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Comment by gclawes | Hacker News Reader

Don't Windows Hello camera devices have some kind of hardware attestation? I'm sure verification schemes like this will eventually go down that path soon.

My guess is that's probably one of the reasons Google tried to push for Play Store only apps, provide a measurable/verifiable software chain for stuff like this.

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That the camera is real doesn't imply the thing it's viewing is real.

As I understand it, 'Windows Hello' requires a near-IR image alongside the RGB image.

It's not the fancy structured light of phone-style Face ID, but it still protects against the more common ways of fooling biometrics, like holding up a photo or wearing a simple paper mask.

Fair enough. That removes the virtual option, and you'll be forced to point the camera at your older brother.

You're not wrong, but I have had to do video verification over a phone once, and it seemed quite advanced. It would flash through a number of colors and settings and take probably 30 frames of you. I presume they're checking for "this came from a screen and not a human", but of course I have no idea how it works, so I don't know if it's truly sophisticated or not.

Windows Hello cameras are all "depth" cameras so a flat photo won't pass muster.

Two flat images, one for each of the sensor's camera

That’s not how they work. They emit structured light in the form of an array of infrared dots and they measure the time of flight to where the dots strike something.

Maybe new ones are different but that’s how they used to be. Little Kinect devices, really, for sensing faces instead of whole people.

You are exactly right. There's a description here:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/de...

These cameras are considered a "secure biometric" device and AFAIK nobody has faked them. I've flagged the poster who said "try two flat images"

You don't need to flag people who make a mistake.

Did you report your neighbours for skirting covid rules to?

>I've flagged the poster who said "try two flat images"

Hello there! It appears you are misapplying the flagging system. While the suggestion may be incorrect, it is not an "egregious comment".

In addition, your comment doesn't follow the Hacker News Guidelines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.

Have a great day!

Yes they do. Part of the reason why you can't use certain webcams that are Windows Hello compatible (I.e. with IR) in recent versions of Windows.

IIRC they had these fingerprinting pads?

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