Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Police Test Gait-Recognition Technology That Identifies People Based on How They Walk (scmp.com)
You can tell a lot of things from the way someone walks. Chinese artificial intelligence start-up Watrix says its softwares can identify a person from 50 meters away -- even if they have covered their face or have their back to a camera -- making it more than a match for Sherlock Holmes. From a report: Known as gait recognition, the technology works by analyzing thousands of metrics about a person's walk, from body contour to the angle of arm movement to whether a person has a toe-in or toe-out gait, to then build a database. "With facial recognition people need to look into a camera -- cooperation is not needed for them to be recognized [by our technology]," said Huang Yongzhen, co-founder and chief executive of Watrix, in an interview in Beijing. Features like this have given Watrix an edge in catching runaway criminals, who tend to avoid surveillance, said Huang. Police on the streets of Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing, have already run trials of gait recognition technology, said Huang, and the company officially launched its 2.0 version last week, which supports analysis of real-time camera feeds at a mega-city level.
What if your subject wears a long (floor-length) dress with large sleeves? I suspect this will become a fashion thing before long if this takes off...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Is the organization in charge called the Miistry of Silly Walks?
This new ministry shall be known as
Or the Ministry of Silly Walks.
When I was a kid who no-one had yet realized needed glasses, this is how I identified people from a distance. Of course, I was living in a town with 100 people in it, so the challenge wasn't on the same scale.
This is just an excuse for the police to stop you. More of that "broken windows" policing that doesn't stop crime but does let the govt crack down on dissidents.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
you won't attract the police?
They are really running with this whole dystopia theme. Making the west look like slackers in comparison.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
and you will walk differently.
The next dictatorship will be unbreakable.
But don't worry, it is a BENEVOLENT dictatorship forcing upon us a world without hate and bigotry. Not wanting to become subjects is hate. Not wanting to participate in all the nice do-goodery is bigotry. Also, only literal Nazis oppose our benevolent stewardship of the free world.
To beautify our wonderful diverse city of peace, I kindly ask you to PICK UP THAT CAN, CITIZEN
Jonna Mendez talks about this in her masterclass on disguise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You are definitely not catching Keyser Soze like that.
Is this because facial recognition fails in Asia?
There are so many ways of spying and identifying people. But when you need to fill out Bureaucratic papers, it is like you never have existed before today, and you have mountains of papers to fill out just to prove that you do exist.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Then suddenly it's considered evading the police?
Personally I have my phone randomly vibrate when it detects movement in the GPS and have trained myself to automatically introduce hitches in my walk when I sense the vibration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I believe there is grant money available for dissidents to counter this movement. Crazy thing is it has even been available since the 70s.
We're already seeing false positives with license plate reading technology and numbers seem to me to be more identifiable visually than slight differences in gait or posture.
But the police will have a warm body to throw in prison so I guess it will "work" whether or not it actually works.
Over how large a sample size does it work? and with what accuracy?
I suspect as the sample size increases, the accuracy decreases - significantly.
Uses are more likley to be along the lines of a human identifying a suspect on a recording manually, giving the system all the recordings (real time or not) and having it track the suspect without needing the exact location/rotation of each camera and an alternative complex system for the task.
if they could uniquly identify everyone from their gait, I suspect they would be doing much more interesting things with it
Can they tell I'm a woman's man, no time to talk?
Im certain cloaks will become fashionable again.
There is no sense of morality there, and technology only exists as a tool to suppress human creativity and freedom.
Go Athiesm!
Finally, they are cracking down on pirates!
I guess it's time to update all the memes. Out with Winnie the Pooh, in with the Sandworm of Arrakis.
I predict that fashion will adapt to mass surveillance and people will start to dress and make-up in a variety of ways intended to thwart automated ID and tracking systems. Fake beards, mustaches, eye patches, sunglasses, makeup, mixed shoes (platform on one foot, sandal on the other, etc.), leg braces, walking sticks, surgical masks, hats that cover different parts of the face, etc.
Bill Gaits is running the project.
Table-ized A.I.
Remember: if you walk without rythm, you won’t attract the worm.
Only thing about me is the way I walk ...
Robes and large hooded reversible cloaks with modifiable attachments (shoulders, masks) ftw!
See, the thing is, you actually think the Ministry of Silly Walks didn't exist.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Is software! No trailing 's'.
So.. "Watrix says its softwares"
is an abomination. But my Mandarin is much worse, so there you go.
Now excuse me, I must go write more codes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
...you're a woman's man, no time to talk.
Just put in your Cotton Eye Joe tape in your walkman while you walk and you are good to go!
Just do a funny walk whenever you're outside.
Try to catch me now, you crafty Chinese!
There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power tyrants and dictators cannot stand.
Recognition of gaits, whether by measuring microdoppler using a radar or ultrasound, by accelerometers on the person, or by video, has been around for decades. In general, the accuracy is around 80%, maybe 85% on a good day - where you have a set of people it's been trained on, and you ask it to say which person of that set it is.
It's also trivially easy to rehearse someone to "walk this way" to duplicate someone else. Actors do it all the time.
By itself it's not a particularly effective identification modality. You could however combine with some other techniques (monitoring cellphone signals, facial recognition) to improve the accuracy. It also works pretty well for "following" someone through a crowd past multiple sensors, where your goal is more to keep track of entities moving than actually recognize them.
But, as noted, someone who wants to fool it can.
(pebble in the shoe, not to mention illnesses, using crutches, etc.)
It has even been mentioned in the comments on Slashdot. Echelon database schema had gait tracking fields included in it as early as the 90s or 00s. The tech is just waiting for the realtime feeds, data store, etc to make it real time usable. And we are almost there. Just look around a recent American city. They have cameras going up on every traffic light. Tied in with the cameras from major corporations and eventually even small time ones, the cloud is going to see all.
The only difference between China and America today is who the leadership party is, and even then only on a superficial level.
and you wont attract a worm.
I'm not driving, I'm traveling.
It's not a car it's a vessel.
Can it identify Keyser Soze?
It does. Proud to be human.