Juggalo Makeup Blocks Facial Recognition Technology (2019)

(consequence.net)

99 points | by speckx 2 hours ago

17 comments

  • throwawaypath 15 minutes ago
    Did I accidentally sleep in a time machine? Front page of HN right now has articles on Juggalos and Afroman.
    • oceansky 8 minutes ago
      The early 2000s are back baby
  • echelon_musk 1 hour ago
    Shamelessly hijacking this story to recommend The Private Eye digital comic [0]. Set in a future where everyone has normalised the wearing of masks in public to preserve their anonymity. The protagonist refuses to get a driving license because he wouldn't want a photo of himself in a database.

    [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Private_Eye

  • mcv 1 hour ago
    Not surprising at all. It's a form of dazzle camouflage that has previously been shown to confuse facial recognition[0]. It's probably possible to design it to be more effective yet less intrusive than juggalo makeup.

    I would have actually expected it to be more popular by now.

    [0] https://adam.harvey.studio/cvdazzle/

    • Setas 35 minutes ago
      [dead]
  • soopypoos 1 hour ago
    I wonder if I'm more likely to get denied entry wearing juggalo face or classic camo paint
    • QuantumNomad_ 1 hour ago
      Depends. Are you attending an ICP concert, or a military reenactment convention, or something else entirely?
  • Larrikin 41 minutes ago
    In 2018 it was already common knowledge that gait analysis was more accurate than facial recognition at the time. This would have been defeatable then.
    • water-data-dude 11 minutes ago
      Gait recognition is also easier to defeat. All you need is to put something like a few pebbles or coins in one of your shoes
    • glenstein 10 minutes ago
      I think dazzle camouflage is best understood as having limited scope of application as pertains to face recognition. It shouldn't be regarded as failing within its intended scope on account of gait analysis. Everyone knows you have to learn the juggalo dance moves to go along with the face paint.
    • beepbooptheory 32 minutes ago
      How are everyone's gaits being collected? Is there gait databases at the NSA? Not being skeptical! Honestly very interesting.
      • a2tech 14 minutes ago
        We only have discussions of the Chinese rolling out gait tracking widely. Basically you use existing facial databases to match ids to people in observed areas and capture their gait as they pass observed areas. Then it goes into the database. Using partial matching (non ideal observation of gait or face) allows for greater positive matching in non-ideal circumstances.
      • nemomarx 15 minutes ago
        You could compare gaits between footage of a crime and footage of you in another public place, probably?

        I don't think I've heard of it being used though.

  • ChrisMarshallNY 1 hour ago
    I guess LiveNation won't be running ICP concerts, then...
    • world2vec 41 minutes ago
      They'll just charge an additional makeup fee...
  • bigfishrunning 1 hour ago
    Miracles all around us
    • Forgeties79 1 hour ago
      You could throw on the SNL skit or the real video and frankly I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference
  • gethwhunter34 11 minutes ago
    counterpoint: this assumes everyone has the same constraints. not always true
  • hackitup7 43 minutes ago
    I'll make sure to wear my Juggalo makeup the next time I visit China to avoid their face scanning technology. That'll surely help me blend into the background.
  • refulgentis 1 hour ago
    Clickbait, it’s a couple tweets microwaved and the 3rd paragraph is “well, except for modern facial recognition”
    • everdrive 1 hour ago
      This feels like the real-life equivalent of that old Family Guy joke where Peter is with a squad of dudes in Vietnam but is dressed like a clown. He says something to the effect of "You guys are stupid. They're going to be looking for army guys." Outside of the absurdity of the situation, the joke is that the guy dressed as a clown obviously stands out even more.

      Juggalo makeup might block some facial recognition tech, but you also paint a huge target on yourself.

    • fer 1 hour ago
      >covering features impacts accuracy of feature-based classifiers

      More new at 9. Plus it's from 2019.

  • lucasay 1 hour ago
    I’m more curious about how robust this is against modern systems. A lot of newer facial recognition models are trained on occlusions, masks, and heavy makeup — so this might be less effective than people assume.
    • saalweachter 1 hour ago
      It's not actually an oversight or training failure; as one of the six societies which secretly rule the world, the Juggalos simply demand to be exempt from facial recognition.
      • atomicnumber3 51 minutes ago
        Juggalos, bronies, 9th doctor fans, billionaires, royals (baseball team), and royals (landed nobility)?
        • saalweachter 3 minutes ago
          In _Inside Job_, it was Juggalos, the Illuminati, the Catholic Church, Cognito Inc [the main feature of the show, kind of the Deep State], the Atlanteans, and the Reptoids.
    • stackghost 44 minutes ago
      It's likely that e.g. wifi-based gait analysis can be deployed to defeat this.

      The only saving grace is you can't run that against video surveillance footage.

  • schmeichel 2 hours ago
    Where my Juggalos at??
    • NickC25 1 hour ago
      1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, sitting behind the resolute desk. That person wears more makeup than some of the performers on RuPaul's Drag Race.
      • nathan_compton 1 hour ago
        Don't sully the good name of Juggalos this way.
  • pgporada 2 hours ago
    Whoop whoop
  • Findecanor 1 hour ago
    (2019) ... but sadly increasingly relevant.
  • yacin 1 hour ago
    maybe it's just from being covered in Faygo?
    • alexjplant 41 minutes ago
      Faygo is unironically delicious. They used to sell them for $1 a pop (Midwestern pun intended) on the East Coast in gas stations. Diet varieties of Orange, Moon Mist, and Root Beer were personal favorites.

      No idea whether this is still the case as I haven't seen them in years.