I wonder how good the disguise "technology" is that they won't disclose in a public YouTube video.
I don't know why you'd want to disguise yourself as the opposite gender unless you could pull off the voice, your cover would be blown almost immediately.
I still don't place any stock in intelligence operatives working in embassies, I can only imagine it works because intelligence agencies aren't sophisticated enough yet. You have a (relatively) small group of staff, and you know a portion of them are spies. Many "official covers" are extremely weak.
> I don't know why you'd want to disguise yourself as the opposite gender unless you could pull off the voice, your cover would be blown almost immediately.
Only if you speak. The solution then, if this were for some reason necessary, is "don't speak."
Relying on not having to speak is extremely sub-optimal. I'm not sure how many situations you can get in that you have both the time required as well as the need to disguise yourself as someone of the opposite gender.
You could pretend to be mute, of course, but this can attract more attention in certain scenarios.
You can train your voice to speak convincingly like a female. Transgender women do this all the time. The training does not take that long (a few months) and would be good for disguising your voice in a number of ways, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they did this.
It doesn't matter if a few are good at convincing, as long as most are unconvincing. Unless the people who are good at voice conversion are the same people who have done body shape modification aand wardrobe modification and are opposite the people who openly admit about their transness, it's easy to estimate what fraction of trans people are good at changing their voice.
I used to work at a place where there were a lot of transgender prostitutes outside in the evenings. They would proposition me as I walked by (as well as flash their parts at me sometimes). Some were pretty convincing regarding looks but when they spoke you could tell.
(I said "limited experience", but I suppose I probably have a fair bit more experience than most people).
Could be the toupee problem. You only notice the bad ones, and assume that all toupees are unconvincing? Meanwhile, the effective hairpieces slip by you undetected.
I agree, a lot of it is about the complete package, how you walk, how you stand, which emotions you show overtly, how you dress.
There are plenty of women with very deep voices and you still accept them as women. You just don't notice because you don't hear the voice in isolation.
The speaker in the video claims that they can turn a woman into a man but that it's nearly impossible to turn a man into a woman. In other words, according to her, there is no way to "pull off a female illusion well".
Nearly impossible, sure. But not impossible. There are professional female illusionists you can look up to see the amount of preparation and effort it takes to pull off.
The hosting country, like Russia, knows they are spies and puts surveillance teams on them 24/7. The spy's (aka CIA Officer) job is to make sure their agents (the host country people they are gathering intelligence from) will not be discovered because in worst case that may mean death for the agent.
I've read a few memoirs from CIA officers and typically they are doing a very well planned surveillance detection route (SDR) to ferret out who is following them. If they are headed to a clandestine meet, the plan could include disguises and specific parts of the route where they can lose the surveillance team. Then they can meet freely with their agent.
The sophistication isn't about technology of disguise, it is more about using a combination of the techniques described in the video and well honed skills.
I am just saying, if I am an asset, I do not want to be handled by someone under official cover. I'm sure they take all manner of measures to stay safe, but imagine how much safer it could be when you don't know the handler is in a group of a few hundred suspected spies. I'm sure that's more difficult though.
By "technology" I meant quality of the masks if they even bother with them. It seems silicone masks are very good. I wonder if surveillance cameras are able to tell if a person is wearing one.
They didn't reveal my secret disguise so I do wonder.
My 'secret disguise' is truly ingenious. I am a cyclist and I can transform into a regular pedestrian without anyone being suspicious.
In 'cyclist mode' the trick is to wear an extremely hi-viz jacket and to cycle at an unexceptional speed, taking short cuts through parks and along canal tow-paths. Those pesky Americans in their cars with access to every CCTV will never catch me that way.
I can stop at any time and just get off the road, maybe to 'have a drink' or maybe to change my outfit as I could be 'too hot or cold'.
The helmet, sunglasses and face mask makes it hard for facial recognition to work, yet I am not 'in disguise' as per the flaky accessories shown in this video.
Of course I have a fleet of bicycles, including a folding bike that can be taken on public transport as well as wheeled into buildings. This and other bikes in the fleet can be abandoned as needed.
It goes without saying that if I do encounter trouble then that D-lock and accompanying chain is there if I need it. I would prefer not to be nicked for grievous bodily harm so I am more likely to step up the pace and take flight rather than fight. Again, due to the special nature of being a 'cyclist' I can jump every light with impunity whereas those men in black can't quite do that.
I can also have a full change of clothes in my bag, again this is legit due to the bicycle. I don't even need to leave fingerprints. Plus a tracking device is quite hard to place on a bicycle without the added weight being noticed.
What is also pretty good is that the bicycle gets me to places in time. There are no traffic delays or train problems.
The tools that go with the bike are pretty good too. I can carry all that is needed to break and enter into a building if that was needed (which it isn't). Anyone else carrying a knife or an adjustable wrench has some explaining to do if they get stopped and searched.
The bag on my back also does a good job of stopping small arms from damaging my vital organs, not that getting shot is a problem outside the U.S. and occupied territories.
It all comes with plausible deniability. I can navigate by landmarks too. Even better this 'stealth cycling' mode of getting around is not worthy of Hollywood. Some guy bumbling along cycle paths is way too boring for the movies so my secret disguise is always going to work.
>* I wonder how good the disguise "technology" is that they won't disclose in a public YouTube video.*
The impression I got of government tech from the Snowden leaks was "script kiddies at scale". I don't think their technology is "better" but they may have unique abilities by virtue of access to large databases such as DMV/passport photo DBs.
Or they can do things like get a court order compelling $COMPANY to pipe any publicly posted profile photo to them with the reasoning it was publicly posted and thus has no expectation of privacy. Other things at scale like that.
With Facebook and facial recognition, spies can be identified before they even know they want to become a spy. There is literally a lifetime of facial recognition data on social networks for youths and college grads as they post their pics online, and if they get recruited to become a spy in their 20s, there will already be enough information to identify people globally, as they walk through airports, shopping centers, etc and have their pictures videoed constantly.
Facebook, et. al is a treasure trove of data for purposes like these.
The video describes mostly about what they would do under active surveillance e.g. people following them. Some of the prosthetics she describes also may throw off facial recognition.
I would assume that in front of the headquarter of any major intelligence agency, there is a dozen minivans, one for each foreign agency, taking continuously recording+facial recognition of employees coming in an out. Useful to spot foreign agents when they come through your airports security.
Unless we are talking about something like Russian GRU than they will basically list GRU building as their registered address in various open and semi open databases.
What are you talking about? Active GRU agents don't get designated as GRU and get embedded in other units.
Even on the direct action level, they aren't listed as GRU anywhere, wear the uniform of some regular unit in the area, and have paperwork saying they are a regular soldier.
Nope you just have to stop projecting what USSR was onto Russia outside of mostly same territory there is not much left as far as capabilities especially as far as human capital.
Don't think that parking outside the FSB or GRU HQ is going to be possible for the CIA or SIS. Or vice versa.
Hiding a fake base station to capture phones and wifi devices near by strikes me as one possible gambit (result of playing a lot or rpgs's over the years)
Won't very good prosthetics thwart facial recognition? Maybe you can't change the distance between your eyes, but with the prosthetics she describes you could certainly change other geometries: forehead, chin, cheekbones, ears. etc.
There's no reason to assume that China's tech actually works in the field.
In totalitarian china, everyone is a suspect, so detecting a suspect is trivial.
That article does a decent job of explaining that the surveillence is as much pseudoscience and propaganda as scientific technology.
>>>>
China’s national database of individuals it has flagged for watching — including suspected terrorists, criminals, drug traffickers, political activists and others — includes 20 million to 30 million people, said one technology executive who works closely with the government.
...
Officials said humans still sift through the images to match them to people’s identities.
...
In Zhengzhou, police were happy to explain how just the thought of the facial recognition glasses could get criminals to confess.
Mr. Shan, the Zhengzhou railway station deputy police chief, cited the time his department grabbed a heroin smuggler. While questioning the suspect, Mr. Shan said, police pulled out the glasses and told the man that what he said didn’t matter. The glasses could give them all the information they needed.
“Because he was afraid of being found out by the advanced technology, he confessed,” said Mr. Shan, adding that the suspect had swallowed 60 small packs of heroin.
There have been quite a few reports recently that wanted criminals were captured because of this technology. Some of those had been escaping from police for many years. It’s about capturing criminals not detecting suspects.
Most interestingly, it happened several times that criminals were caught during watching Zhang Xueyou’s (a pop star) concert. An article mentioning that:
It's the same with lie detectors. There's little evidence that they work all that well, but they're great for bluffing.
I read about one suspect who confessed after cops hooked him up to a "lie detector" that was actually a photocopier. They pushed the button and it printed "LIE," and he broke down.
Facial recognition is less important for spies; faces can be changed rather trivially. Gait analysis and recognition is big too, and more prevalent than you might think. It's employed by large chain stores to track serial shoplifters.
> Gait analysis and recognition is big too, and more prevalent than you might think.
The video did talk about changing gait, though it did mention it was difficult because it's so unconscious, so you have to use some object to make you consciously aware of it.
The video did talk about rather low-tech solutions, constrict the movement of one of your knees lightly by putting a bandage round it, or stick a pebble in your shoe.
I don't buy it. Facial recognition has had as many failures as successes, probably more because we only hear about the times it works, not all the times it fails. It seems like it is something ridiculously easy to fool. I know you all love fancy tech, but there are and will be amazingly low-tech ways to defeat these systems.
As far as developing profiles of every living person with a goal of knowing which ones will become spies, all I can say is good luck with that! Spies have been recruited from all walks of life, it cuts across all socioeconomic strata and all personality types. There isn't just a James Bond Type A personality type that becomes a spy and to think that betrays how little you have thought about this subject.
Also, probably every person from China who comes to the US has been evaluated as an asset and may or may not be one, so figure 100% potential there.
> I don't buy it. Facial recognition has had as many failures as successes, probably more because we only hear about the times it works, not all the times it fails. It seems like it is something ridiculously easy to fool. I know you all love fancy tech, but there are and will be amazingly low-tech ways to defeat these systems.
Also, with a large enough population, you'll also have to deal with doppelgangers (e.g. https://twinstrangers.net/). Probably too many false positives to be very helpful, unless you're willing to spend a lot of money sorting through them.
BTW, you're shadowbanned, and seem to have been for some time. All your comments are invisible to most users unless someone vouches for them.
This might be fake news but I thought this was hilarious when I saw it.
"Russian spy service punishes trainees who drove through Moscow in a luxury convoy to celebrate graduation – and allowing themselves to be photographed "
why does hn censor humor? that censorship is creating a feedback loop where creative individuals are left out of the discussions, which seem to be becoming more and more pedantic.
his post, while perfunctory, is still a reference to something culturally significant
imo flagging would be better reserved for more severe infractions and let the community decide (via vote) what is "substantive"
This isn't censorship (dang just made a request). Creative people and everyone is welcome; you just have to follow the rules. If you're really after puns and low effort posts then check out reddit, but even there some communities (like legaladvice or science) will "censor" a user for such posts.
I'm wondering now when all these classic behaviors become imprinted. I'm born in America, grew up in Germany for the most part. Apparently I eat and stand like an American.
I saw this video and didn't think much of it until I saw my friend counting money the Asian way. He didn't know that wasn't how Americans typically did it - I guess you pick up a lot of little things like this by watching your parents.
I felt the same when moving to Romania, they have a different way of counting money compared to France. I barely paid attention to it until one of the ladies from shop told me.
Cultural difference is found in a lot of small things you do in your daily life, it's just like that scene from Inglourious Bastards when he is showing the German 3 and the British 3.
Yeah, there are lots of little things out there. My wife and I were just discussing how as Canadians, we don't perceive ourselves to have any accent and sound just like "normal" people on American TV, however after she speaks with US based co-workers or folks she meets when she travels, they instantly know after only a simple Hello or maybe 3 words that she is Canadian (and they point it out!). There are just certain words that we pronounce just a tiny bit different that we don't notice because we can say it the Canadian or American way interchangeably, but to Americans who aren't inundated with Canadian TV like we are with American media, we believe they can instantly detect any deviation from their culture's norms. It's kind of maddening because we can't detect the other way around nearly as easy.
She said she'd been caught on words such as Hello, Syrup and Being, to name a few. Perhaps it was just that she said Hello in a happier tone or with different emphasis? I'm not sure, that one seemed ridiculous.
Imagine trying to change all those words you don't even realize you are saying different unless you repeat it with the person multiple times.
>She said she'd been caught on words such as Hello, Syrup and Being, to name a few. Perhaps it was just that she said Hello in a happier tone or with different emphasis? I'm not sure, that one seemed ridiculous.
I lived in Canada for a bit, and I would have guessed sooorry, tomooorow, oout, aboout. At least that's what Ontarians sound like to me. They really stretch those o sounds.
If you spend time in casinos you notice the counting money differences.
There are also occupational differences, and differences in how wallets are used, back pocket vs front pocket vs top pocket, if money is taken out of a wallet or counted inside the wallet, if money clips are used, if the money is folded etc.
I sat at a poker table once with a guy who could swear he could spot drug dealers and money launderers by the way they fold and count their money by counting the roll out and also throw money vs placing it when putting it on the table
Interesting. When I lived in Munich I usually could spot American tourists from far away just by looking at posture and the way they walked. But I couldn't tell you what exactly the difference is.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadI don't know why you'd want to disguise yourself as the opposite gender unless you could pull off the voice, your cover would be blown almost immediately.
I still don't place any stock in intelligence operatives working in embassies, I can only imagine it works because intelligence agencies aren't sophisticated enough yet. You have a (relatively) small group of staff, and you know a portion of them are spies. Many "official covers" are extremely weak.
Only if you speak. The solution then, if this were for some reason necessary, is "don't speak."
You could pretend to be mute, of course, but this can attract more attention in certain scenarios.
because as a layperson i really can't.
(I said "limited experience", but I suppose I probably have a fair bit more experience than most people).
And if you pull off a female illusion well, youd be surprised that most people wouldnt think twice about your voice.
There are plenty of women with very deep voices and you still accept them as women. You just don't notice because you don't hear the voice in isolation.
I've read a few memoirs from CIA officers and typically they are doing a very well planned surveillance detection route (SDR) to ferret out who is following them. If they are headed to a clandestine meet, the plan could include disguises and specific parts of the route where they can lose the surveillance team. Then they can meet freely with their agent.
The sophistication isn't about technology of disguise, it is more about using a combination of the techniques described in the video and well honed skills.
By "technology" I meant quality of the masks if they even bother with them. It seems silicone masks are very good. I wonder if surveillance cameras are able to tell if a person is wearing one.
One would think IR imaging would bust masks pretty quick due to differences in thermal characteristics from normal skin.
My 'secret disguise' is truly ingenious. I am a cyclist and I can transform into a regular pedestrian without anyone being suspicious.
In 'cyclist mode' the trick is to wear an extremely hi-viz jacket and to cycle at an unexceptional speed, taking short cuts through parks and along canal tow-paths. Those pesky Americans in their cars with access to every CCTV will never catch me that way.
I can stop at any time and just get off the road, maybe to 'have a drink' or maybe to change my outfit as I could be 'too hot or cold'.
The helmet, sunglasses and face mask makes it hard for facial recognition to work, yet I am not 'in disguise' as per the flaky accessories shown in this video.
Of course I have a fleet of bicycles, including a folding bike that can be taken on public transport as well as wheeled into buildings. This and other bikes in the fleet can be abandoned as needed.
It goes without saying that if I do encounter trouble then that D-lock and accompanying chain is there if I need it. I would prefer not to be nicked for grievous bodily harm so I am more likely to step up the pace and take flight rather than fight. Again, due to the special nature of being a 'cyclist' I can jump every light with impunity whereas those men in black can't quite do that.
I can also have a full change of clothes in my bag, again this is legit due to the bicycle. I don't even need to leave fingerprints. Plus a tracking device is quite hard to place on a bicycle without the added weight being noticed.
What is also pretty good is that the bicycle gets me to places in time. There are no traffic delays or train problems.
The tools that go with the bike are pretty good too. I can carry all that is needed to break and enter into a building if that was needed (which it isn't). Anyone else carrying a knife or an adjustable wrench has some explaining to do if they get stopped and searched.
The bag on my back also does a good job of stopping small arms from damaging my vital organs, not that getting shot is a problem outside the U.S. and occupied territories.
It all comes with plausible deniability. I can navigate by landmarks too. Even better this 'stealth cycling' mode of getting around is not worthy of Hollywood. Some guy bumbling along cycle paths is way too boring for the movies so my secret disguise is always going to work.
The impression I got of government tech from the Snowden leaks was "script kiddies at scale". I don't think their technology is "better" but they may have unique abilities by virtue of access to large databases such as DMV/passport photo DBs.
Or they can do things like get a court order compelling $COMPANY to pipe any publicly posted profile photo to them with the reasoning it was publicly posted and thus has no expectation of privacy. Other things at scale like that.
Facebook, et. al is a treasure trove of data for purposes like these.
Even on the direct action level, they aren't listed as GRU anywhere, wear the uniform of some regular unit in the area, and have paperwork saying they are a regular soldier.
Which is kind of a feel good story, point and laugh at those Russian idiots bungling things again.
Hiding a fake base station to capture phones and wifi devices near by strikes me as one possible gambit (result of playing a lot or rpgs's over the years)
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/business/china-surveillan...
In totalitarian china, everyone is a suspect, so detecting a suspect is trivial.
That article does a decent job of explaining that the surveillence is as much pseudoscience and propaganda as scientific technology.
>>>> China’s national database of individuals it has flagged for watching — including suspected terrorists, criminals, drug traffickers, political activists and others — includes 20 million to 30 million people, said one technology executive who works closely with the government.
...
Officials said humans still sift through the images to match them to people’s identities.
...
In Zhengzhou, police were happy to explain how just the thought of the facial recognition glasses could get criminals to confess.
Mr. Shan, the Zhengzhou railway station deputy police chief, cited the time his department grabbed a heroin smuggler. While questioning the suspect, Mr. Shan said, police pulled out the glasses and told the man that what he said didn’t matter. The glasses could give them all the information they needed.
“Because he was afraid of being found out by the advanced technology, he confessed,” said Mr. Shan, adding that the suspect had swallowed 60 small packs of heroin.
Most interestingly, it happened several times that criminals were caught during watching Zhang Xueyou’s (a pop star) concert. An article mentioning that:
https://qz.com/1285912/chinas-facial-recognition-cameras-kee...
A recent article did some stats and claimed that a total of 55 criminals were captured at Zhang Xueyou's concert. http://www.chinanews.com/sh/2018/10-24/8658284.shtml
It's as much as capturing criminals as to detect suspects/find suspects.
I read about one suspect who confessed after cops hooked him up to a "lie detector" that was actually a photocopier. They pushed the button and it printed "LIE," and he broke down.
The video did talk about changing gait, though it did mention it was difficult because it's so unconscious, so you have to use some object to make you consciously aware of it.
As far as developing profiles of every living person with a goal of knowing which ones will become spies, all I can say is good luck with that! Spies have been recruited from all walks of life, it cuts across all socioeconomic strata and all personality types. There isn't just a James Bond Type A personality type that becomes a spy and to think that betrays how little you have thought about this subject.
Also, probably every person from China who comes to the US has been evaluated as an asset and may or may not be one, so figure 100% potential there.
Also, with a large enough population, you'll also have to deal with doppelgangers (e.g. https://twinstrangers.net/). Probably too many false positives to be very helpful, unless you're willing to spend a lot of money sorting through them.
BTW, you're shadowbanned, and seem to have been for some time. All your comments are invisible to most users unless someone vouches for them.
How can someone vouch for it if it's invisible to them?
"Russian spy service punishes trainees who drove through Moscow in a luxury convoy to celebrate graduation – and allowing themselves to be photographed "
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3691711/Russian-spy...
his post, while perfunctory, is still a reference to something culturally significant
imo flagging would be better reserved for more severe infractions and let the community decide (via vote) what is "substantive"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g87HVlu55mQ
I saw this video and didn't think much of it until I saw my friend counting money the Asian way. He didn't know that wasn't how Americans typically did it - I guess you pick up a lot of little things like this by watching your parents.
Cultural difference is found in a lot of small things you do in your daily life, it's just like that scene from Inglourious Bastards when he is showing the German 3 and the British 3.
She said she'd been caught on words such as Hello, Syrup and Being, to name a few. Perhaps it was just that she said Hello in a happier tone or with different emphasis? I'm not sure, that one seemed ridiculous.
Imagine trying to change all those words you don't even realize you are saying different unless you repeat it with the person multiple times.
I lived in Canada for a bit, and I would have guessed sooorry, tomooorow, oout, aboout. At least that's what Ontarians sound like to me. They really stretch those o sounds.
There are also occupational differences, and differences in how wallets are used, back pocket vs front pocket vs top pocket, if money is taken out of a wallet or counted inside the wallet, if money clips are used, if the money is folded etc.
I sat at a poker table once with a guy who could swear he could spot drug dealers and money launderers by the way they fold and count their money by counting the roll out and also throw money vs placing it when putting it on the table
Interesting. When I lived in Munich I usually could spot American tourists from far away just by looking at posture and the way they walked. But I couldn't tell you what exactly the difference is.