Prog Rockers
They walk among us - undetectable
Researchers at cyber-defense contractor PeopleTec have found that facial-recognition algorithms' focus on specific areas of the face opens the door to subtler surveillance avoidance strategies. In a pre-print paper titled "Novel AI Camera Camouflage: Face Cloaking Without Full Disguise," David Noever, chief scientist, and …
DOES BRITANNIA RULE? PROG is from the ANZAC countries. FUSION is American.
CAPE STATUS If you’re in a FUSION band and you show up for the gig wearing a cape, you get fired.
Let’s just make this simple: If you are allowed to get away with any Rick Wakeman-style bullshit, then you are in a PROG band.
(DID THE KEYBOARDIST QUIT THE GROUP SO HE COULD SOLO OVER AN ICE CAPADE? That’s PROG, man.
That’s some of the PROGGIEST shit I’ve ever heard of.)
BLACK GUY? If there’s a black guy in the band, then it’s FUSION. (That probably had more to do with the UK/US split than anything.)
SPRECHEN SIE DEUTSCH? Ha-HA! Trick question! If the band speaks German, then clearly it’s KRAUTROCK. Fooled you, fucker!
Courtesy of - Fusion Or Prog? Thoughts On The Dead
An irritating small pebble in your shoe / boot makes a huge effect on gait - really surprising how a bit of discomfort alters your whole walking style.
I would hazard a guess there has not been much effort to subvert gait recognition yet?
I could imagine a user rigged up with a few electrical devices (think TENS style machines on steroids) to induce pain in various areas (ideally feet, legs, back, shoulders, arms so you hit lots of areas for maximum disruption to "default" gait) and so cause a notable gait change from their "default".
"gait recognition" or "gait analysis" is my best means for navigating society, followed by voice recognition. Prosopagnosia is a thing. 'Gait' is the only way outside the home that I could recognize my own mother when she was more than a few feet away from me. I can recognize friends seeing them walk in the dark far away, but not necessarily if I walk up to them in daylight while they're standing and silent.
Gait is subconscious and the result of so many small unacknowledged influences in your early life. It is what is 'natural' to you, and is quite peculiar to oneself. Think about stories where people disguised themselves. Often they imitated old people, because you have to change your gait extravagantly - slowed, methodical, limping, etc. I'm not sure that imitating another same-age person would work, too much of you would bleed through.
So, yes, buy a face mask *and* special shoes. Easiest disguise for walking is stones in your shoes - forces you to walk differently. No help for how your upper body moves, tho.
Much later, someone will realize they can equip doctors and physical therapists with AI analyses of short walks. My orthopedic surgeon friend gets better health impressions from how you walk than from any other diagnostics. There have been studies of longitudinal changes in gait as supplemental diagnostics for various mental and physical declines. Heck, just watching my doctor walk down a hall told me he was going to retire shortly. And two months later...
>Gait is subconscious and the result of so many small unacknowledged influences in your early life.
Stops being though when you want it too - spycraft, actors, dance training etc - you'll struggle to find two films where great actors (eg Alec Guinness, Daniel Day-Lewis, Peter O'Toole etc) have even vaguely similar gaits because they work on that very early on if not first when creating the role.
One of those, "spy disguise secrets" articles had the reference to putting a pebble in your shoe to force a change of gait.
Similarly, tighter clothing can restrict upper body movement too. Or carry a heavy bag in one hand to alter balance.
It's tiring to maintain but I think most of El Reg readership have the nous to be proficient at escape and evasion for at least a day or two.
Not entirely sure how prominent makeup is less obvious than a face mask though, did the researchers try a trollala mask instead?
Well, there's the differences in skirts and dresses verse trousers and leggings, different heel height of shoes, or boots, and makeup styles and hair styles: Women vary their appearance and how they walk and never realised it all works as a disguise against AI recognition!
Don't need to change shoes: Knee braces/straps, support strips (used for sports injuries) or any alteration to clothing that restricts muscle movement in some small, but still significant, way: All of those would make noticeable changes to a person's gate. hell, tight underwear can do that, too: If it's abrasive/rubbing against the skin and threatens blisters or a rash: That'll change how you move.
Flip side, however: How many people walk in a way that's similar enough to cause misidentification? Don't forget: Fingerprints were deemed unique only by taking 100 sets, then selecting 1 of them to compare to the others to show they were unique to the extent of 1 in 100. There was no check for change over time, but for the purpose of identifying one suspect out of a dozen? It was good enough, and the FBI was then able to fool people into thinking fingerprints are unique to the individual and never change.
Starts using LIDAR, or dot mapping like iPhone's Face ID? Makeup might fool 2D only face recognition, but that's only going to remain the state of the art for public surveillance for so long before it becomes cheap enough to improve with 3D mapping technology. First in higher security areas like airports and government buildings (which may already be using it AFAIK) but it'll eventually trickle down to the mass market.
Already where CCTV is smooth video rather than 2 fps freeze frames getting multiple facial angles would probably be sufficient (given sufficient processing power) to tease out the 3D map well enough such that makeup isn't fooling it.
common detective... stories
Memorably at the end of The Usual Suspects the disabled con man Roger Kint (Spacey) hobbles out custody on to the street, straightens up a walks briskly away and gets into a waiting car.
A pair of crutches would work too and I think Sherlock Holmes used these and other prostheses in his disguises.
Perhaps there is a market for disposable latex face masks that make you look like somebody like you but not you? ;)
Perhaps there is a market for disposable latex face masks that make you look like somebody like you but not you? ;)
Well, it's a good excuse to visit Berlin :)
(I would have thought the Trump mask would be best in the 'clowns' category, ditto for Boris Johnson :) ).
I ran into this recently, but in a more prosaic way. I was cooking some meet for a beef stew and the grease ended up on my glasses. Not enough to stop me from seeing stuff, but enough to stop my iPhone from being able to recognize my face. It was really wierd... and sent me down all kinds of wrong paths trying to figure out what was wrong with my phone, as opposed to me. Or more accurately, my glasses. Once I cleaned off the schmutz, all was well again.
What the fuck are you talking about? UK boys all look distinct do they?
What is it with the pointless gender bollocks, it's young people who all look the same! And half the time you can't tell if they are a boy or a girl!!!
AND I COULDN'T GIVE A FUCK HOW THEY LOOK.
(apologies to bob, I think it works better with all the capitals at the end.)