5 ms·

Hmmmm. Without knowing the details of how the image was created it's hard to say whether this is especially interesting or not. For example - why would a 3D mo

Hmmmm. Without knowing the details of how the image was created it's hard to say whether this is especially interesting or not. For example - why would a 3D model based on high-quality photogrammetry be any less "real" than a digital photograph. It's just a few more stages in a processing pipeline that starts with his real face. If however - there was no photographic source material - either for geometry or textures - then it becomes much more interesting. I suspect it's actually somewhere between the two and therefore mildly interesting but not incredibly profound.

jacquesm 9y ago
> For example - why would a 3D model based on high-quality photogrammetry be any less "real" than a digital photograph. Because it isn't. It shows that you can get a digital ID based on the photograph of an entity that technically never existed, it's a texture map around human shaped blank, not a photograph of a human. You can bet that to the authorities this is a real problem.
- nine_k 9y ago
  It is not. Photo quality is low a anyway. What's important is a controlled process that attaches this photo to a hard-to-forge token, such as a passport or other identity document. It confirms that some designated clerk looked at the photo and at the person, and also at other documents confirming the identity of that person, and maybe asked questions to make sure the person is who (s)he alleges to be. That photo is for reference only, and is worth next to nothing without the identity verification process above.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    You're talking to the guy that pioneered digital photos used for identification purposes in 1985 (Goodsports, Alphabet BV, Amsterdam). I think I know a thing or two about the processes involved to get a pass on being allowed to use digital imagery as proof of identity, the one thing that everybody involved from the official side was quite clear on was that any kind of tampering with the image content was absolutely forbidden. So I would expect this piece of art to have some far reaching consequences.
    - jimmywanger 9y ago
      There's de-facto and de-jure. Any tampering is forbidden right? Even the transposition of a pixel is forbidden - it's technically illegal, but as long as it doesn't make a difference then I don't think anybody is going to care - so what if this pixel is cyan in this picture and turquoise in the other. When things are really going to hit the fan is if you are able to have a digitally altered picture that passes the eye test for visual verification but is useless somehow for facial recognition algorithms (altered facial proportions, etc etc). That's a big if, because I don't know much about facial recognition technologies, I'd suspect they're born from machine learning technologies based for human curated results.
      - jacquesm 9y ago
        Yes, this is correct. And that's exactly what this opens the door to. I suspect this will lead to some changes in the law regarding what route an image should take to be acceptable. It's been converging on this for a long time with ever more strict rules about what can and can not be in the picture. The list of requirements is quite long. It's a small step from there to having the passport office make the photograph.
        jimmywanger 9y ago
        > Yes, this is correct. And that's exactly what this opens the door to. I don't quite understand what you mean. I get that it's technically illegal to swap pixels, but I don't think anybody can tell/would care if that happened. Only if a digitally altered picture can pass both a visual clerk test and facial recognition software will this be considered a problem. Also, everything is still pointing towards having the passport office make the photograph. Right now post offices do have picture taking facilities - I think that if you just prevented people from taking their own to the post office, or made them take the picture at a place that never let you take possession of the photograph, that would be roughly equivalent. Hardly anybody takes a passport pic at home now, in my experience.
        jacquesm 9y ago

jacquesm 9y ago

> For example - why would a 3D model based on high-quality photogrammetry be any less "real" than a digital photograph. Because it isn't. It shows that you can get a digital ID based on the photograph of an entity that technically never existed, it's a texture map around human shaped blank, not a photograph of a human. You can bet that to the authorities this is a real problem.

nine_k 9y ago
It is not. Photo quality is low a anyway. What's important is a controlled process that attaches this photo to a hard-to-forge token, such as a passport or other identity document. It confirms that some designated clerk looked at the photo and at the person, and also at other documents confirming the identity of that person, and maybe asked questions to make sure the person is who (s)he alleges to be. That photo is for reference only, and is worth next to nothing without the identity verification process above.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  You're talking to the guy that pioneered digital photos used for identification purposes in 1985 (Goodsports, Alphabet BV, Amsterdam). I think I know a thing or two about the processes involved to get a pass on being allowed to use digital imagery as proof of identity, the one thing that everybody involved from the official side was quite clear on was that any kind of tampering with the image content was absolutely forbidden. So I would expect this piece of art to have some far reaching consequences.
  - jimmywanger 9y ago
    There's de-facto and de-jure. Any tampering is forbidden right? Even the transposition of a pixel is forbidden - it's technically illegal, but as long as it doesn't make a difference then I don't think anybody is going to care - so what if this pixel is cyan in this picture and turquoise in the other. When things are really going to hit the fan is if you are able to have a digitally altered picture that passes the eye test for visual verification but is useless somehow for facial recognition algorithms (altered facial proportions, etc etc). That's a big if, because I don't know much about facial recognition technologies, I'd suspect they're born from machine learning technologies based for human curated results.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      Yes, this is correct. And that's exactly what this opens the door to. I suspect this will lead to some changes in the law regarding what route an image should take to be acceptable. It's been converging on this for a long time with ever more strict rules about what can and can not be in the picture. The list of requirements is quite long. It's a small step from there to having the passport office make the photograph.
      - jimmywanger 9y ago
        > Yes, this is correct. And that's exactly what this opens the door to. I don't quite understand what you mean. I get that it's technically illegal to swap pixels, but I don't think anybody can tell/would care if that happened. Only if a digitally altered picture can pass both a visual clerk test and facial recognition software will this be considered a problem. Also, everything is still pointing towards having the passport office make the photograph. Right now post offices do have picture taking facilities - I think that if you just prevented people from taking their own to the post office, or made them take the picture at a place that never let you take possession of the photograph, that would be roughly equivalent. Hardly anybody takes a passport pic at home now, in my experience.
        jacquesm 9y ago