bloxlox

News from the UK that week on how phone theft is up 80% year on year, so that one is snatched every six minutes from London inhabitants. These lead to criminal charges in just 1% of cases. At the same time online and phone frauds are up by similar degree so that tech leaders are invited to the House of Commons to discuss. There are three conclusions from this, being that (a) politicians are helpless in front of tech leaders in democracies at least (b) security features of devices don't work as well as expected and (c) tech leaders rely on stolen devices to help meet sales targets.

A sign of the times... Team GB's Georgia Bell not only wins Olympic silver in the 1500m, but works for a London firm that analyses cybersecurity breaches (whereas in Paris in 1924 they'd have been wearing breeches). Our own website attracts any number of visits each week from word of mouth alone, and so I've revised it to make it a little clearer along with a new tag-line which reads 'Five Means to Secure Screens'. I hope you like it: www.bloxlox.com Like 1500 metres, it's a paced race.

Am not one to obsess over stats, but feedback from the Digital Commons is of special interest to one graduate of geography like myself, as it makes for a snapshot of a kind that prior the internet would barely have been possible. Looking then at a variety of papers and bearing in mind some have had a head start, it is interesting to note that pictures are still worth a thousand words. Of the half-dozen airframes I may have circulated by which means we might be elevated by super-sized drones, the one appearing here has proven by far the most popular... and the only one downloaded by commercial helicopter (and bizarrely, access platform) manufacturers. The runner-up meanwhile is a paper describing how people we might recognise might also be used as a means of secure access to computer systems. Yes, we all recognise Ronald McDonald, but would I recognise your grandmother? The spread around the world reflects our common cultures too. For instance in the US two downloads in San Fran and...

The Digi Yatra facial ID system is being rolled out at Indian airports and though it does not eliminate a boarding pass as reported by the Financial Times, it does eliminate the need to corroborate identities at the gate prior boarding. Users are required to upload a selfie, yet in one survey 30% of them did so without knowing what they were signing up for... which critics suggest is the means by which they could be tracked everywhere and anywhere by the government. My takeaway from this is that to implement a system that involves recognising other people whom you might know ideally involves uploads of the same kind to assemble a bespoke database. Whether it will happen in my lifetime, or indeed at all, is debatable. Unless.

Without the assistance of AI or good old-fashioned Google Lens, can you tell the two apart? Well they are in fact the same Yin Qi who heads up nascent facial ID company MEGVII: https://global.faceid.com/technology/face-recognition-liveness ... except that the portrait on the left is from Tatler magazine and that on the right the South China Morning Post. No prizes for guessing which features on the company website, however, and a relief knowing the guy is at least thirty-six and not fresh out of high-school. Good though that interest in identity theft (and faces) spans the globe.

The website is updated with a fifth means by which the concept can be implemented to advantage in the form of a portable app, and one that circumvents GDPR issues as well as the cost and copyright associated with using portraits from whichever source. I've taken a photo of my ginger-beer, which is not something I do on a regular basis but among a random set of drink images it would be the only one that I recognise, and instantly so. Simple, safe and as unique a user-experience as you could hope for in securing screen access? We call it a 'snow-globe' moment and for those who've done their homework, you'll know what that means. Keep drinking the Kool-Aid.