
How to camouflage yourself from facial recognition technology - jamesbritt
http://venturebeat.com/2010/07/02/facial-recognition-camouflage/
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cschneid
So all those cheesy sci-fi versions of the future, with crazy face paint, and
asymmetrical haircuts and such was really just a brilliant prediction?

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ams6110
Interestingly humans continue to perceive all those examples as "faces with
some paint on them." The software is confused, for now. Won't be that way
forever.

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InclinedPlane
There are several future inflection points for facial recognition software.
First, three dimensional modelling, initially just based on stills (e.g. from
a single stereo image pair or laser scan or such-like) but later able to
process video and extract a facial model having some canonical expression,
making matching easier. That alone is a bit scary once you combine it with the
future utter ubiquity of massive processing power, imaging sensors, and
communications. Second, a far more sophisticated facial/body recognition
technology based on fundamental kinematics. You won't be able to fool such
systems by wearing a disguise alone.

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kaybe
The question is, what will be enough? More than you'd need to fool an average
person?

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InclinedPlane
I don't know, but we can infer based on the capabilities of humans. It's at
least possible to recognize someone from the way they walk and other
characteristics, even after they've aged, put on or lost weight, etc. as
people do that sort of thing all the time. Beyond that I don't know that the
problem has been studied well enough to know the limits.

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SoftwareMaven
I just want the system that will do facial recognition based on whom I'm
looking at, find them via social media, tell me their name and how I know
them.

I suck so bad at remembering names and it so drastically impacts my ability to
interact with others, that I think this could be life-changing for me.

Fwiw, I've started looking at the camera/glasses side of the equation; maybe
someday soon! :)

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cluboholic
I feel you! I have the same problem. I can't remember how many times someone
walked up to me saying hello and I froze still cause I can't remember who he
or she is..

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kaybe
Have you two tried tests like this? [1] The condition actually has a latin
name. To bad it can't be fixed, but there are tons of tips for coping with
it.. I'm the same. It's embarrassing sometimes, really, especially on these
big meetings where I sometimes can't tell after talking to a few people
whether I've talked to the next person already.. I'm glad their body language
normally tells me.

[1] <http://prosopagnosiaresearch.org/clinical-tests>

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pavel_lishin
I've also seen demo videos of people walking around with infrared LEDs
strapped somewhere near their face - blinds the cameras.

Although, obviously, this is much more noticeable to whoever's watching the
results.

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sp332
Zoz, won the 2009 DEFCON badge-hacking challenge with something similar
[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/hacking-the-
defcon-...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/08/hacking-the-
defcon-17-badges/)

Edit: Zoz, not Joe Grand

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nl
This article conflates facial detection and facial recognition, which is
unfortunate.

I have no interest in avoiding facial detection, but avoiding facial
recognition is interesting. I'd like to see more subtle forms of camouflage
that aren't as obvious to humans but break the recognition algorithms.

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lloeki
I did not read it that way. The premise is more like facial detection is a
prerequisite for facial recognition, so blocking the former will prevent the
latter.

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nl
Quote from the article: _You can see face-detection evading makeup below. The
examples that have red squares around them were identified. But the ones that
don’t have squares passed facial recognition software undetected_

Based on that (and the image) one would think that detection and recognition
are the same thing. Obviously they aren't - detection is trivial enough to do
reliably in Javascript these days, while recognition is an area of active
research.

 _The premise is more like facial detection is a prerequisite for facial
recognition, so blocking the former will prevent the latter_

This is true, but isn't what I desire. I'm happy for my face to be detected
(eg, cameras use facial detection to take better photos), but I don't want the
system to recognize me automatically.

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drallison
Seen before: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1482784>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1586740>

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jamesbritt
Thanks; dupe detector did not trigger.

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bbg
So Mike Tyson, the boxer, with his crazy facial tattoo, was just way ahead of
facial recognition technology.

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pornel
OTOH such unique pattern makes tracking much easier once face-detection system
is trained for it.

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jamesbritt
A strategy for protestors is to change up or swap facial alterations. Even
without facial recognition software, that makes it harder for cops to track
people in a crowd over time.

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dimatura
This system seems explicitly designed to confuse the most common face
detector, the Viola-Jones system, which is the basis for the face detection
you can find in a lot of cameras these days. Note that detection (is there a
face in the picture?) is a different task than recognition (whose face is
it?). It will probably make face recognition harder as well, but so would
wearing sunglasses, a beard or hair over your face.

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LeafStorm
Of course, there's a problem with this approach. Namely, I (and probably many
others) don't want to be walking around with odd facepaint on all the time.

