4 ms·

Why better than walking?

rhplus 3y ago
You can go farther. Because of this, bicycles played a significant role in women’s liberation movements. https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/pedaling-path-freedom https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/pedaling-path-freedom
ethanbond 3y ago
Not GP but one reason: gait detection is already good enough (I believe?) to uniquely identify individuals. I mean if everyone starts riding bikes they’ll just apply the same tech anyway. There’s no winning this arms race, the only protection is going to be laws so we should really be putting much more care into laws, the people who make them, and the systems that put or remove them from power.
- jacknews 3y ago
  Yes gait detection and also face recognition, cyclists have a reason to wear masks, glasses, etc, pedestrians don't, are moving slower, etc.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    Pervasive surveillance means that pedestrians do have a reason wear masks, glasses, etc. Although it isn't enforced, its already illegal in most places to wear masks in public though. I've seen exceptions carved out for children (because of Halloween) and for people with doctor's notes, but not for cyclists
- Tade0 3y ago
  > gait detection is already good enough (I believe?) to uniquely identify individuals. Gait is one of those modalities that gets rediscovered every decade only to, again, yield no results. There's just too much noise and variability over time for it to qualify for broader use. It's much easier to get a detailed image of a person's iris from 100m.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Interesting! I thought it was effectively “already here” despite not being deployed much/at all. Surely the value of gait over iris would be that you don’t need ridiculously specialized sensors right? Can use (hypothetically, I guess) a bunch of CCTV sending that’s already out there.
    - Tade0 3y ago
      Iris sensors are just NIR cameras illuminated by a maximum of three different frequencies. Samsung used to put them in their phones and they seem to have been using just one frequency.
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        Right but those are not installed on every corner and store in every western city like standard “gait-sensing” cameras are.
        Tade0 3y ago
        Actually, most of the 24/7 surveillance cameras that I've seen already include a ring of NIR diodes for night vision and a sufficiently close photo from one would suffice. Even better: the wavelengths used are in the range of 700-900nm, which, as indicated by my smartphone camera picking up the 850nm diodes in my Leap Motion controller, are within the range of off-the-shelf camera sensors. For a decent image you need the iris to span 70 pixels. A Full HD camera probably won't cut it, but a 4k one installed at the entrance of a building might well be scanning irises and we wouldn't even know it.
  - 4ggr0 3y ago
    > It's much easier to get a detailed image of a person's iris from 100m. Seriously? That sounds insane, wow. I mean, an iris is like 1cm wide, can you really get a detailed image from 100m away, while the person is walking, looking around, blinking etc.? EDIT: I mean in the context of surveillance, I can imagine that a dedicated photographer could get such a picture with a fancy camera, but we're talking about 24/7 video surveillance.
- InCityDreams 3y ago
  On a bike, adjust your saddle height regularly to counter the identifiers. *does not negate the other ways they can PiD you.
  - avereveard 3y ago
    > does not negate the other ways they can PiD you. I think that's quite an important * if you have a phone in your pocket, you're already trackable 24/7
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Easy way around gait detection if you are a spy is to throw a pebble in your shoe randomly.

You can go farther. Because of this, bicycles played a significant role in women’s liberation movements. https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/pedaling-path-freedom https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/pedaling-path-freedom

ethanbond 3y ago

Not GP but one reason: gait detection is already good enough (I believe?) to uniquely identify individuals. I mean if everyone starts riding bikes they’ll just apply the same tech anyway. There’s no winning this arms race, the only protection is going to be laws so we should really be putting much more care into laws, the people who make them, and the systems that put or remove them from power.

jacknews 3y ago
Yes gait detection and also face recognition, cyclists have a reason to wear masks, glasses, etc, pedestrians don't, are moving slower, etc.
- autoexec 3y ago
  Pervasive surveillance means that pedestrians do have a reason wear masks, glasses, etc. Although it isn't enforced, its already illegal in most places to wear masks in public though. I've seen exceptions carved out for children (because of Halloween) and for people with doctor's notes, but not for cyclists
Tade0 3y ago
> gait detection is already good enough (I believe?) to uniquely identify individuals. Gait is one of those modalities that gets rediscovered every decade only to, again, yield no results. There's just too much noise and variability over time for it to qualify for broader use. It's much easier to get a detailed image of a person's iris from 100m.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Interesting! I thought it was effectively “already here” despite not being deployed much/at all. Surely the value of gait over iris would be that you don’t need ridiculously specialized sensors right? Can use (hypothetically, I guess) a bunch of CCTV sending that’s already out there.
  - Tade0 3y ago
    Iris sensors are just NIR cameras illuminated by a maximum of three different frequencies. Samsung used to put them in their phones and they seem to have been using just one frequency.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      Right but those are not installed on every corner and store in every western city like standard “gait-sensing” cameras are.
      - Tade0 3y ago
        Actually, most of the 24/7 surveillance cameras that I've seen already include a ring of NIR diodes for night vision and a sufficiently close photo from one would suffice. Even better: the wavelengths used are in the range of 700-900nm, which, as indicated by my smartphone camera picking up the 850nm diodes in my Leap Motion controller, are within the range of off-the-shelf camera sensors. For a decent image you need the iris to span 70 pixels. A Full HD camera probably won't cut it, but a 4k one installed at the entrance of a building might well be scanning irises and we wouldn't even know it.
- 4ggr0 3y ago
  > It's much easier to get a detailed image of a person's iris from 100m. Seriously? That sounds insane, wow. I mean, an iris is like 1cm wide, can you really get a detailed image from 100m away, while the person is walking, looking around, blinking etc.? EDIT: I mean in the context of surveillance, I can imagine that a dedicated photographer could get such a picture with a fancy camera, but we're talking about 24/7 video surveillance.
InCityDreams 3y ago
On a bike, adjust your saddle height regularly to counter the identifiers. *does not negate the other ways they can PiD you.
- avereveard 3y ago
  > does not negate the other ways they can PiD you. I think that's quite an important * if you have a phone in your pocket, you're already trackable 24/7
kjkjadksj 3y ago
Easy way around gait detection if you are a spy is to throw a pebble in your shoe randomly.