Face-verify.js: Monitoring who is physically looking at a website

https://blog.machinebox.io/face-verify-js-monitoring-who-is-looking-at-a-website-for-additional-security-1d6025a8fedd

by thetall0ne • 8 years ago

115 100 8 years ago

blog.machinebox.io

xori• 8 years ago

Am I the only one who doesn't quite understand the point?

I would assume you wouldn't only use this tech to secure information. But I don't see really how this adds any security when software cams exist.

Plus you have other issues, like people like me who work in low light, or picture frames in the shot, etc.

Cool hobby project though.

AbacusAvenger• 8 years ago

Yeah, this whole thing seems a bit silly. You can't trust the webcam to be real or even functional.

And even if you could trust the entire website-to-webcam path end-to-end, you can't trust the image the hardware is reading. There's a reason that other face recognition systems like Windows Hello require that you have an IR camera, so that it knows it's not just looking at a photograph of a person.

_rpd• 8 years ago

It's just a cheap/easy biometric. Retina pattern or finger print are better biometrics, but generally require special purpose hardware for ease of use.

jstanley2• 8 years ago

Please, no. This has to be a parody.

Banks don’t want private account details (like the user’s current balance and credit limits etc) being seen by anybody other than the account holder.

This is exactly the kind of justification they'd use. And surprise surprise there won't be a box that says "I'd rather risk somebody seeing my account details than have a biometric model of my face stored in your database and given to whoever you give it to".

nabeards3• 8 years ago

Do people really consider the ethics of introducing tech like this? I guess it just comes down to a consequentialism vs deontology whether someone thinks this is a good idea. And, obviously, if they don't do it, I guess someone else will?

IntronExon5• 8 years ago

This is why software needs an association with some teeth, because professional ethical standards don’t grow on trees. Note how a doctor doesn’t just say, “Well if I don’t dose these people without their knowledge or consent, someone else will.”

Rotdhizon• 8 years ago

There was an article about just that the other week, on here I believe. It was detailing how a lot of the controversial tech ideas coming out of places like silicon valley are from these tech/startup moguls who are so disconnected from reality that they don't understand the concept of ethics or technological consequence. To them it doesn't matter how intrusive a design is, if it solves a problem, then that justifies all negatives.

gricardo993• 8 years ago

The great irony is that often technological innovations are believed to be liberating and done with the motivation of improving the common lot of humanity.

Two examples:

Social networking - Enabling more meaningful and greater connection between people, leading to greater happiness and fulfillment? Or, fostering more divisions, balkanization into "like" echo chambers, promulgating fear and prejudice, leading to greater depression and mass manipulation?

Cryptocurrencies - Disintermediation! need I say more ;) All kinds of utopian views of how this is supposed to promote freedom, security and efficiency. But top of the wish-list for the most paranoid and repressive authoritarian tyrant would have to be a magical way to fully control and monitor all economic activity: A cash-less society where every single transaction is done with the government controlled digital currency, recorded on the government controlled blockchain.

cryptoz4• 8 years ago

The article says,

Like any technology, we need to consider the ethics of its application carefully so we don’t build tools that are open to abuse, or worst case, terminators that can travel through time to kill people.

So no, they took the opportunity to clear up any fears or concerns about the project and used it to make a really, really scary joke about robots specifically designed to identify individuals by using cameras and kill them with guns.

Nobody at this project gave one real thought about ethics. Ethically, you can't make that joke about your software, it's nauseating.

matte_black• 8 years ago

Yes, but not for the reasons you think.

It's an ethics arbitrage. This kind of business looks for unethical technologies that other companies wouldn't dare to create, and then packages it up in a form that is palatable enough to bring to market at a profit.

ryandrake• 8 years ago

The site itself has a tiny section on ethics that might as well say "hey, use this ethically! wink, wink!"

hahajk• 8 years ago

"When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success." - Robert Oppenheimer

smallnamespace2• 8 years ago

Do people really consider the ethics of introducing tech like this?

But consider the fact that you are using terms out of the humanities, while most of my fellow CS students endlessly griped about how useless their humanities courses were and how they wished the school would get rid of that course requirement (six courses total over 4 years).

Until we teach the tech-priests of the 21st century the great responsibility due to the power that they hold, I doubt things will improve.

tempodox• 8 years ago

if they don't do it, I guess someone else will

In my book, the ethical viewpoint would be, “someone else might eventually do that, but it sure as hell won't be me”.

Feniks2• 8 years ago

Ethics go out the window when you have a mortgage to pay. The tech industry also lives in a bubble.

chrisvalleybay• 8 years ago

For most people, the biometric model of their face is available to nearly anyone. Most people have multiple profile photos available on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc.

IntronExon5• 8 years ago

As someone who has been careful about not doing that for a couple of decades, just fuck me, hm?

ramblenode• 8 years ago

For most people, the biometric model of their face is available to nearly anyone.

I was curious about this claim, so I did some cursory research.

A Pew survey from 2013 [0]--which is perhaps a bit dated--found that 66% of respondents believed a photo of them existed online--which, notably, says nothing about access to the photo or metadata that relates the photo to an identity. Pew found in 2016 [1] that about 68%, 28%, and 25% of US adults, respectively, have a Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn account. These are presumably the main vectors for accessing the face:ID pair. So this gives us some ability to quantify the first part of your claim, "most people".

As for the second part of your claim--that this subgroup's face:ID is available to nearly anyone--I did not find data on who or how many people might have access to this information. The vector here is important, though. Let's consider the public UI, which is realistically the only interface most interested entities have access to. With only a name and no other queryable bits of information, finding the matching face is unlikely because of how many identical names there are. The ability to query other bits like geolocation, work history, the social graph, and, of course, the face itself should greatly increase the chance of finding face:ID, which is minimally an account with profile picture. The profile picture is not per se sufficient to extract a face model but also not per se necessary, as other face photos might be viewable in the profile. At this point I can really only speculate about the intersection of privacy settings and photos, but I think it's far from clear that this information is "available", which I take to mean that the information is accessible with relatively little effort and means. And again, this is just the people who have a social media account and probably a photo tied to their account, not the population at large.

Of course, there are entities which have access to far more data than this, but that is not "nearly anyone".

[0] http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/09/05/anonymity-privacy-and-...

[1] http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/11/11/social-media-update-20...

ReverseCold2• 8 years ago

Now that this is possible, what stops bad people/companies/governments from (ab)using this?

There's really nothing else you can do apart from wearing a mask and sunglasses, which will also be bypassed soon enough. (Not to mention that no one wants to do that.)

Unlike weapons, a lot of these ai tools have some force of good behind them as well - so good governments won't pass laws against this either.

gruez3• 8 years ago

disable your webcam? webcams aren't exactly standard on desktops.

DeepYogurt• 8 years ago

Not all computers have cameras. Pray that it remains that way.

mirimir• 8 years ago

My reaction too. But then, I use no devices with cameras or microphones.

wgerard• 8 years ago

There's something about software like this that really creeps me out, even though I realize it's not ridiculously advanced (i.e. it's way more common than I think) anymore. That might just be a personal aversion, though. I can imagine useful scenarios for this even if I get a bit of an icky feeling from it.

My co-founder and I have talked about things like this as an "anti-cheating" measure (we developed a take-home assessment platform), but it always feels way too overboard and invasive for an exaggerated problem (and I'm just against it in pretty much every way imaginable).

Interestingly this somehow feels better than overt measures like ProctorU, but that's an emotional reaction and not a logical one. In some ways it's probably much worse.

danso• 8 years ago

Some more info about ProctorU (for others who haven't heard about it):

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Behind-the-Webcams-Watchfu...

Rather than one proctor sitting at the head of a physical classroom and roaming the aisles every once in a while, remote proctors peer into a student's home, seize control of her computer, and stare at her face for the duration of a test, reading her body language for signs of impropriety.

That article is from 2013, I wonder how much of this is now partially automated (i.e. relying on human remote proctors)?

tekromancr• 8 years ago

Online proctoring is actually a really busy space in edtech. There are numerous companies with products deployed that are fully automated. They record videos of students taking the tests through a webcam, then send the analysis back to the instructors highlighting which videos are worth watching.

julianj• 8 years ago

In my experience ProctorU is not automated. They use a branded version of logmeinrescue that allows ProctorU to take full control of your PC and record from your webcam. You can also see the proctor. However, the proctor's camera is usually paused while taking the exam and they proctor more than one exam at a time. ProctorU also executes custom scripts on your PC to check for suspicious software and virtualization.

Source: As a remote student, I have used ProctorU several times. Most recently within the last few months. I use a dedicated PC for this proctoring.

Edit: Clarified text and fixed some typos

dtornabene• 8 years ago

had no idea about this, thanks for the link. Its kind of difficult to put into words how crazy this is to me without hyperbole or cliche. Very much feeling of through the looking glass.

no1youknowz2• 8 years ago

I can see from a privacy standpoint, this may cause some concern.

However, from a credit card processor point of view and combating "friendly fraud". This could be an excellent tool to prevent that.

For example. The scenario where a transaction has been processed and 6 weeks later, it is disputed because the card holder doesn't recognise the transaction. Perhaps the wife used the husbands card whilst he was in the shower, for [insert candy crush clone].

A capture of the users face would definitely help the merchant win the representment against Visa/Mastercard.

In a scenario where goods are being shipped cross-border. Lets say from China to the US and it's for a large amount. Then this could be an extra step, where the data hasn't passed a certain threshold and thus further information is required. Having a real-time snapshot and validation to prove the card holder is legitimate. Ensures the transaction goes through.

Ultimately, I do understand it's about weighing privacy concerns. But that doesn't mean some good can't come out from this.

jstanley2• 8 years ago

No. I'm not having a photo of my face and the inside of my home associated with every online purchase. That's ludicrous.

no1youknowz2• 8 years ago

I agree. From a consumer point of view, you are welcome to take that position.

However, my comment was purely from a credit card processor, acquirer or even bank.

At the end of the day, if something like this was introduced. You are free to not comply, pay with an alternative method or shop elsewhere.

tzahola2• 8 years ago

You would still be free to checkout without face ID.

Of course this would incur a slight fee on the final sum, and buyer protections would be void, but you would still be free to opt out :-)

nathan_long• 8 years ago

Credit card processors and banks could do a lot to combat fraud that they don't do. Eg, realtime 2FA per transaction, which, as a bonus, could give the user a chance to categorize the purchase in their budget.

They do exactly the amount of security that they think is most profitable - balancing losses to fraud vs abandoned sales because of inconvenience.

Jumping straight to face recognition is a bit like physical security adding strip searches when they haven't yet bothered visually scanning for weapons.

briandear3• 8 years ago

N26 does real time 2FA for online card purchases. It’s super easy and painless.

bdcravens• 8 years ago

Merchants ask for ID well less than 1% of all of my physical purchases.

danjoc• 8 years ago

Coursera required face verification recently. Once I found out, I had my course fee refunded and have not signed up for another course.

exabrial2• 8 years ago

The policy might have been changed? An article I just read says: "taking a photo via webcam, uploading a photo of a picture id issued by the government, and making a record of their typing pattern."

nootropicat• 8 years ago

Black Mirror predicted this in a much more realistic business case - forcing users to view ads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QleMXX24v5g&t=52s

demircancelebi• 8 years ago

I think that is highly unlikely. If lots of people are not okay with watching ads, there would be economic incentives for people to create ad-free alternatives. Even now we have lots of such alternatives. If someone is not able to afford that alternative, it may actually be harmful to advertisers to spend their money on showing these people ads anyway.

beckler• 8 years ago

I think it's hard to consider at this moment, but I'm sure this is something they'll at least investigate and consider. The ad industry is cutthroat, and if this gave them anyone an edge, you can bet all of them will follow suit in time.

smallnamespace2• 8 years ago

economic incentives for people to create ad-free alternatives

Yes, but they will have to fight a giant up-hill battle because ads exploit a quirk of human psychology, which is that most people strongly undervalue their own attention.

txsh• 8 years ago

Do people realy think identities are stolen by criminals peaking over shoulders?

And, if so, couldn’t they use a camera, or mirror, or periscope to bypass this software?

gruez3• 8 years ago

or looking at the screen outside the camera's fov, which shouldn't be hard to do considering IPS have up to 178 degrees viewing angle.

unit91• 8 years ago

For real, good grief. Telescopic lenses and office windows also exist.

exabrial2• 8 years ago

If you can be prosecuted for storing someone's diagnostic medical images improperly under HIPAA law, this seems like a VERY risky thing for a company to implement.

thetall0ne• 8 years ago

I think this is really about having powerful machine learning tools like face recognition, image recognition, content personalization and recommendation etc. in the browser.

tzahola2• 8 years ago

We obviously need to make this tech mandatory. You wouldn’t want your children looking at harmful websites, would you?

nitwit005• 8 years ago

Banks don’t want private account details (like the user’s current balance and credit limits etc) being seen by anybody other than the account holder.

Unless it's an in-person interaction, a face has little security value, because it's not a secret. Getting a photo, or even full motion video of someone often just requires finding their Instagram page.

desireco422• 8 years ago

I see we will soon stop putting stickers on camera holes, but will use screwdrivers to pry them out and remove them. :)

jageen• 8 years ago

How much secure this will be ?

My concern is what if some one show my digital photo to the website, will framework detect it ?

Apple said that they over come this by using true depth technology (which i guess required specific hardware).

I like the idea thought, but there is a big reason people did not implemented this before.

bbarn• 8 years ago

So what stops me from creating a device that registers itself as a webcam natively, but just puts a loop of a pre-recorded video that satisfies the face recognition software?

Stop trying to find solutions to problems that aren't real.

Mayzie• 8 years ago

i.e. what people were doing on ChatRoulette for a long time (and probably still are).

cocochanel• 8 years ago

No! No! No! How much more intrusive do we need to get seriously? This is a naive solution to the problem stated. And a bad one at it, too.

cmaureir• 8 years ago

Technologically speaking: Yeah, that's a nice feature. Real world: This will be awful, I really don't want any DB to have a photo of me associated with transaction or authentification. Yes, I do have profile pictures, but allowing a service to get a "stream" of your face will be way worse, and I cannot imagine what would happen if this DB get compromised...anyway...still a nice Black Mirror episode though..

cjmoran• 8 years ago

"We noticed that you've looked away from your screen. Please continue watching the advertisement in order to continue!"

"Eye roll detected. Would you like to send feedback to this ad partner?"

Deestan• 8 years ago

"Thanks for watching! Please help keeping this channel alive and do not look away during the ads. Bye!"

ycmjason• 8 years ago

What happens if I do inspect elements and remove styling? :D

Face-verify.js: Monitoring who is physically looking at a website

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