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Facial Recognition Failed in Boston Bombing

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Re: Facial Recognition Failed in Boston Bombing

#71

Post by glesica »

securingsincity wrote: post #38
afarrell wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, the lockdown was voluntary, though with strong community pressure to comply. But yes, multiple subsystems failed in the police response. If you listened to police scanners, you also heard that they had some trouble identifying streets correctly, or keeping their mics off when not talking. But police response protocols are one human system that definitely needs to be able to work in the face of multiple subs…

to be fair if you live in Massachusetts you would know, all of the streets are not marked as you would expect in other areas. If there are street signs at intersection often times only one of the streets is marked.

GPS?

Re: Facial Recognition Failed in Boston Bombing

#72

Post by mkopinsky »

tokenadult wrote: post #64
apawloski wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way to ask this without sounding snarky, but: why?

Towns in Massachusetts were laid out before the invention of the automobile.

Why don't they go now and label all the intersections properly?

Re: Facial Recognition Failed in Boston Bombing

#73

Post by [deleted] »

ck2 wrote: post #23

Not just facial recognition, the "terror watch list" failed (after a warning from Russia about the older brother) lack of background checks on the AR15s they owned failed, the secured perimeter failed (the teenager was outside of it) the city lockdown failed (the guy smoking the cigarette outside when he saw the blood was technically violating the lockdown). In the end it was mostly dumb luck, dumb criminals, and the…

[deleted]

Re: Facial Recognition Failed in Boston Bombing

#74

Post by ajdecon »

kevincennis wrote: post #47
ck2 wrote: post #23

Not just facial recognition, the "terror watch list" failed (after a warning from Russia about the older brother) lack of background checks on the AR15s they owned failed, the secured perimeter failed (the teenager was outside of it) the city lockdown failed (the guy smoking the cigarette outside when he saw the blood was technically violating the lockdown). In the end it was mostly dumb luck, dumb criminals, and the…

It seems disingenuous to say that facial recognition failed. As far as I can tell, all the images we had of these suspects were either very low-resolution, taken from angles, or both. Seems plausible that law enforcement didn't have any good candidate images from which to run a facial recognition search. > In the end it was mostly dumb luck What? Painstaking police work went in to getting images of these suspects, an…

> It seems disingenuous to say that facial recognition failed. As far as I can tell, all the images we had of these suspects were either very low-resolution, taken from angles, or both. Seems plausible that law enforcement didn't have any good candidate images from which to run a facial recognition search.

"Failed" might be too strong, but I'd definitely say it's not yet ready for deployment.

My impression is that the Boston marathon was extremely well-photographed from a variety of angles, by everything from nearby security cameras to folks in the crowd. This seems like the best kind of data set you'd reasonably expect outside a controlled environment (i.e., a lab or security checkpoint). If it's not yet good enough to at least flag possible matches based on this data, I'm not sure I believe it's ready for widespread use.

Re: Facial Recognition Failed in Boston Bombing

#75

Post by AutoCorrect »

melling wrote: post #27
jhonovich wrote: post #12

I am the author of the referenced article. The problem is matching surveillance camera images (like from Lord & Taylor's) is impossible because of the steep down tilt angle of the cameras plus their low resolution. Smartphone images could be a little better as the angle is more head on and the resolution is higher. However, even those images tended to be in a wide field of view which means low pixel density, hurting…

Why is surveillance video not HD? Shouldn't this quality be almost a commodity by now? How different are these cameras than what you get in, say the latest Samsung Galaxy S4, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S4

with so many distributed cameras, why not use them to make a composite, hi-def image, like we do with radio telescopes?

Re: Facial Recognition Failed in Boston Bombing

#76

Post by MichaelSalib »

ck2 wrote: post #23

Not just facial recognition, the "terror watch list" failed (after a warning from Russia about the older brother) lack of background checks on the AR15s they owned failed, the secured perimeter failed (the teenager was outside of it) the city lockdown failed (the guy smoking the cigarette outside when he saw the blood was technically violating the lockdown). In the end it was mostly dumb luck, dumb criminals, and the…

that more wounded people didn't die thanks to fantastic work by the hospital and doctors

The EMTs and hospitals did marvelous work, but one nonobvious fact that helped a great deal was that the bombing was within 2 miles of FIVE DIFFERENT level 1 trauma centers. All five are world class teaching hospitals and one of them, MGH, had been recognized as the best hospital in the US at one point.

There are several states that don't have even a single level 1 trauma center....

Re: Facial Recognition Failed in Boston Bombing

#77

Post by lostlogin »

bazillion wrote: post #69
ck2 wrote: post #23

Not just facial recognition, the "terror watch list" failed (after a warning from Russia about the older brother) lack of background checks on the AR15s they owned failed, the secured perimeter failed (the teenager was outside of it) the city lockdown failed (the guy smoking the cigarette outside when he saw the blood was technically violating the lockdown). In the end it was mostly dumb luck, dumb criminals, and the…

What you fail to realize is that the "terror watch list" you speak of doesn't hold people on it from just any hearsay. The articles said that the FBI did its due diligence and found no reason to continue an investigation on them. Think about it this way: would you want just anyone to be watchlisted based on tips that could be politically motivated, intentionally misleading, or just completely factually inaccurate? Wh…

Fringe guy in part of the world. Usually these guys have been Americans in America as far as attacks within the USA go.

Re: Facial Recognition Failed in Boston Bombing

#78

Post by anigbrowl »

ck2 wrote: post #59
kevincennis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems disingenuous to say that facial recognition failed. As far as I can tell, all the images we had of these suspects were either very low-resolution, taken from angles, or both. Seems plausible that law enforcement didn't have any good candidate images from which to run a facial recognition search. > In the end it was mostly dumb luck What? Painstaking police work went in to getting images of these suspects, an…

The brothers didn't leave the area, didn't go into hiding and were able to kill a campus officer and hijack a car, all without police finding them for a week. It was mostly dumb luck. It's not like they were hiding! Oh, and http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/03/27/hanover-police-trying-...

The brothers didn't leave the area, didn't go into hiding and were able to kill a campus officer and hijack a car, all without police finding them for a week.

I know you dislike law enforcement in general, but such casual exaggeration isn't helping your case. As of today, it's only 6 days since the bombings took place. The bombings happened late on a Monday morning. By Thursday evening, there were photos and videos of the suspects all over the media. There's a good chance that that's what flushed them out of cover.

Re: Facial Recognition Failed in Boston Bombing

#79

Post by anigbrowl »

dyno12345 wrote: post #67
marknutter wrote: post #13

How hard would it be to throw off facial recognition by simply wearing very high quality makeup and prosthetics to alter your facial appearance (ala hollywood movies)? If I were the boston bombers, I would have first learned how to make myself look completely different. It's unbelievable to me that these guys didn't realize they'd be captured on tons of cameras that day.

http://www.amazon.com/Accoutrements-Fuzzy-Glasses-Classic-Di... Costs $3, will beat any facial recognition

'Classic disguise, unless you already look like this'

:)

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