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Height and weight are dynamic and can be spoofed. Personal identity is not an exact science, no matter how much we would like it to be, there are always ways t

Height and weight are dynamic and can be spoofed. Personal identity is not an exact science, no matter how much we would like it to be, there are always ways to fake it given the right tools. Consider the roots of the concept: the word "person" originates from the ancient Greek persona, meaning a theatrical mask worn by actors. Per+sona Per: that through which Sona: sound goes

jkaunisv1 10y ago
Gait is pretty hard to spoof. Maybe people could do it for a short people of time but eventually you fall back into your normal way of walking.
- schoen 10y ago
  You could probably get a prosthetic and/or active device of some sort that would eventually teach you a consistent new way of walking. People also claim to have learned new ways of walking through posture exercise like Alexander Technique or Irene Dowd's work, although I don't know if those are big enough changes to be visibly different.
  - jkaunisv1 10y ago
    The thing is, if they're tracking your gait they're also tracking a bunch of other details about you. Even if you learn a new walk, if you don't change anything else they'll realize that's your new walk. You'd have to maintain different personas, with different outfits, postures, gaits, cell phones..and still hide the fact that your phones, if you use any, probably connect to a lot of the same towers & networks. And those personas would still be tracked, even if separately. Sounds like an awful lot of tradecraft for the average citizen.
- ashitlerferad 10y ago
  Put rocks in your shoes, like the characters in Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" stories.
  - drdaeman 10y ago
    It's plain inconvenient to walk like this. The problem is, this doesn't scale. While this could be acceptable for a person some may call a "tinfoil-hatter", it's certainly unreasonable to think of general population to walk with rocks in their shoes and heads masked. So, this doesn't solve the issue.
    - ashitlerferad 10y ago
      Everyone in the book did and it seemed reasonable.
  - mercer 10y ago
    But then what if 'people walking with rocks in their shoes' can be detected (which doesn't seem to complicated to me)? You'd be instantly suspicious and stand out even more.
schoen 10y ago
That etymology is from a Latin word, not a Greek one. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/persona#Etymology https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/persona#Etymology
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

jkaunisv1 10y ago

Gait is pretty hard to spoof. Maybe people could do it for a short people of time but eventually you fall back into your normal way of walking.

schoen 10y ago
You could probably get a prosthetic and/or active device of some sort that would eventually teach you a consistent new way of walking. People also claim to have learned new ways of walking through posture exercise like Alexander Technique or Irene Dowd's work, although I don't know if those are big enough changes to be visibly different.
- jkaunisv1 10y ago
  The thing is, if they're tracking your gait they're also tracking a bunch of other details about you. Even if you learn a new walk, if you don't change anything else they'll realize that's your new walk. You'd have to maintain different personas, with different outfits, postures, gaits, cell phones..and still hide the fact that your phones, if you use any, probably connect to a lot of the same towers & networks. And those personas would still be tracked, even if separately. Sounds like an awful lot of tradecraft for the average citizen.
ashitlerferad 10y ago
Put rocks in your shoes, like the characters in Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" stories.
- drdaeman 10y ago
  It's plain inconvenient to walk like this. The problem is, this doesn't scale. While this could be acceptable for a person some may call a "tinfoil-hatter", it's certainly unreasonable to think of general population to walk with rocks in their shoes and heads masked. So, this doesn't solve the issue.
  - ashitlerferad 10y ago
    Everyone in the book did and it seemed reasonable.
- mercer 10y ago
  But then what if 'people walking with rocks in their shoes' can be detected (which doesn't seem to complicated to me)? You'd be instantly suspicious and stand out even more.

schoen 10y ago

That etymology is from a Latin word, not a Greek one. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/persona#Etymology https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/persona#Etymology

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]