Re: Nano-boy News

From: Elizabeth Childs (echilds@linex.com)
Date: Sun Dec 19 1999 - 17:13:56 MST


> > Charlie Stross wrote: Put a whole bunch of these metrics together any
you
> > have a "fingerprint" distinctive enough that you could dress up as the
Pope,
> > shave your head, grow a beard, wear an eye-patch and some false teeth,
> > and they'd still recognize you.

Spike wrote:
> Cool! This suggests a man vs. machine type challenge. One could put
> on a costume good enough that ones friends cannot recognize one. How
> long before software person recognition gets better than human? How
> about if we use our best tricks to fool both? Think of Jerry Lewis and
> Jim Carrey. When these two are goofing, it is very easy to recognize
> Jerry and Jim goofing. But would the software grok it? spike

What about wearing a sheet over your head with eyeholes, like a kid's ghost
costume?

What about the whole-body-covering outfits worn by Islamic women?

What about a nun's habit and a really big pair of sunglasses?

What about a person in a wheelchair wearing a mask?

Most of these would arouse suspicion, but I sometimes see women in the full
Islamic get-up in urban areas. Not very often, but often enough that it's
not an automatic cue that one is a criminal.

Also, just as people with nothing to hide use PGP, people who object to such
constant video surveillance might start wearing one of these outfits as a
protest.

I don't know about the state of the art - maybe even a chador isn't enough
to fool the camera.



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