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Chinese police use facial recognition tech to arrest suspect at a pop concert
- 0xdada 9y agoHere is a relevant DEF CON talk that I found very interesting: Surveillance Capitalism Will Continue til Morale Improves (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn5VN72ZjDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn5VN72ZjDE)
- ilamont 9y agoIt's only a matter of time before someone invents glasses, masks, hats, or devices that are specifically designed to throw off these systems. Then the surveillance state will up the game by referencing other data - height, shoe type, clothing preferences, activated mobile phones, association with other known people ...
- maxxxxx 9y agoIf people start using these this will mean that they have accepted that public space is a hostile environment you can't enter without protection. We are building a pretty sad future society. Addition: and our best and brightest are working at Google and Facebook to develop the necessary infrastructure.
- ataturk 9y agoWell I already feel like that while driving. The cops aren't out there to help you, they're actively looking for wrongdoing. The problem with that is anyone who happens to fall into a targeted political group will be "wrongdoing" no matter what. To be an intelligent person and watch these things going on is the doorway to madness.
- Lio 9y agoYep, remember the old George Orwell quote from 1984:- "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever." The future has more tall buildings than he might have imagined but it's going to be just as crap.
- Clubber 9y agoThat's legally been the case for decades. Anything in the public view is exempt from whatever privacy rights we have left, and has been for quite some time.
- mattmanser 9y agoThat's not true, while technically true in a legal sense, practically we had privacy via anonymity in the masses. It took a large amount of effort to track a single person. Of course governments and bussiness don't want this to change because they can take advantage of this with the new technology. But it doesn't mean that the previous laws are appropriate for today, nor imo should any legal precedents apply any more because the situation has significantly changed.
- Clubber 9y ago>That's not true, while technically true in a legal sense, That is true in a legal sense. That's why I put "legally" at the beginning. The point is there are no legal hurdles to overcome for the government. These are the most difficult and this is absolutely true. Legally we have very little if any privacy in public. The only hurdles are technological ones, which automate the inspection of people in public areas. (i.e. facial recognition cameras). Police can spy on your in your own home legally, if you leave a window open, because you just made that part of your home public. They'll setup across your yard and watch you with telescopic lenses. Police also spy on people in their own homes using IR and thermal cameras, which cannot be defeated easily, and this crosses (leaps) the boundary of your home being private. Apparently the thermal radiation emitted is now public space. I remember this in court, but don't remember the outcome. I suspect though that when these laws were made, lawmakers didn't anticipate the ease and scope of which automation could make spying. Maybe they'll reconsider, but the police departments have a lot of sway over lawmakers, so I seriously doubt it. Have no doubt though, police aren't interested in your privacy, they are interested in arrest counts. Privacy laws are an inconvenient burden to their jobs and they will use any methods they can think of to circumvent your privacy rights and argue technicalities in court. They will usually win. Of course, all of this was enabled with the War on Drugs.
- nopressure 9y agoThose already exist.
- rahimnathwani 9y agoLarge sunglasses are often large enough to throw off the facial recognition systems. But wearing large sunglasses in the evening, or a hat that covers part of your face, can be used as a signal that you're hiding something.
- JulianMorrison 9y ago1980s style New Romantics face paint as dazzle camouflage?
- amelius 9y agoPerhaps burqas will become fashionable among men :)
- jacobush 9y agoPerhaps they already are
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoThose are / will be banned then, simple as. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ban_on_face_covering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ban_on_face_covering
- bsenftner 9y agoWe have cameras that image right through fabric, so, forget burqas. Such cameras are used to identify terrorist by seeing right through those face scarves and ski masks they are often seen wearing.
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- isostatic 9y agoOr just ban face coverings when going through checkpoints (like stadium entries etc) -- same as they do at airports.
- amelius 9y agohttps://cvdazzle.com/ https://cvdazzle.com/
- iwillreply 9y agohttps://cvdazzle.com https://cvdazzle.com Amongst some other projects by Adam Harvey centered on facial recognition: https://ahprojects.com/projects/ https://ahprojects.com/projects/
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- Jyaif 9y agoGait recognition. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528835-600-cameras-know-you-by-your-walk/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528835-600-cameras-... Note that if you completely change everything about you, a system could detect that something is fishy because it can't match you with anyone. A work-around would then be to instead mimic someone (and make sure that the someone is not being seen by any camera at the same time as you, and that they could realistically be in the same place as you).
- Retric 9y agoGait recognition fails because your gait changes regularly. Something as simple as a sprain and you move very differently, but even new shoes ends up making a noticeable difference.
- bsenftner 9y agoI'm not aware of any serious FR or Object Tracking system using gait successfully. It is discredited as useful.
- amarant 9y agoor something akin to 1-pixel-attack-tattoos: put a few strategical dots on your face and be recognized as "horse" on all cameras :)
- codecamper 9y agoOr maybe a completely realistic outer skin? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY5KTVA_2ys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY5KTVA_2ys
- bsenftner 9y agoAlready dealt with by an FR process called "liveness detection" - this is used to identify prosthetics on the face and similar methods of disguise. It entails looking for the blood flow pulse under your skin, correct temperature variations across the face and similar.
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoNah, then the surveillance state will simply make those illegal, and trigger an arrest warrant when they are unable to detect a face. This is already happening btw, with bans on facial covering clothing (e.g. the niqab, but it's automatically extended to balaclavas and full helmets when worn off of a motorcycle) in e.g. France.
- sametmax 9y agoThat's the geek attitude here, thinking it's a technical problem. But it's a human one, and no amount of smartness will fix it. If you have a surveillance state, it will not "will up the game by referencing other data". It will simply make the gears illegal, and the price to pay harsh. Now you won't dare wearing them and if you do, you are guilty even if you are not a criminal, and tagging yourself as such, making it easier for the police to find you.
- Spooky23 9y agoExactly. The legal framework and precedent is not based on pervasive electronic surveillance.
- wpietri 9y agoYes, exactly. And another element of the geek attitude is overestimating the number of people willing to adopt a burdensome technological solution in the name of (a very particular kind of) freedom. Most people will just accept the new surveillance reality and then act according to the state's wishes, exactly as most drivers slow down when they see a cop by the side of the road.
- Aunche 9y agoIf China doesn't have the resources to stop all actual crime, they certainly don't have the resources to stop people from wearing makeup, sunglasses or hats.
- michaelt 9y agoDepends how many people are avoiding facial recognition. A large railway station can have 15 to 100 million passenger entries per year [1]. That means if 0.1% of people hide from facial recognition, cops at such stations could arrest 40-270 people per day. And with a suspect arrested, a photo showing them in disguise, and a police witness, it's an open-and-shut case. That's way more cases closed per cop-hour than investigating complex crimes like burglary, murder or rape. Just what you want, if your police chief is judged on their clean-up/arrest rates. And if order of fewer people than that are avoiding facial recognition? Then you've got a surveillance state. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_railway_stations_in_Great_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_railway_statio...
- shubb 9y agoWe carry phones that track our every move, and could probably stop them with little faraday bags. Credit card bags are popular, phone bags are not, so I think most people don't care sadly.
- isostatic 9y agoKids today might not remember, but a big reason for carrying a phone traditionally was to receive a phone call. A farady bag is about as much use as turning it off.
- shubb 9y agoYou still get phonecalls? Most of the time people contact me by instant message or comments for social stuff, and emails for work stuff. It's rare that I get a call that wasn't pre-arranged. Actually I'd feel rude phoning someone without arranging it first. Not terribly rude, but a little uncomfortable. What if they are driving or in an important meeting? So maybe phones are there to let me check messages and alerts when convenient. A huge proportion of the money you paid for that phone went on the data modem after all. It isn't really a phone means voice, or sound. But folders on a computer are not made of paper. It's just a word. Not that I'd suggest putting your phone in a bag.
- isostatic 9y ago> Actually I'd feel rude phoning someone without arranging it first. Not terribly rude, but a little uncomfortable. What if they are driving or in an important meeting? Then they don't answer it. It's called self control!
- michaelt 9y agoAlas, telephones give me no way to distinguish between a spam call and a call from a hospital because a loved one has been brought in unconscious.
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- trisimix 9y agoBe more useful to invent an electronic that can cloak you, or jam the cameras.
- melvinmt 9y agoIt’s not just what you wear and how you look. There are many more ways for AI to identify you: the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you move your hands or tilt your head, etc. Keeping track of all these subtle giveaways of yourself would be relatively easy for AI, much harder for humans to keep track of or to hide.
- bsenftner 9y agoSeveral different types of these physical deterrents to FR have been available for several years, and this is after state actors employed them for their own operations. The FR industry has multiple methods to mitigate, as well as recognizes that FR is merely one biometric of many possible identification methods. The passive nature of FR is great, but it is not the only technology with passive identification capabilities. FYI, I'm at a leader in the FR industry, writing the FR applications used by many. (www.CyberExtruder.com)
- QuelqueChose 9y agoQuestion that struck me immediately after reading this headline: As someone in his 20’s who splits time living between western Europe and the US, just how plausible is my fear of seeing something like this either here or in my home country in my lifetime?
- PeterisP 9y agoIsn't this already happening? I seem to recall similar tech being used in Superbowl, and in other cases.
- bsenftner 9y agoYes. Expect by next Superbowl every major sports arena will have FR and potentially additional biometrics in place and active.
- chopin 9y agoIt's already tested in Germany (a Berlin train station afair) for viability with volunteers. A similar test a few years ago failed (too many false negatives, afair).
- arethuza 9y agoIt has already been used once in the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/05/met-police-facial-recognition-software-notting-hill-carnival https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/aug/05/met-police-f... I would suspect if there has already been one public announcement then it will actually have been used covertly for quite a while.
- firmgently 9y agoAnother one which got a bit of press was Download (music festival) in 2015: "A police force has defended scanning the faces of 90,000 festival-goers this weekend and checking them against a list of wanted criminals across Europe." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-33132199 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-33132199
- alicewales 9y agoCouldn't they have written a better headline? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinaman_(term) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinaman_(term)
- mechazawa 9y ago"Chinese Man" would've been better yeah. I had to read it a twice before realizing that it wasn't about a China-themed super hero.
- rahimnathwani 9y agoIf the headline had read "Chinese man", I would have assumed the incident took place somewhere in the US.
- anonaccount0413 9y agoIf it did, then they would have just used "American."
- coldtea 9y agoLike Englishman, the eccentric Oxbridge schooled aristocrat who fights crime at nights? We use *man for all kinds of ethnicities, Chinaman or China man is no different.
- anonaccount0413 9y agoNo, that hero would be called Englandman.
- jgrahamc 9y agoHa! I had precisely the same thought: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16829083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16829083
- toomanybeersies 9y agoIt looks similar, but it is subtly different. It's not uncommon for headlines to use "{{location}} man" to describe what country an event happened in. This has spawned the amusing FloridaMan meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/FloridaMan/ https://www.reddit.com/r/FloridaMan/
- jgrahamc 9y agoSurely, "Chinese man" and not "China man". The latter sounds close to chinaman which I think these days would be considered derogatory.
- rangibaby 9y agoI think it’s no different to eg Florida man...
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoAh, Florida Man, the hero we deserve but not the one we need.
- TallGuyShort 9y ago"Is there a term besides "Mexican" that you prefer? Something less offensive?" -- Michael Scott
- chapium 9y agoIn the american context it actually is different. Chinaman is a derogatory term for a chinese person and pretty offensive. Its obviously not used in a derogatory way in this context but the association that is made is distracting from the article’s content. Florida man does not carry this cultural baggage.
- anonaccount0413 9y agoIt's really sad that so many HN users would downvote comments like this. It just goes to show that insulting Asians really isn't taken seriously. Thank you for bringing it up. I also don't understand why some people get so offended when they are told that certain words can cause harm to others. I always try to be respectful and if someone tells me that a word or a name hurts them, then I just won't use it around them.
- needToSay 9y agoFuck off diversity hire, not everyone is from Silicon Valley. Your mouth smells like cum
- isostatic 9y agoThe bigger question is why are China advertising this 1) Was the man actually caught by someone acting undercover and they want to protect the agent's identity with plausable deniability 2) Does the system not actually work very well (say a 1 in 100k hit rate), but they want people to think that if they are wanted, they can't hide, so they'll either turn themselves in, or be less likely to do the (unspecified) crime in the first place 3) Is there pressure that this project is overrunning/overbudget and they need a PR win to keep those higher up in the government happy
- ktta 9y agoI think it is closer to your 3rd possibility. There's also the possibility that they want to show (fake) the supposed power of this system even to their own citizens to elevate the apparent reach of the government. Say what you want about rights, but Chinese government is ruthlessly efficient about what it wants done, and it rarely loses (except for the recent trade relations fiasco)
- coldtea 9y ago>except for the recent trade relations fiasco Assuming it was a fiasco, which is not very clearly the case (if you speak about the tarrifs thing).
- tener 9y agoMaybe they just want to show off to discourage any trouble makers (including political ones)?
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- dbkaplun 9y agoPerhaps China is advertising this to deter crime, as a potential criminal might worry about facial recognition before doing something illegal.
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- Fifer82 9y agoThis is almost certainly a silly question, but if I can't ask here, then who else will know? Is there any methods out there which would let me fry surveillance cameras? EMP is a thing, but I have no idea of how that works. Can I fit an EMP into my pocket or do I need to drive a Truck worth of equipment? Is there some laser I could use to damage the lens or digital "eye" in the camera for good? I am not a criminal, my life isn't that exciting, but I was wondering what tools are out there to combat surveillance cameras?
- swirepe 9y agoHave you tried an AR-15?
- Fifer82 9y agoIn the UK they are pretty tough to get a hold of and not very discreet or quiet! Although certainly a viable solution!
- isostatic 9y agoTypical American, when the only tool you have is a gun, everything looks like something to shoot. We Brits are quite capable of removing cameras https://www.crewechronicle.co.uk/news/local-news/speed-camera-destroyed-danger-road-5662369 https://www.crewechronicle.co.uk/news/local-news/speed-camer... https://www.expressandstar.com/news/2018/04/13/police-appeal-after-camera-set-alight/ https://www.expressandstar.com/news/2018/04/13/police-appeal...
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoNot going out in public. Disabling surveillance cameras is considered vandalism and / or destruction of public property. And I'm sure the FCC and co won't like it much if you were to have a jammer to disrupt signals in the air either.
- Fifer82 9y agoYeah but aside from the legal aspect, what are my technical options?
- swalsh 9y agoI have a friend who is a private investigator. He mostly films people committing insurance fraud. His stories are amazing. My favorite was a guy who was supposedly not able to walk, but my friend had stalked the guys facebook, and saw that he was planning on attending this festival with thousands of people. Probably lots of walking. The trick was finding the guy. So he went to the parking lot and quickly tracked down the guy's car (before he was a PI, he repossessed cars, he's a pro at finding cars). After that, he went to the info desk and told them the guys car's lights were on. They made a quick announcement, and he went back to the parking lot to watch. Dutifully his target came back, looked, shrugged his shoulders, and then went back. My friend spent the rest of the night filming the guy walking, jumping, having a good time. He tells me the low tech ways are the most effective :\
- mlrtime 9y agoInteresting story and his method is effective. However it is not efficient, he can only track one guy a day, possibly a week.
- swalsh 9y agoWhen he catches a guy he saves the company tens of thousands of dollars. He only needs to catch one guy a week for it to be economically feasible to use his time. By the time they give him the case, there had already been a number of red flags.
- isostatic 9y agoHowever automation will allow everyone claiming this sort of beenfit on insurance to be automatically followed, evidence automatically gathered, and perhaps a minimum wage flunky in India to give it a once over before the automated summons is sent. The cheat will be caught far sooner, and the PI will be out of a job. Of course those who aren't cheating will also be caught, as the cameras identify people who look very similar, and the courts listen to how the camera has a 1 in a million chance of being wrong (therefore will identify 350 people in the US as being the same person). It's DNA evidence problems all over again.
- amaccuish 9y agoControversial and likely to be downvoted but what's the problem here? Surely it's good that a law breaker has been caught? If you're in China, you play by their rules, no?
- onion2k 9y agowhat's the problem here? This sort of automated policing forces people to live in fear. Having to live by the letter of the law makes society paranoid, and that's distinctly unhealthy. It makes it very easy for a corrupt government to extend their control over the people too. And lastly, everyone breaks the law in minor ways. You might speed in your car by a couple of mph, or jaywalk once in the wrong place, or drop some litter in a controlled area. Just imagine living in the knowledge that a mistake like that will be caught, and you will be arrested for it (and maybe lose your job and livelihood because of that). This is definitely a bad thing.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoIt's not the "will" be arrested that matters. It's that you "can" be arrested is held over people's heads to prevent them from voicing dissent or standing up to the government.
- amaccuish 9y agoI mean, I live in fear now that going slightly over the speed limit I'll be caught. You never know if the police are nearby, so in public you live by the letter of the law. I don't understand how this changes that is all :)
- fwn 9y agoAre you saying that you can not realize the idea that a full enforcement capacity of the law will change people's relationship to law enforcement or do you implicitly say that tsuch potential change is nothing to worry about? Honest question as the first is just a capacity problem and the second (I guess) a moral argument.
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- codemusings 9y agoGreat. New ammunition for homeland security departments around the world and even better news for contractors. On a side note: Now I had to research who Jacky Cheung (the artist in said concert) is and was not disappointed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrfp1DKyhKw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrfp1DKyhKw Three hours of Broadway style pop concert. Fascinating.
- noxToken 9y agoI followed that YouTube link and currently skimming the performance. This is a hell of a concert.
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- aszantu 9y agoI hope everyone will start wearing masks soon :( these news are really unsettling
- nfoz 9y agoIt won't matter because we'll all spend our time in the virtual (VR) world instead. Civilization's about to get a whoooole lot more sci-fi!
- mark_edward 9y agoLots of countries ban masks and facial coverings due to either crime or burka scares.
- vain 9y agoPerhaps the time is right to start a business that sells facial plastic surgery on a subscription model.
- maze-le 9y agoAppearantly, makeup and hairstyle is sufficient... for now. [0]: https://cvdazzle.com/ https://cvdazzle.com/
- 4ndr3vv 9y ago*Was sufficient in 2010
- gm-conspiracy 9y agoDoes this no longer work?
- bsenftner 9y agoNot really, no. Unless a good portion of society chooses to walk around like a Picasso all the time, those makeups just help identify.
- gruez 9y agobut then you stick out like a sore thumb to every human
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- pizzaknife 9y agothe bbc publishing an article with "China man" in it's title, meant to identify someone of Chinese origin just made my day. Stay classy, bcc and thanks for the grin
- thanatropism 9y agoThe fact that the comment section isn't littered with reference to "The Big Lebowski" says a lot about HN. Much of it is very good -- serious discussion undiluted by the tempting instant gratification of easy shots. I still miss some humor, but maybe it isn't worth it. Maybe its civilization ou barbarie, seriousness or eternal september.
- pasta 9y agoI'm not sure why this is news. This is happening already in a lot of countries. For example in The Netherlands we have facial recognition in street cars so they can detect people who have a public transport ban. Since 2013.
- JoeAltmaier 9y agoWow. And we're to believe that? I get it; that's the excuse for putting them there (on street cars) but really, they never get used for anything else? Like pervasive public surveillance by the state?
- tantalor 9y agoRead carefully to identify the source: Police said the 31-year-old, who was wanted for "economic crimes", was "shocked" when he was caught. The source was Chinese police. So, in essence, this is propaganda, not news. Propaganda: information that is not objective and is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
- nwhatt 9y agoShouldn’t the title be “Chinese man”
- cJ0th 9y agoI wonder whether these systems do work when people wear masks to protect themselves against smog.
- hedgenetFT 9y agoI have a feeling that this technology will do to crime what fingerprinting did back in the days. Lots of crime being recorded on camera and data saved but we do not yet have the ability to process that information. Soon though, a lot of people are going to be arrested 10-20 years later for crimes that they never imagined they could be caught for.
- 39d3493I93 9y agoThe future socialist authoritarians masquerading as "liberals" envision for you. It's already almost as bad in the UK where you are picked up by the police for saying things that offend people who are stealing the whole country away from the native population.
- oldpond 9y agoThe bigger question is when will the rest of the world admit it uses the same tech.
- pasbesoin 9y agoWhen every second of your life is recorded and might have to be accounted for -- what a burden. And we already know how hard it can be, at times, to explain a moment of strange-looking but innocent behavior to police. All the more so if you are an unfavored, targeted minority (of whatever form: Race, class, intellect, psychology...). It's not just the recording. It's what people in power (of various sorts) may do with it. You know how you don't like it when a stranger in your vicinity seems to take an unusual interest in you? This. All the time. Discretion gets driven out of the equation, when there's a permanent record that anyone might use, at any time, rather than a momentary decision that passes, by those in one's presence.