilize the 1%, put them to flight, and make sure the crap they've been up to never happens again.

Re:Treat the Disease, Not the Symptoms

[Anonymous Coward]

make sure the crap they've been up to never happens again.

You actually think that is possible? You must not have studied your history. Not that it would matter, all history teaches us is that we do not learn from history. Those who remember the past are condemned to watch it be repeated.

The reason words such as "oligarchy" and "fascism" exist is because all of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.

If we could stop it, we already would have.

Re:Treat the Disease, Not the Symptoms

[Ats]

Good post, though I don't live in the US, but in the Finland where we've got a possibly worse government, but in different ways.

One major cause for all the corruption may be your constitution which places too much power in the hands of a single person, the president.

Whenever you've got a single person controlling too many things, you've got more possibilities for corruption..

Where I live the politicians are overall even sillier than in the US, but we've got possibly less corruption because the voters effectively get way more influence in who will ultimately be made ministers. With us, the members of the "house of representatives" effectively choose the ministers from among themselves. They will usually be people who have got a lot of votes themselves, though not always..

Re:Treat the Disease, Not the Symptoms

[ToddInSF]

Don't fool yourself, rule by a corrupt committee is still corrupt. Especially if the public didn't even vote any of those ruling members in. Wait a minute, isn't there a name for that ?

Re:Treat the Disease, Not the Symptoms

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, if these techniques were a.) caught on and b.) were actually effective, they will just be Made Illegal. If France can ban religious attire (which strangely enough, happens to be an effective way to hide from surveillance), and the UK police can force people to remove any face coverings on demand, then don't think this will be tolerated for very long. Expect a nice vague wording of 'anti-facial recognition techniques' in the law, and a throw in a few high profile cases of people being arrested or shot for having too low a fringe. The peasants will soon get the message.

This is another fine example of nerds who think that the empowerment and personal freedom that knowledge brings in cyberspace can be extended to the real world. Technical counter measures against the imminent global police state are marginally plausible when they are strictly limited to online interactions, but the moment you step out of your front door you better toe the line, or be armed and be willing to die.

Re:Subtler alternatives? Climber's sunglasses?

[AlienIntelligence]

How would climber's sunglasses, which normally protect the nose and shield the eyes, work for this?

Here, let me google that for you...
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+does+facial+recognition+work

-AI

Re:Hooray for Surveillance!

[turkeyfish]

Until the politicians begin taking bribes from companies peddling equipment with very high levels of false positives.

Even easier method

[WebManWalking]

Just walk around with your head up your ass.

The Ugly T-Shirt

[rkasper]

Sounds like the Ugly T-Shirt from William Gibson's _Zero History_.

Here's a Question for Submissions

[Niscenus]

Why are we linking to another site that links to the site of interest while adding nothing new? We could get all of this from the originating site; it's not like it would increase the number of people who RTFA.

They still can track your cellular brain implant

[Roark Meets Dent]

Camoflauge face paint may fool some of the cameras some of the time, but the government can still track you 24/7 using the cellular brain implant that you didn't even know was there.

No new fasion needed

[Radtastic]

A baseball cap, sunglasses, and a dust or surgical mask would cover up the nose and cheekbones. Bonus: you won't even stand out that much in a crowd as more and more people are doing this for health reasons.

in many states

[way2trivial]

Civil Recovery
Stores are (all states are different) allowed to go after anyone caught with civil penalty for the cost of their loss prevention measures

the amounts can readily run near a grand for items that cost well under 10... this goes directly to the merchant.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120347031996578719.html

Re:They still can track your cellular brain implan

[russotto]

Camoflauge face paint may fool some of the cameras some of the time, but the government can still track you 24/7 using the cellular brain implant that you didn't even know was there.

Mine's on T-Mobile. Good luck to them.

How would the classic hood and glasses hold up?

[AHuxley]

Recall hiding your face with large sunglasses and hair with a hood - commented on with end user facial recognition back in 2009.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-10363727-248.html
Useful in winter/spring/fall and large sunglasses are easy to find.
"We threw in more than 50 shots that included large sunglasses--none of which were picked up as recognisable."
Anyone into todays Local Feature Analysis (LFA) vs the hinted at speed of nodal point databases like to comment on eye distance detection vs lens color and hood cover needed?

The problem with pre-planned conversations

[Anonymous Coward]

A good place to start is asking which human right they'd remove. Or, for level 2, which group of people the rights shouldn't apply to; then in which countries the rights should not apply. At the moment the rights are universal, covering all humans --

I've got to stop you right there. I've attended quite a few political discussions (I've never ran for office myself but I have some background in political activism, I've prepped people who've ran for office, etc.) and you might be surprised with how many (possibly most) people disagree with something you've said so far.

There are a lot of people who disagree with the concept of human rights (Some are just internet I-know-it-alls with Aspergers, others have interesting interpretation of utilitarian worldview, others are national socialistic, whether they identify with that tag or not...) They would probably say something along the lines of "Value of a person is derived from what they contribute to the society. It's silly to say that every single person has same rights, etc."

Then there are people who would actually disagree with specific rights (such as right to privacy) being important.

And the people who have a thing for authority and dislike democracy completely. Those might be anything from unemployed skinheads to educated pseudo-intellectuals who've read too much Nietzsche.

And, of course, the large amount of people who just don't care about any of these.

So... Convincing people to support/oppose pretty much anything is very difficult. The exception is, of course, if it directly affects the person financially (such as price of gas).

Re:The problem with pre-planned conversations

[xaxa]

A good place to start is asking which human right they'd remove. Or, for level 2, which group of people the rights shouldn't apply to; then in which countries the rights should not apply. At the moment the rights are universal, covering all humans --

I've got to stop you right there. I've attended quite a few political discussions (I've never ran for office myself but I have some background in political activism, I've prepped people who've ran for office, etc.) and you might be surprised with how many (possibly most) people disagree with something you've said so far.

My argument is applicable to Britain, where (I think) most people are in favour of these rights, if they think about it. But most mentions of them in the press suggest that only "bad" people benefit from them.

The talking so far has been about replacing the Human Rights Act with a "British Bill of Rights", but there has been no detail on exactly what that would mean. Hopefully it won't happen -- the HRA is a fantastic bit of law. That the government doesn't like it is a good reason to keep it...

Low-tech answer

[ThatsNotPudding]

Wear the disposable face masks as they do in Japan. Bonus: plausible deniability of the accusation of 'hiding' your face.

What about fancy sticking-plaster ?

[advid.net]

Use a sticking-plaster instead of makeup. Removable and faster than drawing patterns.

Imagine some fancy sticking-plaster on the face: looks like one have been slightly wounded and couldn't find the ordinary color on the shelf.

Unintentional prophecy?

[GameboyRMH]

We've all seen these makeup patterns by now, funny that it reminds me of the face tattoos from Mirror's Edge and a lot of cyberpunk makeup (something very similar was seen in the Blade Runner movie IIRC).

Judge Dredd

[sita]

There is a Judge Dredd episode where the crime syndicates make it a fashion to facial plastic surgery to look completely feature less.

Re:Do what?

[Custard Horse]

hot glue IR Diodes to the brim of a baseball cap

I read that as "IR dildos" at first. Certainly a bold method of preserving one's anonymity I thought..

Length of nose and... The Fact Checker?

[tepples]

A skin mold might work if it makes your cheekbones look different, and definitely if it makes your nose look different (change the bridge, or the length of the nose).

Wouldn't a skin mold that changes the length of the nose just make someone look like a liar?

Madonna was born this way

[tepples]

Of course it can recognize Lady Gaga. You just have to set it to Like a Prayer-era Madonna.