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China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

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Re: China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

#161

Post by elocinstr8t »

nabla9 wrote: post #24

1. Gait detector is functional. 2. Countermeasure: use stone in the shoe, tape and other things to fool the gait detector. 3. Counter-countermeasure: detect artificial gaits. Everyone unrecognized with artificial gait is person of interest.

I was gonna suggest putting a coin to get away with it but then I read #3. Damn, China is screwed. I hope they don't plan to bring this worldwide because although this will be useful in catching criminals, it just might spread paranoia and fear. Then again, maybe it's already happening and we don't even know it yet?

Re: China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

#162

Post by drusepth »

jayflux wrote: post #145
jobigoud wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter counter counter measure: train yourself so your gait parameters exactly match those of a target, to generate a false positive.

I feel like the very point of choosing gait recognition in the first place was because it is difficult to mimic (at that level of detail).

I guess it's time to start dumping more money into cybernetic leg research

Re: China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

#163

Post by informatimago »

cimi_ wrote: post #46

Setting who wants to do this aside in order to avoid the constant 'X is worse than Y' arguments. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that in a near future we will have cameras that can do much more than identification on a massive scale. It may be easy to track things like how stressed, healthy, sober etc. people are without their consent or without them even noticing. And this would be precise , not speculativ…

What kind of world?

When you hypothesize a world where AI uses cameras everywhere to know everything they can about everybody, you haven't characterized that world at all.

First, IS IT REALLY EVERYBODY? (But let's assume for now, it's really everybody).

The question that will characterize the kind of world, is what is done with that information.

You can choose to use it to oppress and repress people; or you could use it to help them. If you detect a person overly drunk, you can send somebody fetch her, and either send her to the police station or to her home. Here you can ask what kind of world you would live more comfortably in? But it has nothing to do with cameras AI, and databases.

If the AI detects that some person is becoming stressed and loses her health, you can use that information to fire her, (bad health leads to bad productivity right?), to forbid her to get insurance, etc, or you can use that information to give her some holidays and schedule a consultation with health services. Here you can ask what kind of world you would live more comfortably in? But it has nothing to do with cameras AI, and databases.

And if the AI detects that some crime is being committed or about to be, you can send the police after or before the damage is done to the victim, and you can put the criminal in jail or send back to his country of origin, or leave him on the streets to try again another crime. Here you can ask what kind of world you would live more comfortably in? But it has nothing to do with cameras AI, and databases.

Re: China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

#164

Post by informatimago »

Tade0 wrote: post #125

My Bachelor's (of engineering) thesis was in biometrics and if there's one thing I remember from the seminars it's that gait along with typing rhythm and voice are these modalities that pop up every now and then only to disappear after a while after their proponents figure out that it's no use. These modalities simply don't carry enough information to reliably identify anyone. Facial recognition works best when you n…

You don't necessarily need to identify one amongst 1.3 billion. (requiring 30 bits of information out of the gait!)

The context is a crowd of about 100 (10 - 1000), in which you are tracking a few percent, and you need to keep "eyes" on an individual, discriminating amongst a few others that have crossed is path.

That said, I'd agree that it looks difficult to help distinguish individuals in a trained team.

Re: China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

#165

Post by pbhjpbhj »

retsibsi wrote: post #119
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems likely other governments are using the same techniques and that our, I'm assuming, Western view of China as overbearingly authoritarian is tainted by a lot of cultural baggage: that the hostility of the Chinese security services towards their own population isn't as markedly different as we imagine it to be, because I - for example - have been carefully inculcated into the idea that Western governments are b…

> it's impossible to trust what our own governments say to us now. Sure, but throwing up our hands and assuming that all states are basically the same probably takes us further from the truth. We've got to make our own judgments somehow, and it's prety clear that despite the many flaws of our Western countries, they are meaningfully more open and tolerant of dissent, investigative journalism and the like than some ot…

>they are meaningfully more open and tolerant of dissent, investigative journalism and the like than some other countries, including China. //

I'd agree with all that. I just don't have any evidence to suggest they're watching us less or have greater ethics when it comes to invading citizens/subjects privacy in secret.

Re: China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

#166

Post by candiodari »

temp-dude-87844 wrote: post #84
cimi_ wrote: post #46

Setting who wants to do this aside in order to avoid the constant 'X is worse than Y' arguments. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that in a near future we will have cameras that can do much more than identification on a massive scale. It may be easy to track things like how stressed, healthy, sober etc. people are without their consent or without them even noticing. And this would be precise , not speculativ…

This kind of world gets built by some people who are excited to work towards this goal, but also by a much larger group of people for whom meeting their daily needs outweighs the abstract, distant drawbacks that they can pretend to rationalize away. It will be built through economic coercion appealing to their livelihoods, and the impacts will be perceived as externalities. Incidentally, this is the same way most of…

The problem is that the same applies for Police, Mental Health, Child Protection services. In those organizations, it does incredible amounts of damage.

In fact, part of the attraction of working in, say Child protection services is the damage you can selectively inflict on others. Same for the police, but much more direct. 15 minutes of research will tell you that they're not doing their duty for the money.

This is WHY you would want the power of government artificially limited by an independent and powerful judiciary.

Re: China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

#167

Post by retsibsi »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #165
retsibsi wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's impossible to trust what our own governments say to us now. Sure, but throwing up our hands and assuming that all states are basically the same probably takes us further from the truth. We've got to make our own judgments somehow, and it's prety clear that despite the many flaws of our Western countries, they are meaningfully more open and tolerant of dissent, investigative journalism and the like than some ot…

>they are meaningfully more open and tolerant of dissent, investigative journalism and the like than some other countries, including China. // I'd agree with all that. I just don't have any evidence to suggest they're watching us less or have greater ethics when it comes to invading citizens/subjects privacy in secret.

That's fair, but I also think absence of evidence is meaningful in proportion to the likelihood that, if evidence existed, it would be gathered and disseminated. In other words, the more closed the society, the more we should assume the worst when the facts are unclear.

In absolute terms whistleblowing is a dangerous game in the west, so it is likely that there's plenty being successfully hidden from us -- and the evidence we do have suggests that surveillance is very intense and intrusive. But I still lean toward the belief that it is probably relatively more restrained, and less likely to be used in completely dystopian ways, than in more secretive and repressive states less constrained by the rule of law.

Re: China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

#168

Post by mcv »

cwkoss wrote: post #155
eigenhombre wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former Polie (10x; IceCube) - I also noticed this there. I wouldn't trust it 100%, but it was pretty reliable. I expect that if you knew that the cameras were watching, you could trick their AI's pretty easily (e.g., by faking a limp), but I'd prefer to confirm that before relying on it :-).

Detecting an unnatural gait is probably a fairly easy AI task, unfortunately. Kind of reminds me of Dunes "Walk without rhythm so you don't attract the worm"

Maybe. I think it's possible to develop a couple of different gaits, though it requires a lot of self-control to restrict specific gaits to specific situations.

Re: China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

#169

Post by jessaustin »

tdb7893 wrote: post #159
jessaustin wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA Drug War was always meant to be racist, and it always has been. See the statements of e.g. Anslinger and Nixon. Seeing mere contingency where intent is clear is a tawdry sort of privilege.

I was just making a weaker claim because honestly I didn't have enough time to properly defend a stronger one on the internet and in my experience ascribing racism explicitly to things takes a lot of effort to defend (though in this specific case that isn't true). Apologies if it was insensitive.

No worries! You describe a real phenomenon w/r/t "proving" racism.

Re: China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

#170

Post by apexalpha »

mhb wrote: post #42

If this is all out in the open in China and many Chinese people even approve of it, wouldn't it be more efficient to have everyone wear ID tags of some kind?

Because those are easier to fake than your face or way of walking. And you want to monitor the people who'd be inclined to fake this.
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