STOP CALLING IT PARANOIA! FFS, This stuff is being used to track people that go to protests.
404 needs to shove their paranoia and normalize using truth and real words and not hedging like CNN or something.
I don’t disagree so curious, what would be your title instead?
Zenni eyewear: the urban surveillance countermeasure you didn’t know you need.
-or-
Why the feds and Wal Mart hate Zenni eyewear.
Replace “paranoid” with “highly surveilled.” Just say what it is.
Easy swap out.
Even those makeup are kinda useless since they can track you to your door, see the cars you got in, the people you met, see if those people posted on social media if they know someone trying anti-facial recognition methods, etc. They can easily make a list of people prone to use anti-facial recognition that lives in or walks by certain areas then recognize them by body-type, height, walking rhythm…
You aren’t wrong, but I still see two distinct benefits assuming there is an IR reflective or absorbent coating that can interfere with facial recognition.
- For non government entities it makes direct tracking of individuals much harder (i.e. if you decide not to carry your phone or smart device any one company probably doesn’t know who you are).
- For government entities it’s about making their job harder and increasing the error rate. You are right that they can still track someone via those means, but any time they have to correlate data or use multiple sources it does become more resource intensive in some way.
Realistically will either of the above matter? Probably not. For it to be effective a large portion of the population would need to care about their privacy, or even their principles above convenience, which they usually don’t. However, I can’t control what other people do, only what I do. So in this kind of situation I do my best to be a good example of the behavior I would like to see from others and do my best to not contribute to the Prisoner’s Dilemma or Tragedy of the Commons.
It’s not much, arguably it’s basically nothing, but it’s what I have.
I would also distinguish between investigations and drag nets. If they’re specifically looking into you and your business, then glasses won’t help. If they just want to identify 90% of people at a pretes pretest, these may be useful.
Great addition. That was what was kinda in my head, but I didn’t state it explicitly.
They can easily make a list of people prone to use anti-facial recognition that lives in or walks by certain areas then recognize them by body-type, height, walking rhythm…
Which is why everyone should put stones in their shoes, especially if going to a protest. 🙂
I’d strongly advise against doing this every day. I developed osteoarthritis in my 20s just from my feet being slightly misaligned. Walking wonky can very easily permanently wreck your joints.
Are you going to protests every day?
They just said especially for protests, implying you’d best do it more often than that. Didn’t want anyone to take them too literally.
Best thing is to destroy all the cameras near your house.
Yeah, It’s one tool in the toolbox. and it won’t stop all those other things for sure, but products like this can help build awareness of the ubiquitous surveillance we live under. Awareness might eventually lead to policy change. So it’s not a bad thing, and the article does describe the limitations and weaknesses.
Also, not for nothing, I saw a test on YouTube (Dr. John Padfield - Business Reform) where his tests showed that IR reflective hats worked better than glasses.
There’s another site that sells actual privacy sunglasses (full IR blocking + reflective frames) but they’ve been sold out for months.
Please dont link to paywalled articles, unless you paste the whole article contents in the post
Oops, sorry!
Ty
Page doesn’t load
So, how are these different that wearing a pair of very dark, wrap around sunglasses?
Those don’t block infrared. They’re basically transparent to it.
So, these actually work great when IR is used (for example you won’t be able to unlock your iPhone when wearing them), however my question is, does this help at all when just a normal photo is taken? You can wear these, have a ‘normal’ photo taken and it just looks like you’re wearing standard glasses. That could then be fed through CV, etc?
I can unlock my phone while wearing them.
[edit]
-I don’t rely on biometrics, though.
Is it an iPhone? They use IR to map your face where as (AFAIK) most Android just use CV, which is kinda my point. These would only help when IR is involved.
Version alpha
Techno optimistic solution to the techno optimistic “solution” to crime?
Oh, I tend to grab Zenni glasses every couple of years and saw that option. I opted against since I didn’t think they were much more than a gimmick, but also at time (and probably still is) they were not compatible with the kind that auto tint in the sun.
I’m also pretty sure if I do get tracked, they have my phone and my unique appearance. I’m not sure someone of my height and build is going to be able to Luigi someone.
Anyone seen anything similar in the UK or EU? I had a look and couldn’t find this sort of lens coating at all
thank god i don’t need glasses.
