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Chinese 'Gait Recognition' Tech IDs People By How They Walk; Police Have Started Using It on Streets of Beijing and Shanghai (apnews.com)
Chinese authorities have begun deploying a new surveillance tool: "gait recognition" software that uses people's body shapes and how they walk to identify them, even when their faces are hidden from cameras. From a report: Already used by police on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, "gait recognition" is part of a push across China to develop artificial-intelligence and data-driven surveillance that is raising concern about how far the technology will go. Huang Yongzhen, the CEO of Watrix, said that its system can identify people from up to 50 meters (165 feet) away, even with their back turned or face covered. This can fill a gap in facial recognition, which needs close-up, high-resolution images of a person's face to work. "You don't need people's cooperation for us to be able to recognize their identity," Huang said in an interview in his Beijing office. "Gait analysis can't be fooled by simply limping, walking with splayed feet or hunching over, because we're analyzing all the features of an entire body."
...the Ministry of Silly Walks.
I know, but now we got it out of the way.
Muh huh huh huh huh ha *CRASH*
It doesn't even matter if it works, only if Chinese people believe that it works.
Grocery stores and other such regularly-frequented public businesses have already been doing this for years in the US, already, where you're still property, but of an anonymous megacorp who won't admit it publicly and you don't even get to know the name of
Put a pebble in one shoe and wear a loose jacket...
Walk like an Egyptian.
as Drug sniffing dogs and this gem.
Basically, it's an excuse for the cops to pull you over and ask questions when you're not doing anything wrong. Heck, if anything it's a good sign that the Chinese are resorting to this kind of mumbo jumbo. It shows their people are starting to become conscience of the notion of civil rights.
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What people do not realize (because they ignore or do not know human history), "criminals" described Jews in Nazi Germany, "politically unreliable people" under Stalin, etc. The next Hitler will get all his victims served on a plate, no way to hide. The only way to prevent that is to ban these technologies outright and very clearly label them as what they are: A tool for oppression that is a severe threat to anybody.
Oh, and actual criminals are either not important enough or get caught just fine without technology like this.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I believe we can thank Frank Herbert for teaching us "Now remember, walk without rhythm, and we won't attract the worm."
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
We've got the Patriot Act and other similarly invasive laws so I'm not so sure there's a big difference.
Only I can judge you.
The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) is an XML-based information exchange framework used by the US government to grease the sharing of information between departments. It was started in the Bush administration in 2005. I first noticed it around 2008 and it contained fields to define PersonGait at that time (version 2 I think).
They have deleted some of these fields since then. I suspect they did so because it gave out too much information about what they are doing though it is also possible the new administration rolled back the push into some of these areas.
The rules for getting data components added to the model include a requirement that the data components must already be in use by at least 2 different departments. So, in 2008, at least 2 departments of the government were using a person's gait as an identifying characteristic.
I have included a list of the fields in the "PersonAugmentationType" data type for the V2.0 version of the spec from a decade ago below. Many are interesting including: body odor, ear shape, finger geometry, gait, hand geometry, keystroke dynamics, lip movement, urine, vein pattern, etc.
The NIEM is publicly available and published on Github. I highly recommend downloading one of the older versions before they sanitized it, like V2.0 or so, and spending some time looking at the spreadsheets that describe it. The insight to be gained in what the government has reason to store about us is extensive.
I very very long time ago -- twenty, thirty years ago -- I read a book on the human art of spying. There was a lengthy discussion about evading capture when spying in enemy territory.
A few pages discussed the concept that when someone is following you, on-foot, through a busy shopping mall, you ought to alter your gait, since that's a very easy way that human eyes track human prey.
The chapter ended with a simple, and straight-forward comment to the effect of: nothing is better than simply placing a small pebble in one of your shoes.
Yes. But do they have "skate" analysis? Longboards are great for getaways too. Decent weapon of last resort as well.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I don't know why the Chinese government bothers to preserve this paper-thin pretense that they give a shit about how their citizens feel about anything and just get it over with: implant tracking chips in everyone from birth so they can be wirelessly tracked 24/7/365 for as long as they live. That's about where they're going with this. It's not like the average Chinese citizen, by now, doesn't already realize that they have zero privacy and zero rights of any kind anyway.
It's just a jump to the left
And then a step to the right
With your hands on your hips
You bring your knees in tight...