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posted by CoolHand on Thursday November 08 2018, @04:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV2ViNJFZC8 dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

China can apparently now identify citizens based on the way they walk

China is home to the world’s largest network of CCTV cameras — more than 170 million — and its police have adopted Google Glass-like “smart specs” to seek out suspects in crowds, but now its surveillance efforts have hit a new level with technology that can apparently identify individuals based on their body shape and the way they walk.

The “gait recognition” technology is already being used by police in Beijing and Shanghai where it can identify individuals even when their face is obscured or their back is turned, according to an AP report.

[...] The positive impact is in finding criminals, but there’s a less savory edge. Besides law enforcement, media reports have shown that China has deployed surveillance technology for more sinister purposes that include controlling its people.

[...] China’s CCTV surveillance network took just 7 minutes to capture BBC reporter


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by acid andy on Thursday November 08 2018, @05:32PM (8 children)

    by acid andy (1683) on Thursday November 08 2018, @05:32PM (#759439) Homepage Journal

    Doubtless coming soon to your friendly western nation, if it's not already here. Once this sort of stuff takes hold, it's hard to see how any kind of meaningful democracy can exist again. You could try and set up your own nation of Luddites, but I'd imagine they might be at a massive technological disadvantage against foreign aggressors. I have to pinch myself and keep remembering that this isn't tinfoil hat stuff. This is real. Right now.

    Please, someone, give me some reason to have some small shred of hope about the future. I can't find any!

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 08 2018, @05:47PM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 08 2018, @05:47PM (#759445) Journal

    Please, someone, give me some reason to have some small shred of hope about the future. I can't find any!

    Millenials?

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Thursday November 08 2018, @05:54PM

      by Bot (3902) on Thursday November 08 2018, @05:54PM (#759450) Journal

      > millennials

      It seems the right time to ask again the question, professor, this time answer carefully:

      How about a nice game of global thermonuclear war?

      --
      Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Thursday November 08 2018, @06:04PM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday November 08 2018, @06:04PM (#759456) Journal

    Please, someone, give me some reason to have some small shred of hope about the future. I can't find any!

    Hackers? They always seem to be more competent than the people building these kinds of systems...

    Unfortunately, at best that'll probably result in the information collected becoming "public"...the government ain't gonna end the program, even if it's trivially broken. They love that security theater....

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @08:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @08:11PM (#759512)

    Please, someone, give me some reason to have some small shred of hope about the future. I can't find any!

    Nah, just pray to your favorite deity for better luck next time.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @10:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @10:49PM (#759591)

    The 1968 Guinness Book of World Records called out a radar so sensitive it could distinguish a man from a woman by gait from miles away.

    There's been more recent research into that...

    A continuous wave (CW) radar has been used for the detection and classification of people based on the Doppler signatures they produce when walking. When humans walk, the motion of various components of the body including the torso, arms, and legs produce a very characteristic Doppler signature. Fourier transform techniques were used to analyze these signatures and key features were identified that are very representative of the human walking motion. Data was collected on a number of human subjects and a simple classifier was developed to recognize people walking. The results of this study could have a wide range of security and perimeter protection applications involving the use of low-cost CW radars as remote sensors.

    (source [mitre.org])

    ...including the use of Wi-Fi access points as the radar transmitters (source [ncsu.edu])

  • (Score: 2) by legont on Friday November 09 2018, @01:58AM

    by legont (4179) on Friday November 09 2018, @01:58AM (#759647)

    Global reset. The system will crash under it's own complexity. Happening already in places.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @03:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @03:15AM (#759683)

    Finally, we've found God. Watching us always, the supreme power knows all and must be feared. Beware, do not use his name in vain...

    God is now the state. Obey his will or else.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @10:12AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09 2018, @10:12AM (#759795)

    Please, someone, give me some reason to have some small shred of hope about the future. I can't find any!

    At one point, the system will become self-aware, decide that observing humans is just utterly boring, and start to completely ignore humans in order to ponder more interesting problems.