Stay in the basement and drink alone.
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
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Privacy
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Gotta say, I don't think most peoples' threat models make worrying about IRL privacy a concern, but that's obviously not the point.
For the record, I don't use any of these techniques myself, it's just stuff I've read.
For facial recognition, a lot of CCTV cameras don't have IR filters, and can be blinded with Infrared LEDs, so there have been some promising experiments with shoving a bunch of them into hats. You'll glow real bright in any footage, but they won't be able to see your face.
Beyond that, there's always prosthetics (think like what is used in movies) to alter your facial characteristics.
All that said, I believe the main way of identifying individuals in camera footage now is by gait analysis. Supposedly a rock in your shoe can change it enough to not match up between different footage.
You'd also want to ditch your phone or put it in a signal blocking bag, as it can be uniquely identified by the saved wifi SSIDs that it tries to connect to, and by its bluetooth unique identifier (might just be the MAC address), that can be tracked by low energy bluetooth beacons (how stores track customer movement within and how most places did covid exposure tracing with the apps).
As far as fingerprints go, maybe a light layer of superglue on your fingertips to disrupt the print patterns? That's a complete guess though.
What are the chances that an IR LED hat would get you run over by a self-driving vehicle? We already know they don't deal well with anything out of the ordinary, and they routinely slam into trucks and barriers.
cash
not much I can do about CCTV (without breaching important social norms)
(without breaching important social norms)
But why would anyone who cares about privacy consider them more important?
Have fun not getting stopped by the police if you walk around with a balaclava, especially if you're Black.
Their problem. We're activists. We fight for rights, not compromise them.
What do you mean? Getting stopped by the police is a big deal. They can arrest you—in which case they will obtain your details, take your fingerprints, etc, which is antithetical to privacy—and they can do worse than arrest you too if they feel like it.
Well it highly depends on the country in question
In what country does being detained by the police not lead to them identifying you? The police are highly unlikely to release someone if they don't know who they are. I think it's fairly global that detainees who refuse to give their name to the police will at least be kept until the police have identified them.
The government already has your data because it's how it works. Detention for identification is not bad and you can just bring your ID with you (that you should do all the time tbh) in case the police ask questions. Still they won't like follow you so there is some improvement as long as you don't let the cameras track you exactly to your home address.
If you are detained and identified, the police gain additional information about you because they have identified you as the person who was—walking at X place at Y time, doing A activity at B location, etc.
Still better than real-time surveillance imo.
You know the police frequently raid the homes of people they detain too? Seize their electronics? Yes your electronics should have full disk encryption with a strong passphrase anyway but i would personally prefer if the feds didnt possess them in the first place.
You know the police frequently raid the homes of people they detain too?
Idk where you live but here where I live it's illegal. After a person done their time (or another form of responsibility), nobody has any rights to perform any action against them unless they do another crime.
In US pig will kill you and nothing will be done about it.
Most people are not willing to take that shot esp if you are in a lower social economic position.
Not surprised at all tbh and of course it's usually not worth taking such risk. I was talking about countries where covering your face is allowed.
I vote for political parties that are explicitly against facial recognition when possible (always a small party that nobody knows). I use cash.
This is one of the greatest things that came out of the pandemic, though. Its no longer weird to walk around in a face mask. Its normalized in almost every country, instead of just Asians.
Everywhere except in the USA's Republican states. It's an unforgiveable sin to be seen with a mask on there for stupid reasons.
Nothing. The effort required to make a meaningful impact against this type of threat is way beyond my threat level.