
Juggalos figured out how to beat facial recognition - lnguyen
https://theoutline.com/post/5172/juggalo-juggalette-facepaint-makeup-hack-beat-facial-recognition-technology
======
yathern
The title of this article seems to imply that face painting was intentionally
used among Juggalos to deter computerized facial recognition - of course we
know that's not the case. Though to be fair, somewhere in the history of the
practice, it may be argued that it was to throw off human face-recognition.

This reminds me of a sort of creative look into futuristic fashion I saw a bit
ago:

[https://cvdazzle.com](https://cvdazzle.com)

Where the fashion of the future is made to be expressive while preventing mass
surveillance.

~~~
tzahola
Checked the cvdazzle site. Why do these models - and models on "high fashion"
photos in general - look always like they feel deep contempt towards the
viewer? Where did this trope come from? What are they trying to suggest? I
don't get it.

~~~
danharaj
They're trying to have a neutral face so it doesn't distract from what they're
modelling.

~~~
tzahola
But it's not a neutral face. It's a face of disdain and contempt.

This is a neutral face:
[https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/styles/a...](https://cdn.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/styles/article-
inline-
half/public/field_blog_entry_images/shutterstock_114522091.jpg?itok=a7EVvRFs)

And this is the face of disdain I'm talking about: [https://encrypted-
tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSGkhmT...](https://encrypted-
tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSGkhmT2x0fhKItaDSLmrBPiDSaHYt2TccXHGNV4_5aPWpXIsxlZg)

~~~
philwelch
Especially to Western eyes, resting faces--some in particular--can often be
interpreted that way because we're so used to forced smiles. This is
particularly true for strangers because we don't have the experience to read
their individual emotional expressions.

> So Jason Rogers and Abbe Macbeth, behavioral researchers with international
> research and innovation firm Noldus Information Technology, decided to
> investigate: Why are some faces seen as truly expressionless, but others are
> inexplicably off-putting?

> ...

> The researchers enlisted Noldus’s FaceReader.... The software...analyzes the
> image and assigns an expression based on eight basic human emotions:
> happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, contempt, and “neutral.”

> To establish a baseline, Rogers and Macbeth first had FaceReader assess a
> series of genuinely expressionless faces. Those expressions registered about
> 97 percent neutrality, Macbeth said...

> Then they plugged in photos of RBF all-stars Kanye West, Kristen Stewart and
> Queen Elizabeth. Suddenly, the level of emotion detected by the software
> doubled to six percent.

> One particular emotion was responsible for the jump: “The big change in
> percentage came from ‘contempt,’” Macbeth said.

Source: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-
entertainment/w...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-
entertainment/wp/2016/02/02/scientists-have-discovered-the-source-of-your-
resting-bitch-face/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.934e6e0ade8e)

~~~
dingaling
Re: forced smiles. I encourage other adults not to say 'smile' when taking a
photo of their children. Their natural expressions are often funnier and more
insightful especially years later.

------
newswriter99
No they didn't.

"Juggalo face makeup is better at throwing off facial recognition software
than intentional methods."

There's your headline.

God I'm so tired of intentionally-misleading headlines. Clickbait nonsense.

~~~
codetrotter
I agree with you. The Juggalos painted their faces but someone else discovered
its effectiveness in fighting facial recognition.

FTA:

> According to Twitter user @tahkion, a computer science blogger for
> WonderHowTo, Juggalo makeup outmatches the machine learning algorithms that
> govern facial recognition technology.

~~~
kbenson
While I think it's impossible to do with this crowd, because we've already
been biased by this conversation, it would be interesting to run the phrases
"Juggalos figured out how to beat facial recognition" and "Native Americans
figured out the secret to a healthy lifestyle" (or some other positive
association from a positively associated group) randomly across focus groups.

I _suspect_ people will come out with more problems accepting "figured out"
for a negatively associated group than a positively associated one, even
through I think the meaning of that wording is identical in both phrases.

------
theoh
Reminded me of this, by JP Lewis in 2001

Lifting Detail from Darkness

[http://www.scribblethink.org/Work/Talks/dalmatian.pdf](http://www.scribblethink.org/Work/Talks/dalmatian.pdf)

This application sketch describes a high quality method for separating detail
from overall image region intensity. This intensity-detail decomposition can
be used to automate some specialized image alteration tasks. Our work was
motivated by the movie 102 Dalmatians, which featured a dalmatian puppy
without spots. Animal handlers determined that the obvious idea of applying
makeup to the dog was not possible – evidently there was no suitable makeup
that was both safe to the dogs and that would stay in place during normal dog
activity (including licking). This left Disney TSL with the task of painting
out all the spots on the dog every few frames (the paintings were carried for
a few frames with a simple scheme). The spot removal task was larger than
anyone guessed, and ultimately required a large number of artists (up to 40)
working for eight months. The problem also proved to be more difficult than
expected from an algorithmic point of view. As the spots often had visible fur
texture, initially it was believed that there must be some simple compositing
technique that could lighten these spots.

------
Confiks
More specifically: Juggalos figured out how to beat facial recognition tech
trained on normal faces and trying to recognize normal faces.

While the black and white paint does seem to negate a lot of natural contrast
human faces have – and on which the recognition of faces is currently based –
there seems a lot of information left to recognize specific faces, especially
when considering stereovision or even possible pulsed laser reflection / LIDAR
based solutions (think long-range iPhone X sensor).

Even if the recognition of an individual within a database of millions yields
too many false positives, the set can be further refined by considering other
subject metadata, say geolocation or social connections.

While considering this, it's still important to not succumb to privacy
nihilism. Not everything is lost, but it's hard to practice that when
'beating' facial recognition tech means "looking like a fucking juggalo" [1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452411](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17452411)

~~~
crankylinuxuser
Speaking of that, I already fed in data from a kinect of the infrared region
of interest from a LBP cascade.

It works to identify the perceptual hash of the depth and contour of the face.
It beats all makeup, completely.

~~~
piyh
I'll need some makeup artists from Star Trek TNG to help me get ready in the
mornings.

~~~
crankylinuxuser
Qa'pla

------
docker_up
Once this technique becomes more widespread, get ready for laws that make it
illegal to fool facial recognition, similar to wearing masks, etc.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
I would imagine there is a pretty strong first amendment case against such
laws in the United States. Mask laws have been successfully challenged on
those grounds (though sometimes the challenges have been unsuccessful).

~~~
jstarfish
Your bank will likely not let you in if you're wearing a hat or sunglasses.

"No shoes, no shirt, no service" has also been a thing for as long as
convenience stores have been around.

Not that far of a stretch to think this will ultimately extend to face paint.

If you want true anonymity, just wear a motorcyle helmet everywhere. We still
don't know who The Stig is.

~~~
kolpa
> Your bank will likely not let you in if you're wearing a hat

I've never heard of this.

> "No shoes, no shirt"

That's health code, not appearance.

~~~
jdietrich
_> I've never heard of this._

There's a rap record label in the UK called "No Hats No Hoods", because of the
ubiquity of that sign in certain parts of London.

[https://nohatsnohoods.bandcamp.com/](https://nohatsnohoods.bandcamp.com/)

~~~
mirimir
OK, but it's not a thing in the US. I pretty much always wear dark glasses and
a big floppy hat in the summer, and have never been challenged at my bank. But
then, maybe that's because I'm that guy in that hat ;)

~~~
astura
I'm American. I can confirm my bank has a sign that says "no hats, no hoods,
no sunglasses" on the door. The enforcement seems lax; if you have certian
skin colors at least.

~~~
mirimir
Huh. Maybe I've just never seen the sign. Or maybe they don't have such signs
in my sleepy little town. And then, there's the fact that I'm an old ~white
guy, and everyone knows me. I mean, I have received mail with no street
address. Just name, city, state and five-digit postal code :)

But here's the thing: Nobody except my ISP even knows that I use a VPN. Nobody
knows that I'm interested in online privacy and security issues. Because I
only get into that online, using VPNs and Tor.

------
heyyyouu
Face recognition technology is proving to be fairly (if not wildly) inaccurate
when in the field: [https://pureai.com/articles/2018/05/15/facial-recognition-
st...](https://pureai.com/articles/2018/05/15/facial-recognition-struggles-
false-positives.aspx) It looks like the base photos are big issue, but of
course there are other factors.

~~~
jdietrich
"Accurate" isn't a terribly meaningful description. We really need to talk
about sensitivity and specificity. If you're looking for a very low-
probability event (a terror suspect in a random crowd) then your facial
recognition algorithm needs to have phenomenally high specificity to be
useful, otherwise you'll be glutted with false positives.

This isn't a problem isolated to facial recognition - many cancer screening
tests are worse than useless, because the harm of unnecessary treatment due to
false positives outweighs the benefits of early detection.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy)

------
pssflops
Are they still considered a gang via FBI's classification? Might be more a
criminal act to be a Juggalo than to circumvent facial recognition.

------
gexla
In case anyone is wondering "What is a Juggalo?"

[https://genius.com/Insane-clown-posse-what-is-a-juggalo-
lyri...](https://genius.com/Insane-clown-posse-what-is-a-juggalo-lyrics)

Among other things, a Juggalo...

> He's a graduate He graduated from...well At least, he got a job He's not a
> dumb putz He works for himself scratching his nuts

Given this, nothing would surprise me about any headlines referring to
Juggalos.

------
mirimir
> People are constantly trying to come up with ways to work around facial
> recognition technology using everything from rigged hats (if you’re out in
> public) to heavy pixelation (if you’re online).

Why does "online" necessarily involve facial images? I've used this image[0]
for several years. I did use a cropped and fuzzed version of this[1], for a
while. And other images, for other personas.

0)
[https://s3.amazonaws.com/keybase_processed_uploads/7c420e0c6...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/keybase_processed_uploads/7c420e0c6aaec5a59dbb540a2fe30805_360_360.jpeg)

1)
[https://russia.wcs.org/Portals/32/images/News/Vladimir%20Ars...](https://russia.wcs.org/Portals/32/images/News/Vladimir%20Arsenyev%20foto.jpg?ver=2016-09-28-032154-880)

------
cornholio
Face recognition is a great example of a privacy-toxic technology thwarted by
something like GDPR.

As soon as you cross the line from mass recording of anonymous images to
recognizing individuals, even in a public space, you require consent.

The only problem is that the main users of face recognition, security agencies
and government are not subject to GDPR - that needs to be restricted in a
future version because today it wouldn't have been politically feasible.

~~~
kodablah
> Face recognition is a great example of a privacy-toxic technology thwarted
> by something like GDPR [...] security agencies and government are not
> subject to GDPR.

Sounds to me like it is the opposite and implicitly condones its use by
excluding those organizations. The larger the law-built divide between
government rights and non-government rights becomes, the less likely any of us
entrepreneurs will be able to counteract it. Next, people will be cheering a
law that prevents people from developing facial recognition technology.

~~~
cornholio
Not sure I understand your logic. We moved from a free for all to a
significantly restricted regime for personal data. There is, for the first
time, a continent-wide recognition of the social value of privacy. This was
achieved despite gargantuan efforts to quench it by the affected interests.

And this is a bad result because it doesn't go to the politically impossible
extreme? It's a foot in the door, we have a fighting chance for an universal
right to privacy. That's the only way to restrict governments and the only way
to get _that_ is to convince the general public that it'a a right worth
fighting for. The GDPR is a massive step in that direction.

~~~
kodablah
These are similar arguments the proponents of the Patriot act made, lauding
the protection it provides and the great achievement in passing. Lots of
people don't see this as a big enough issue for the sweeping changes that have
been made, and to go from free for all to free for some scares people. We
shouldn't confuse the universal right to privacy with the universal
requirement for privacy. Not everyone wants the latter and it's not our role
to "convince" them as though they are ignorant. Almost everyone agrees with
the goals/intent of the legislation, but the implementation leaves a lot to be
desired as did its predecessors. They just keep doubling down instead of real
pragmatic solutions such as actual enforceable statutes and education. It's so
many failures on so many levels, but since it was done with the right idea it
seems to get a pass.

------
Apocryphon
So this explains why there's face-painted neo-barbarian tribal subcultures in
cyberpunk settings.

------
crwalker
I hope there is a better solution than returning to the bauta.

Venice faced a related challenge (in a small city any passerby has a good
chance of facial recognition) and it seems that their masks were sometimes
used around the year for anonymity.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_of_Venice#Carnival_ma...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_of_Venice#Carnival_masks)

------
indoorfish
When did avoiding mass government surveillance become such a tame conversation
topic?

------
justboxing
None of these 'hacks' work because almost all involve putting something on
your face or your head.

I think the holy grail would be if someone comes up with a tiny device that
you can wear on your ear, or around your neck, that emits something invisible
and that which only obscures cameras.

That way, the humans interacting with other humans in public are not looking
like clowns in makeup and having normal interactions, while obscuring and
befuddling the big-brother cameras.

I tried to research this in 2015 and was told about infra-red ray emitters.
Not sure if there's any truth to it, or if it's even possible. If any of you
have made any progress on this and would like to collaborate, please contact
me. Email in bio.

------
lapinot
I'm surprised no one mentioned that you can actually achieve somewhat the same
thing and still be mostly unnoticed for human eyes by attaching some infrared
LEDs on a scarf, cap or goggles.

------
saudioger
It happens to trick current facial recognition systems looking for typical
faces... but I imagine it would be well within the possibility to create a
"juggalo" filter that simply adjusts the levels until the impact of the makeup
is reduced enough to grab a face out of?

~~~
lostcolony
Per the article, if you instead rely on a depth map, makeup doesn't work. But
it does prevent basic image recognition.

~~~
saudioger
Right, depth mapping doesn't care about face paint... but I'm saying that even
with basic image recognition you can probably correct for it.

------
Torgo
However the surveillance state still has: gait-recognition, shoe-recognition,
and clothing-recognition.

------
digikata
So it might thwart some newer learning algos, but I wonder how it would do
against the more classical heuristically guided techniques that tend to look
at more invariant characteristics like facial feature spacing and ratios.

------
brettgo1
Facial recognition, how does it work?

------
esaym
"juggalo" man its been awhile since I've heard that word....a long while.

------
woolvalley
If you have to wear that much makeup, might as well wear a mask.

~~~
kolpa
Masks obscure vision and proprioception.

------
tmaly
reminds me of the book scanner darkly by Philip K. Dick.

The people had these suits to mask their face

------
emodendroket
Seems like you could just wear a mask or a balaclava.

------
matte_black
Facial recognition is only “beaten” when a person’s normal face can go
undetected without looking like _a fucking juggalo_.

~~~
mirimir
Maybe you can have advance air support. A drone with an IR laser targeted by a
lens detector. But you'd need to avoid targeting people wearing glasses.

But no, that's silly. Really, you just need to give up on the idea of being
anonymous in public. Because that was never something that you could count on.

~~~
matte_black
If only there were some sort of light we could shine to wash out a person’s
face with, but have it only be visible to cameras and invisible to humans.

~~~
mirimir
That would likely just flag you as someone trying to obfuscate facial
recognition. Making you quite unique, no?

I have noticed that it's very hard to recognize faces of people with very
black skin, under low-light conditions. So I can imagine black makeup that's
100% non-reflective across a wide range of wavelengths. But then there's
millimeter-wave radar. How would one block reflection of mmW radar?

------
qop
Uhhhh, juggalos paint their face and it JUST SO HAPPENS that it beats face
recognition sometimes.

I assure you there was little to no intellectual effort on their part towards
that end.

Fucking magic. All in the motherfucking air.

~~~
sctb
Would you please stop posting like this and start following the guidelines?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
qop
I've never broken a guideline here.

------
halbritt
WOOP WOOP

------
Legion
More like "stumbled into" than "figured out".

~~~
electricslpnsld
"Stumbled into" is the discovery mode for many major scientific breakthroughs.

~~~
kbenson
It's actually a little amazing how many people are stumbling over themselves
to point out how _one possible interpretation_ of the title that implies some
credit is due to this group that people have a generally poor opinion of
couldn't possibly actually have done anything useful.

This, people, is _exactly_ what prejudice is.

~~~
Legion
OR, as was my point, the title as written suggests they were actively engaged
in efforts to evade facial recognition, which is a completely different story.

> This, people, is exactly what prejudice is.

You're reaching.

~~~
kbenson
> the title as written suggests

That is _one interpretation_ (as I covered elsewhere in these comments,
"figured out" is used often in to describe discoveries that were accidental in
nature. Interestingly, rarely to people complain about the wording when it's a
white guy from 50 years ago), and I the fact that people are both jumping to
that conclusion here, are unwilling to consider their interpretation might be
biased, _and_ feel the need to comment on this when it's already been noted
and in numbers that I think are substantially higher than would be seen if the
group in question did not have the same reputation, speaks volumes.

Is it actually so implausible that one of more people that consider themselves
Juggalos (or associate with the group) notices they weren't being tagged quite
the same way when in makeup, and investigated? If it's not so implausible, why
is everyone rushing to point out it's probably not what happened, and if it
_is_ implausible, why do you think that? I don't know whether the discoverer
is a Juggalo. I suspect he's not, from his Twitter feed, but I can't be sure.
I've had plenty of friends into similar tech scenes and also into some weird
shit (and I've been to a Defcon in the early 2000's, which is all the extra
evidence I need). The fact that so many people seem willing to _assume_ he's
not and present that as fact (how many people clicked through to the twitter
feed it to see if the person was associated with Juggalos?) in a refutation of
the title (which only makes sense with that assumption), suggests something to
me.

