Hacker News Reader

Comment by Polylactic_acid | Hacker News Reader

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).

View on HN

> 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

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.

I imagine these would wreak havoc on your joints though.

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.

I remember in the Bourne Identity (book), the main character puts a rock in his shoe, which forced him to change his gait to not be noticed by surveillance. I wouldn't be surprised if something like that were effective in real life.

Covering your face/gait/etc also doesn't matter if someone can autonomously track the "faceless blob" from your house, to everywhere you go, and back to your house again.

We're getting pretty close to that in some countries. Even in the USA where camera density isn't particularly high - there are so many cities where you cannot get around without using a car. After California eliminated the Steve Jobs license plate law, there's no place where using a car isn't fairly well tracked. With ALPR, Uber/Taxi records...I don't personally see how you can get around a city like Houston or Phoenix without either:

1) Being tracked from your house 2) Breaking the law (covering license plate, stealing car, etc)

Unless I've grossly overestimated the prevalence of ALPR's. I'm assuming there's quite a lot of undocumented ones.

>Covering your face/gait/etc also doesn't matter if someone can autonomously track the "faceless blob" from your house, to everywhere you go, and back to your house again.

For a lot of people this wouldn't be super accurate since they will only see you to the front door but won't know what level you are on.

Baltimore police were using this in 2016 without telling the public: https://www.pss-1.com/ Who needs ALPRs when you have a flying all-seeing eye?

I remember reading in 2016 that this system or another like it was being used in another US city. There don’t appear to be any rules around disclosure, and the costs will only decrease. It could be used in dozens or hundreds of cities already.

>A lot of these CV hacks work only on existing tech

This is true for every countermeasure for every tech. Total covering of the face may be temporarily effective as well. Who knows, maybe it will become impossible to find a bike helmet that isn't connected to the internet with sensors inside it.

Tech already exists to track people by gait, and experimentally by tracking your heartbeat via infrared laser, or so it's claimed.

Oh yeah, was thinking about gait. I don't doubt this at all. The heartbeat thing, I hadn't heard of though. Thanks.

The bike approach would only work if you have a standardised setup.

In the UK I recall at least one motorcyclist that has been tracked down after setting off cameras at silly speeds with a blocked license plate via helmet + bike + location.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com