bloxlox

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.

The programme 'You and Yours' on Radio Four in the UK today focuses on a distressing tale of someone who meets someone else at a club and shares a taxi home, where his phone is eventually lifted. And because that someone else has seen the passcode in use during the taxi-ride, once elsewhere he logs himself in and circumvents Apple's much-vaunted Face ID by entering the settings and using his own face instead. Subsequently he logs into much-vaunted online bank Monzo by means of Face ID, and empties it of a considerable sum. Mentioned in the same feature the common practise of using notes or stickies to log all of those passcodes and passwords that none of us could be expected to recall... these are also available by the same nefarious means. There is still an argument for protecting your ID using faces or objects that only you could be expected to know, but the question is not so much the 'in' to your phone as the 'in' to the potential market? The programme t...

From my personal point of view this project fell short of its objective viz. accelerated development following an application for funding from Y Combinator... though as John Lennon said, life's what happens while your planning other things. I'd be the first to confess that I didn't give it my best shot, which would have involved a considerable degree of debt. For many ventures to succeed, practically all of your chips have to be placed on the table... as I've done so too often over the decades with a variety of concepts. Dusting oneself down though it's a time for reflection and as a part of the effort I have revamped the website at www.bloxlox.com which now simply highlights four ways that a system like this could be incorporated on modern devices. The problems in integrating such a system with smartphone operating systems does point to a cloud-based solution, because such devices are vulnerable to 'Trojan Horse' types of attack wherein once breached, your...