Defeating face-recognition systems

[GuerrillaXXI]

I've been thinking (actually, "obsessing" would be a better word) a lot about the nightmarish future we'll see in America and similar industrialized countries with the surveillance grid that's being erected around us. We who are infuriated by the destruction of our privacy need to start thinking really hard about rebelling against the Matrix. Anyone care to discuss ideas?

Face-recognition systems aren't yet completely mature or widespread, but they're certain to be fairly ubiquitous in the near future. As mentioned on other threads, it would be great to see people come up with "fashionable" ways of concealing identity in public. How about wearing a hat with a mosquito head net attached? You'd be able to see out of it, but it would be difficult or impossible for cameras to see in, since they'd be farther away from the mesh than your eyes would be. Muslim-style veils for women (or even men, for that matter) would be another option. Or maybe plain old ninja hoods. Any of these would look silly and/or suspicious if only a single person did it. But if enough people participated and explained what they were doing to any curious passers-by, there's a chance it could catch on, and people who did it would no longer draw attention to themselves.

Anyone else have any ideas? I really think this problem is serious enough that we should be doing more than just complaining about it.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Got mine hanging right up over my desk.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Oh, and stay out of the porno scanners at the airports.

I have no doubt whatsoever that those images are being saved and the next step is databasing them with your name.

That will create a biometric "bodyprint" that can be read just as easily as your face, rendering a mask pointless.

 

[kpitcher]

Face.com - which facebook uses - has a site dedicated to articles on their algorithms. http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/lfw/results.html

Right now most systems get very messed up with anything odd for highlighting especially around the nose. Larger sunglasses would defeat most matches. If google's virtual glasses catch on that may also hinder it further. Anything that keeps the face in shadow would be good, netting may be overkill depending on the camera angle. _MOST_ ctv have crappy image quality for anything further away.

I know on sunny days I currently wear something from http://www.sundayafternoons.com/store/mens-sun-hats/ Helps fight skin cancer and more brim will cause more shadows and worse camera views.

I guess if worse comes to worse there are always the comedy glasses with attached noses

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I've been thinking (actually, "obsessing" would be a better word) a lot about the nightmarish future we'll see in America and similar industrialized countries with the surveillance grid that's being erected around us. We who are infuriated by the destruction of our privacy need to start thinking really hard about rebelling against the Matrix. Anyone care to discuss ideas?

Face-recognition systems aren't yet completely mature or widespread, but they're certain to be fairly ubiquitous in the near future. As mentioned on other threads, it would be great to see people come up with "fashionable" ways of concealing identity in public. How about wearing a hat with a mosquito head net attached? You'd be able to see out of it, but it would be difficult or impossible for cameras to see in, since they'd be farther away from the mesh than your eyes would be. Muslim-style veils for women (or even men, for that matter) would be another option. Or maybe plain old ninja hoods. Any of these would look silly and/or suspicious if only a single person did it. But if enough people participated and explained what they were doing to any curious passers-by, there's a chance it could catch on, and people who did it would no longer draw attention to themselves.

Anyone else have any ideas? I really think this problem is serious enough that we should be doing more than just complaining about it.

facial recognition uses thermal imaging and can probably accurately take a heat signature for each person that looks specifically different.

 

[Kluge]

Oh, and stay out of the porno scanners at the airports.

I have no doubt whatsoever that those images are being saved and the next step is databasing them with your name.

That will create a biometric "bodyprint" that can be read just as easily as your face, rendering a mask pointless.

How about a fat suit for the thinner people? Lots of makeup? A hijab?

 

[Danke]

How about a fat suit for the thinner people? Lots of makeup? A hijab?

U should wear a burka.

 

[pcosmar]

How about a fat suit for the thinner people? Lots of makeup? A hijab?

A barium milkshake.

 

[GuerrillaXXI]

Lots of good replies so far.

Oh, and stay out of the porno scanners at the airports.

I have no doubt whatsoever that those images are being saved and the next step is databasing them with your name.

That will create a biometric "bodyprint" that can be read just as easily as your face, rendering a mask pointless.

That thought occurred to me as well, AF. But so far, the traveler's name isn't associated with the scan itself. When a traveler shows his ID to the first TSA agent at the checkpoint, that guy doesn't punch any info from the ID into any computer -- he just looks it over and gives it back to you. Then the traveler gets into a line to be scanned, and there's usually more than one line, with no order enforced. Thus, there seems to be little to worry about in regard to biometrics collection at those checkpoints -- for now, at least.

It's also not clear that a full-body scan is feasible for biometric identification, since bodies can change quite a bit over time. People gain and lose weight; they can lose height with age; and those body scanners (whether THz or backscatter x-ray) cannot see the skeleton. The thermal profile of a body isn't constant, either. So face recognition is really the main thing to worry about.

 

[Kluge]

U should wear a burka.

You're a meany-pants.

A barium milkshake.

 

[GuerrillaXXI]

Face.com - which facebook uses - has a site dedicated to articles on their algorithms. http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/lfw/results.html

Right now most systems get very messed up with anything odd for highlighting especially around the nose. Larger sunglasses would defeat most matches. If google's virtual glasses catch on that may also hinder it further. Anything that keeps the face in shadow would be good, netting may be overkill depending on the camera angle. _MOST_ ctv have crappy image quality for anything further away.

I know on sunny days I currently wear something from http://www.sundayafternoons.com/store/mens-sun-hats/ Helps fight skin cancer and more brim will cause more shadows and worse camera views.

I guess if worse comes to worse there are always the comedy glasses with attached noses

I really like those wide-brimmed hats. Most cameras tend to be placed up high, so those hats will certainly obscure their view most of the time. In cases where I wanted absolute assurance of hiding my identity I'd still prefer something that completely covered the face; but for general purpose privacy, those wide-brimmed, somewhat-floppy hats are a good idea. To make them even more effective, one could tilt such a hat forward as much as possible and keep one's head down a bit, looking at the ground while walking. Also, one of those hats could be combined with other countermeasures, such as sunglasses or even a fake beard.

 

[Standing Like A Rock]

or even a fake beard.

Or just grow out a real beard

 

[GuerrillaXXI]

facial recognition uses thermal imaging and can probably accurately take a heat signature for each person that looks specifically different.

Actually, most FR doesn't use thermal imaging, though there has been research into using it for that purpose. I don't think the reason for using thermal cameras is to get a unique thermal signature for each person; it's simply to deal with the effects of lighting, e.g., to see parts of the face that would otherwise be obscured by shadows. Apart from that, I don't think it has any advantages over regular FR. Also, thermal cameras are very, very expensive.

The thermal signature of a person's face isn't fixed. In fact, there have been studies investigating the use of the changing thermal signature in the face for lie detection:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18001935

Note that it's definitely not fool-proof even for this purpose.

In any case, anything that obscures the face will also obscure or alter the thermal signature.

 

[GuerrillaXXI]

Or just grow out a real beard

You could, but the advantage of a fake one is that you can take it off or put it on as needed.

A good time to have a huge, massive, ZZ Top beard for real is when getting one's photo taken for a government ID.

 

[donnay]

 

[heavenlyboy34]

If these cameras rely on normal lighting, it's possible to buy photographer's gel-some can be used to make a surface shiny, some for dulling. (I only know a little bit about product photography, but I know this kind of stuff exists and is readily available)

 

[Carson]

I've heard that gummy bear can fool the figure print scanners. I'll bet all you need is a picture on a stick like that big floating Ron Paul head in a video a while back.

Perhaps a jalapeno on a stick to get through immigration.

 

[GuerrillaXXI]

I'd be wary of the sunglasses/hoodie approach, especially as FR systems mature. Vile anti-privacy researchers like Allen Yang of U.C. Berkeley have developed algorithms that let FR systems identify faces even in the presence of disguises ("occlusion"), poor lighting, etc. Here's a Q&A by Yang himself (PDF file):

http://perception.csl.uiuc.edu/recognition/Files/YangA_FaceRecognitionQandA.pdf

As mentioned in the above essay, their method currently only works well for frontal face recognition. Also note that much of the research in this field is done using databases of face images, and these databases tend to be limited in size. Here are some examples. Note the few number of people in the databases:

http://vision.ucsd.edu/~leekc/ExtYaleDatabase/ExtYaleB.html

http://www2.ece.ohio-state.edu/~aleix/ARdatabase.html

Thus, it would seem that success with a particular algorithm using one or more of these databases is a far cry from success with a nation of 300 million people.

Even so, someone who needs to go somewhere without being identified shouldn't take chances. At bare minimum I'd wear sunglasses and one of those hats with the wide, floppy brims. If I were going on "Mission Impossible," I'd wear something completely over my head.

Probably the best rule of thumb at this point is that if someone who knows you would recognize you, then you should assume that a computer can recognize you, too. This may be overstating things at the present time, but better safe than sorry.

-----

Now for some good news. Here's an article on the current state of FR (at least as of 2010):

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/07/09/face.recognition.facebook/?fbid=t__g3ZH4hGG

It's hard to teach a machine to know a human face -- and it's harder still to teach a computer to identify one face from any other.

That may be comforting news for people worried about governments using facial recognition systems to surveil the public -- in effect, ending anonymity.

Technologists say those ideas exist only in science fiction movies -- at least for now.

"I don't think, currently, any facial recognition system is good enough for security purposes -- not even close, actually," said Yi Ma, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, and a visiting researcher at Microsoft Research in China.

Using face recognition for surveillance or to identify people at borders and in airports has been tried in limited settings, Ma said, but it is at least a decade if not much further away from becoming real and reliable.

 

[John F Kennedy III]

Full body plastic surgery once a week. Which you will have to perform on yourself since you can't trust anyone with your identity.

 

[John F Kennedy III]

Or just grow out a real beard

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