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.
Some of those mean the more people that use anti facial recognition tools, the more effective they will be for everyone. So we should probably just encourage everyone to use it.
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.
Even just protest shoes being different style then your normal ones probably make a difference. Different bag loadouts could affect it too.
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.
Yeah, you might as well turn off your antivirus and firewall seeing as those can be bypassed by a skilled actor anyways.
“All-in-one defense across the light spectrum —reflects near-infrared light, filters blue light, blocks 100% UV rays, and is light-adaptive for all-day comfort.”
Apart from defending against facial recognition, this is really dope.
Holy shit. That’s awesome.
There’s another site that sells actual privacy sunglasses (full IR blocking + reflective frames) but they’ve been sold out for months.
Reflectacles?
I’ve had two pairs of these I bought years ago but unfortunately lost one pair. Chatted with the guy when I bought them and he seemed like a sound guy. I hope being sold out means his business is doing well!
Only issue I have with them is they aren’t really wide enough and I have a small head. Not that they fit badly, they aren’t too tight but the design looks too small on my face that it looks a bit comedic tbh.
They are also really nice to drive in at night as they stop you from being blinded by the absurdity that is modern headlights.
I’ve had my eye on them for ages and would love to get a set. And that’s such a good idea! For the night driving do you use the light lenses or the dark lenses? High beams are the bane of my existence…
The ones I use are the light lenses. They are yellow in colour and so don’t drastically decrease the light your eyes are getting like a darker glass might but tales away that glare.
I recommend giving it a try if you can!
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.
I’ve been thinking for a little while that it might be interesting to build on a pair of glasses with a couple IR LEDs at either edge and a battery pack to light them up. I can’t decide if that would be good to wear to a protest because the glare would likely obscure your entire face to cameras, or if it would be a bad idea because you’d stick out immediately on any surveillance.
That would probably be more effective as a form of protest against such technologies.
I don’t even know if it would work. Most cameras have an IR filter they use during the day.
Version alpha
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?
Article says no.
Ma’am, this is the Internet. That’s the last place I would think of checking. If it ain’t in the headline, it didn’t happen.
Especially when the article is paywalled (or at least login-walled).
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.
CV = Computer Vision?
Computer vision * sorry
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.
Techno optimistic solution to the techno optimistic “solution” to crime?
Who is Matthew Gault?
He used to host the cyber podcast at vice, and now also hosts the angry planet podcast. He is also a guest contributor to 404.
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.
