
How to be anonymous in the age of surveillance - wallflower
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/special-sunglasses-license-plate-dresses-juggalo-face-paint-how-to-be-anonymous-in-the-age-of-surveillance/
======
lwneal
The article mentions the use of "Juggalo" style face paint to avoid face
detection. This type of countermeasure is effective against conventional HOG-
SVM type face detectors such as [1], but would be inadvisable for daily use.

To deal with more advanced convolutional detectors, consider wearing a hat or
clothing with adversarial patches [2], simple patterns that can be printed
onto stickers. These patches work by feeding the detector inputs that cause an
overwhelming bias toward a particular class (eg. toaster), which drowns out
the real signal (eg. human face). Even the first generation of adversarial
patches are effective against most detectors deployed as of 2020.

[1]
[http://dlib.net/face_landmark_detection.py.html](http://dlib.net/face_landmark_detection.py.html)

[2] Brown et al.
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.09665](https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.09665)

~~~
Polylactic_acid
A lot of these CV hacks work only on existing tech. If I a human can still
recognize a face then it is almost certain that a better CV tool can. The
bulletproof method is to wear clothing that entirely covers your face
religious style clothing comes to mind. Total face covering may not be totally
socially acceptable in your area but it almost certainly is more acceptable
than dazzle makeup.

A fairly casual setup that looks pretty acceptable is to be riding/walking
with a bike, helmet on, sunglasses on and a bandana covering the face (This is
normal to stop bugs).

~~~
KineticLensman
> The bulletproof method is to wear clothing that entirely covers your face
> religious style

There are no methods that will remain bulletproof, for determined adversaries
/ state actors. Biometric gait analysis can potentially defeat facial
camouflage, and the technology will continue to improve, especially as it
becomes more widespread in non-surveillance applications, e.g. athletics and
fitness

See discussion in other comments here

~~~
keiferski
Probably a bit much to deal with everyday, but - what about a line of shoes
that have varying heights, angles and weights? Or even a single pair of high-
tech shoes that automatically randomize these elements every 24 hours.

~~~
melcor
You're probably better off just throwing a pebble or two at random spots in
your shoe. Random height/angles are most likely going to fuck with your joints
and just make it too hard to move efficiently, while a pebble or two will be
annoying but tolerable and should be enough to change your gait up.

------
jandrewrogers
It should be pointed out that the various accessories mentioned in the article
primarily serve to make a statement, they do not actually provide any kind of
practical anonymity from competent surveillance infrastructure. Robust
anonymity can't be created via technical means.

~~~
mirimir
Indeed.

Anonymity in meatspace is arguably a dead issue.

Whenever I leave the house, I assume that I'm under surveillance. So I just
act normal.

Edit: In particular, I play "harmless old man".

~~~
maxaf
If you knew that no surveillance was being conducted, would you be acting any
differently?

~~~
fattire
Remember when answering that they know your IP address.

~~~
mirimir
They know _an_ IP address. But, without a ridiculous amount of work, not _my_
IP address.

But anyway, the thing is that I do know that I'm under surveillance at least
some of the time. So I might as well assume that it's all of the time. Because
it's hard to know.

And sadly enough, I won't even speak freely with my wife, unless she's turned
off her cellphone, or put it in the utility closet or bathroom, with the water
running.

~~~
sdoering
wow. why wouldn't I talk freely. and yes I talk about a lot that could be used
to construct a case against me if some state(like) actor would want to.

So let them. actually I am still hoping for the day at least the US puts me on
a no entry list. I would see this as a badge of honor.

------
thinkloop
I would like for it to be illegal for apps to ask for address-book permission
and similar. Your name, phone number, address, email and other details,
perfectly packaged together, should not be free for any random contact to give
out. The social contract was for only that contact to have the information.
Privacy becomes impossible otherwise.

We need resistance to systems/services/initiatives that enable and encourage
people to leak each other's data to third parties.

~~~
mirimir
That's just one reason why I don't use smartphones.

~~~
hans1729
That doesn't stop others from saving your number/email (probably bundled under
the same contact) next to your name - so long as you have a number.

That, and the classic security/usability-tradeoff, render your implied
suggestion somewhat obsolete, no? Sorry if I'm missing something.

~~~
kxrm
You presume that telecom companies are not selling your information and
haven't been for decades? I can assure you that in the US AT&T sells it's
customer information. They were doing this to land line customers 20 years ago
or more.

~~~
hans1729
That wasn't the point of this thread (at all, mind me). Op said that _ones
contacts_ shouldn't be allowed to share informations about you via perms on
their address-book, as this was never part of the social contract you made
with them when giving them your number.

Someone then argued "thats why I don't have smartphone", to which I responded
that not having a smartphone doesn't affect the aforementioned conflict. So
unless I'm missing something here, you just went entirely off topic.

Regardless: I'm european, so I'm somewhat confident that my ISP doesn't sell
my data due to GDPR; Americas lack of consumer protection isn't really my
business, nor should it be deemed 'the standard', as it isn't just that.

~~~
mirimir
OK, _mea culpa_.

It was basically an emotional response to the idea.

I suppose that at least, not having a smartphone, _I 'm_ not sharing stuff
about others. Except for the number, which is already ~widely known. But I
wasn't thinking that when I wrote the comment.

------
einpoklum
Ironic that the Seattle Times website asked me to subscribe before I read the
story on how to maintain anonymity.

After you subscribe, you probably get a page saying:

"Well, not this way."

~~~
zzo38computer
Disabling CSS works for me, and makes the article readable.

------
BickNowstrom
I really miss the times when these articles were a .txt file with legit tips
on how to improve anonymity. Did not matter that it was written by a random
high schooler, instead of a paid journalist. Now this article title will rank
highly on search engines (authoritative website with paid-to-write expert
content), and people looking for privacy will buy Juggalo face paint to not
look conspicuous when shopping groceries.

------
Nasrudith
Facial recognition highlights one issue that anything which a human can
recognize may eventually be done by a machine. We saw it before for
fingerprints and learned from it that they are not unique as they assumed from
matching terrorist fingerprints with a guy in Spaim who wasn't even in the
country of the attack. Currently facial recognition technology is a terrifying
Morton's fork where it is uncertain if accuracy or inaccuracy is worse. An
inaccurate one accepted leads to false positives. An accurate one leads to
reliable tracking.

Transparency and equal accssibility of data is likely the most viable and just
path in the future given that it is between an arms race and outright
impossible. It would leave everyone on equal footing essentially and minimize
exploitability. It wouldn't be easy to adjust to, especially with embedddd
societal hypocritical expectations. Japan for one has a perfect example in
Sariaman culture that it is expected to head out and get smashed with
coworkers after work but shameful to be identified while drunken. It would be
healthier in the long run for society to learn to rid itself of cognitive
dissonance one way or another. Laws would also need adjusted to keep up with
actual need of enforcement so they don't depend upon selective enforcement -
which is good practice period. Public drunkenness for instance is meant more
for being a drunk disruptive ass than just cuffing anyone with a BAC above a
threshod. Anyway all of that doesn't change the fact that said transition
would be painful.

~~~
RandomBacon
> We saw it before for fingerprints and learned from it that they are not
> unique as they assumed from matching terrorist fingerprints with a guy in
> Spaim who wasn't even in the country of the attack.

A quick search shows that you are talking about Brandon Mayfield. From what I
can gather, there wasn't a collision in fingerprints, but a falty analysis
(arches in opposite directions, etc) on the FBI's part.

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
Why does it feel like we are discussing reality described in Cyberpunk?

Based on everything I read thus far, short of removing yourself from society,
a true anonymity is not available to an average person. And that kinda defeats
the point.

Maybe it would change if politicians' every move was crowd sourced.

~~~
lazyjones
> _Based on everything I read thus far, short of removing yourself from
> society, a true anonymity is not available to an average person._

We have plenty of recent examples here in Europe where people came from
another continent, discarded their previous identity and got a new one based
on their own claims about their age, name, origins, religion etc. ... Perhaps
it's not available to the "average person", just to people from particular
regions, but it's a proven, very effective way to obtain multiple/new
identities.

------
_martamoreno_
There is also a tradeoff between anonymity and target of interest.

All these suggestions only work when a lot of people apply them. Otherwise you
end up just like with using privacy operating systems, like Qubes OS. Yeah,
you will be safer, but everyone also immediately thinks that you have
something to hide, which causes systems to double down on tracking you. You
might even get some human "attention", if you actually have something to hide.
A couple of users using Tor, are not anonymous. A couple of people wearing IR
glasses, are not anonymous. Millions of people using AdBlocker, that's already
doing something. Think of masses.

If you try to be anonymous just by yourself, you are running into the trap of
making your trails so uncommon, that people will still be able to track you.
An example: Qubes OS causes so unique browser fingerprinting, that even under
TOR, I will still be uniquely identified. That's why OS like Tails, spend so
much effort avoiding different fingerprints for different users.

~~~
liamcardenas
Is this[1] your source about the browser fingerprinting in Qubes?

It’s the only thing I could find on the subject.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Qubes/comments/ai5obg/my_whonix_fin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Qubes/comments/ai5obg/my_whonix_fingerprint_is_unique/)

------
droithomme
> To keep reading, please turn off your ad blocker, create an account or
> support us by becoming a subscriber.

So Seattle Times doesn't want me to read this article unless I share my
identity with them so they can sell it to others.

~~~
INTPenis
Without JS I just got a blank page. Enabled the main domain temporarily and I
could see the article but then I was prompted to login with Facebook or
Google. :D

~~~
mirimir
For this and many troublesome sites, selecting reader view as soon as content
loads evades the paywall.

Or for Wired, which apparently doesn't offer reader view, hitting escape as
soon as content loads.

~~~
bogomipz
I'm curious if you or someone else could explain exactly how "reader view"
gets around paywall and login walls. This feature for me has become
invaluable.

~~~
egdod
The body text is all still there. It’s just being hidden by some piece of
JavaScript that reader view ignores.

------
FerretFred
Hahaha .. uBlock origin has flagged 21 blocks, Privacy Badger 12 potential
trackers. "Staying annymous"..

~~~
SQueeeeeL
Shows how hollow most of this "privacy" culture is.

Stallman wgets websites and prints the text to read them, that's real privacy
conscious.

------
surround
I looks like those glasses just overexpose the video. You could probably turn
down the exposure digitally and identify the person.

~~~
ntp85
No, they don't just do that. They block certain wavelengths of light so the
wearers eyes cannot be filmed.

------
0x8BADF00D
No one cared who I was til I put on the mask.

------
oxfordmale
I wonder if people that buy this kind of masking techniques, still have a
mobile phone in their pocket.

~~~
gil
Even if they do:

    
    
      * They are aware of those, and therefore may use other countermeasures.
      * The masking still reduces the "surveilance surface".
    
    

EDIT: formatting

------
agumonkey
Funny Era.

------
boyadjian
You have to accept surveillance, as it increases security of everyone.

~~~
bobbydroptables
No. It decreases the security of dissidents and many people living outside
normal or legally approved modes.

~~~
BickNowstrom
Which Western country uses their military surveillance to decrease the
security of its dissidents? I can't find such as case, while I can find many
cases of surveillance used to stop tragedy. Seems like military surveillance
in the West is predominantly used correctly: to counter terrorism and illegal
crime.

Sharing military surveillance mitigation tricks is not unlike sharing 0-days
against government systems, and can be seen as unethical and
counterproductive: Military surveillance will try to improve their systems,
and bad people will use it to avoid surveillance.

It is too simplistic to deem any and all surveillance as inherently bad and
invasive. No country can ensure the safety of its tax payers if it cripples
their counterintelligence, foreign intelligence, border security,
counterterrorism.

People who deem national security as more important than individual security,
or the security of anti-nation dissidents, or people living outside the
legally approved modes, should be applauded. It is not very nice to decrease
the security of me and my family to obtain an ideological goal.

~~~
anigbrowl
The UK has been flirting with declaring Extinction Rebellion (an environmental
protest group with a preference for street theater) as an extremist group. The
US _did_ designate environmental and animal rights groups as terrorists in law
back in the 90s.

~~~
mirimir
I bet that Earth First was one of them.

[https://earthfirstjournal.org/store/product/ecodefense-a-
fie...](https://earthfirstjournal.org/store/product/ecodefense-a-field-guide-
to-monkeywrenching/)

~~~
anigbrowl
I've only seen the designation applied to Animal Liberation Front and Earth
Liberation Front, but my understanding is that there's considerable overlap
between the latter and Earth First. They're an interesting legal example in
that both groups explicitly disavow the destruction of human life and targeted
their efforts toward property destruction, which is rather at odds with the
popular understanding of 'terrorism' as discussed herein.

[https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/R44921.pdf](https://fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/R44921.pdf)

