Japanese scientists launch face recognition-blocking glasses | Hacker News Reader

Japanese scientists launch face recognition-blocking glasses

rt.com

38 pointsdsr1221 comments

I know who that is! That's the guy with the funny glasses!

Technology like this does not prevent recognition unless lots of people are using it. One glance at the glasses, and I doubt there will be much uptake.

Exactly. Line up with online purchase data and your friends database, and you have even better recognition.

Also: RGPs, as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GI_glasses

[When I was 10 I had black nylon frames like those, and yes, I was made fun of a lot, so I became a kernel hacker :-) ]

See, it even works on people. To hide just rid of the glasses, nobody will remember your face.

They could also actually identify you if they flashed in certain patterns or had slightly differential brightness. The paranoid might have to avoid them or make their own...

As someone who's worked with computer vision, I doubt this is fully effective. It might prevent an exact match, but a good facial recognition algorithm can still whittle down the total possibilities. That's because your cheeks, ears and nose are also used as identifying features. The only effective cover is something that covers whole face.

Yeah, for it to be truly effective it would be to have some sort of halo of IR LEDs that are brighter than the ambiant surrounding light. This is probably not viable due to power requirements/cost.

You could wear these glasses, perhaps in addition to CV Dazzle[1], and be instantly recognizable in real life, and yet unrecognizable to computers. It's an interesting trade off.

[1]: http://cvdazzle.com/

I doubt you would wear them 24/7, and you'd only want to wear them if you intentionally did not want to be recognized (at an airport/casino/robbery) but the fact that you had them on would draw attention to yourself, plus I suspect it'd be easy to trace back to the purchaser if the adoption rate were low.

I don't get how near IR is able to distort facial recognition software.

Let's say I have a camera that cannot record in IR range, just the full spectrum. I can still run a facial recognition software using those photos.

I am well and truly lost about how it works

Almost all image sensors see near IR very well. Most consumer lens block IR very well, to make image similar to that perceived by human. Not so for CCTV lens: they don't block IR to allow human-invisible lighting via LEDs just like in these glasses.

Which implies that this wouldn't do anything to diminish facial-recognition from consumer devices (e.g., facebook auto tagging, Google Glass, etc.)?

Try filming an IR remote control (while pressing a button) with your phone's camera. It'll light up. I think it's pretty cool actually :) (might need to do it in a dark room, depending)

I suppose the GP was talking about actual non-phone photo cameras?

Most cameras record IR.

One step closer to Ghost in the Shell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughing_Man_(Ghost_in_the_Shel...)

Since you brought it up, the Laughing Man does the exact opposite, using image recognition to hide himself.

I was thinking of A Scanner Darkly, actually.

See Elton John for sunglasses that mean you cannot be recognised, apart from "Who the hell is that in the glasses - Elton John?"

Wouldn't some old fashioned mirrored aviator glasses work just as well.

This obscure's the nose's biometrics. But other than that I think you're right.

http://cvdazzle.com

They must have never heard of Groucho Marx glasses

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