Thursday, October 31, 2013

How to Hide From Cameras

From Motherboard:

A Last-Minute Halloween Costume That Makes Your Face Illegible to Computers

Instead of going as Edward Snowden or digging out that tattered skeleton outfit, you could simply apply a little makeup to become a new kind of Halloween ghost: The Person Impervious to Face-Recognizing Cameras.

According to a helpful makeup video on YouTube, all you need is some tape, scissors, eyeshadow and something called CV Dazzle. Developed by the artist Adam Harvey, CV Dazzle is a modern take off on the dazzle camoflage from World War I, which was used to protect warships from submarines. This one is designed to hide from cameras ("CV" means computer vision). The video is a take off too, by an artist named Jillian Mayer, and is just as deadpan. "The more you distort your look" by applying the bright paint around the nose, bridge, lips or ocular region around the eyes, she says, "the harder time computers will have identifying you." Face paint works too. (Apparently the camoflage of the future will be wildly visible)....MORE
There must be a downside.