I see an opportunity to create an apparel or accessory line to hide you from being recognized by facial recognition software
I've been meaning to put some bright IR LEDs on my glasses for some time now.
Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears
71–80 of 102 posts
Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears
#72Sensors on lamp posts is straight from Deus Ex (game of the year 1999).
We live in an increasingly cyberpunk future; I wonder how many other predictions will turn true soon.
Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears
#73Someone that does not want to be tracked by facial or gait recognition, either because he's a criminal or a political activist, will always be able to do that. There might be a race between the recognition software and the circumvention technology, but a dedicated individual will always be able to avoid that. Normal people without any criminal, terrorist or activist intentions will be victims of this massive surveill…
It may happen that the approaches usable against automatic facial detectors would be pretty noticeable for humans around [1], thus rendering them pretty hard to use in practice, and also a target of anti-facial-recognition-paint recognition algorithms.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=dazzle+paint+face+f...
Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does such a scent sensor actually exist outside the nose of some animals?
Maybe, there are the electronic noses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_nose But I'm not so sure how sensitive they are.
You can also classically condition a bee with food rewards to extend its mouthparts whenever it detects a specific odor. You then put the plastic bee cartridge into a device such that when the mouthparts extend, an LED illuminates.
Cheaper than dog noses, but requires a sample of the target odor and some training time. It is conceivable that the "most wanted" could each have thousands of bees trained on their scents, and then those swarms could be divided up onto plastic cassettes, which would each be loaded onto a lamppost. If the targets go near any lamppost, their bee in it tattles its location in real time. The disadvantage is, of course, that you have to go around swapping out old and dead bees for live, fresh ones all the time.
An electronic nose can just report its odor profile, and a central processing server can attempt to match and track targets. All that needs is a bit more bandwidth. But it is likely slower and lacking specificity. You could likely smell explosives or bomb making residues or gunshots or narcotics, but not specifically track Suspect X across the city. That kind of precision would require that people line up at the lamppost to be swabbed, and their swab vaporized and run through a gas chromatograph for a minute or two, which I don't see happening, even in authoritarian Singapore.
Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
>A dog has a sense of smell a million times more sensitive than a human and can track people over miles, even when a trail is days old. Dogs don't work very well in urban areas and there's plenty of tricks to throw dogs off your trail.
I did not mean literally using dogs, but passive sensors installed, e.g. in lampposts. I'd like to see your tricks for dealing with 100,000 such sensors, one on every street corner. (also: https://www.canidae.com/blog/2015/10/can-you-throw-off-a-tra... "In fact, Adam found that it was basically impossible to throw off the scent of a Bloodhound. He crossed a 100 foot wide, waist high river. He changed clothes, poured…
> I'd like to see your tricks for dealing with 100,000 such sensors, one on every street corner.
Misdirection and decoys. How much use are those sensors if they're all detecting you at the same time?
If they become prevalent enough, I could imagine the development of "scent bombs" that would spew out so much of your odor that the sensors for miles around would all detect "you."
Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears
#76Someone that does not want to be tracked by facial or gait recognition, either because he's a criminal or a political activist, will always be able to do that. There might be a race between the recognition software and the circumvention technology, but a dedicated individual will always be able to avoid that. Normal people without any criminal, terrorist or activist intentions will be victims of this massive surveill…
> Someone that does not want to be tracked by facial or gait recognition, either because he's a criminal or a political activist, will always be able to do that. There might be a race between the recognition software and the circumvention technology, but a dedicated individual will always be able to avoid that.
One issue is disseminating the knowledge needed to defeat such systems. I'm sure the CIA and KGB have manuals and training programs to teach those skills [1], but I'm not sure if the information is publicly available in a readily accessible form (e.g. not spread in small pieces among 100 books).
Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would quite literally live in any Asian country before choosing any Western country. You'd choose North Korea over Sweden?
Oh hell yes!
Maybe your government can work out some deal where NK gets you and they get some North Korean who doesn't want to live in NK.
Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears
#78Someone that does not want to be tracked by facial or gait recognition, either because he's a criminal or a political activist, will always be able to do that. There might be a race between the recognition software and the circumvention technology, but a dedicated individual will always be able to avoid that. Normal people without any criminal, terrorist or activist intentions will be victims of this massive surveill…
Genuine question, what is a terrorist ? It seems to be a very fluid definition these days. Anybody can be deemed a terrorist by any establishment. Also, this kind of thinking reinforces the whole "Well, I don't mind being watched by government agencies because I have nothing to hide" reaction, and it's quite frankly worriying.
I'm open to discuss this further though
Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears
#79Someone that does not want to be tracked by facial or gait recognition, either because he's a criminal or a political activist, will always be able to do that. There might be a race between the recognition software and the circumvention technology, but a dedicated individual will always be able to avoid that. Normal people without any criminal, terrorist or activist intentions will be victims of this massive surveill…
>Someone that does not want to be tracked ... will always be able to do that.
I'm sure the Russians doing the Sailsbury attacks didn't want to be tracked by cameras but they were. If top Russian agents can be then probably most other people can be too. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/salisbury-novich...
>the ultimate aim of these ubiquitous surveillance systems isn't really reducing crime, but social engineering
In the UK we've had fairly ubiquitous surveillance systems for a while. In practice the uses have been reducing crime and doing people for minor traffic offences, including me - they uploaded a nice video of me turning right in spite of a no right turn sign, rather to my surprise. I've noticed no social engineering - maybe that's to come?
Re: Singapore to test facial recognition on lampposts, stoking privacy fears
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being Malay? Explain please
Malays can be denied permanent residency permits even if they are married to a Singaporean citizen. My ex is Singaporean and I (white American) was denied work permit, so I researched it intently. We were considering marriage until we saw the thousands of Malays who were unsuccessful despite marriage. Really hidden and heartbreaking. And that's just one example of Han Chinese racism
Sorry but that isn't remotely the experience I have witnessed. Singapore is about hard cash. Nothing else comes into consideration.