privacy

But does it work?

He emphasised that because surveillance systems are so powerful, no design can guarantee security from detection, but said “the added value of fashion is to spread awareness and help propagate public discourse”.

Preuß said his designs used large-scale prints, asymmetrical cuts and streetwear-inspired silhouettes to confuse facial recognition algorithms. The company said its Urban Ghost coat integrates LEDs into the hood that emit infrared light to dazzle night-vision surveillance cameras.

Preuß, who co-founded his company after reading about the whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations about US surveillance in the Guardian, said his designs played with the fact that “facial recognition systems freak out when they see multiple faces at once”.

“Our patterns play with that chaos, confuse algorithms and make it way harder to pin you down,” he said.

Bell, however, said “none of these products are tried and tested, and a lot of these surveillance technologies can deal with a little resistance … [but] even if the designs don’t necessarily work perfectly, fashion is also a visible sign of resistance.

Still not sure.

Oh look, capitalism trying to sell you something by calling it a solution to your problem. The problem that it created in the first place. This doesn't seem familiar at all.

Most of these countermeasures are easily thwarted by adjustments to the CV model, meaning even if they do work upon release (a big if) the countermeasure itself eventually becomes just another uniquely identifying feature.

If we’re doing adversarial, let’s do adversarial. Like high-wattage IR lasers to permanently destroy photo receptor arrays, cheap narrowband signal jammers to push wireless chips beyond thermal limit causing early heat death, directional EMP to fry logic boards, and so forth.

Bullshit title: "adversarial" implies that one's personal security is counter to gov't interests, and that it's the citizens' fault for behaving so. 🤬

Won't work. Try something like https://www.amazon.com/Custom-Printed-Face-Mask-Personalized/dp/B0FW42TZ6H rather. Won't obscure your gait biometrics.

Because finding the weirdo wearing $500 the eyeball pants will be hard.

Two notes. The first, I don't like the name. These are defensive measures against adversarial systems. Calling these clothes adversarial clothing implies they're the bad guys and the tracking system are the good guys. The second note is more of a question... where are they available?

Edit. Misspelling

That says a lot about the times we live in....

wear a politician styled mask, commit a crime, system flags politician as criminal, repeat.

Yes, but they won't work

Sunglasses, hat, and facemask.

Everyone should just agree to wear the same clothing all the time. Maybe black pants and shirt. Remove it as a differentiator.

I could easily do this with one of those custom mall tshirts circa the 1990s that you could get printed to commemorate a graduation or remember a dead baby or w/e

Reminds of the dazzle makeup article from a decade ago. Shame that never caught on. I hope this does.

I just ordered new glasses the other day and sprung for an IR-blocking lens coating when I saw it was an option. Who knows if it'll help much, but it can't really hurt (aside from me possibly not liking the pink sheen they apparently have).

this is the most recent arxiv paper on adversarial clothing (since a lot of people are speculating about if it's possible): [2511.16020] Physically Realistic Sequence-Level Adversarial Clothing for Robust Human-Detection Evasion https://share.google/VMhtGB8P2kTMorGx6

they boast an 80%+ success rate at evading the instance level (each time you walk past an ai enabled camera) detection with sequential models (more difficult to fool as they see more of your sillouette).

not saying they are fashionable and obviously aren't commercially available yet, but it definitely seems possible.

my main complaint is i wish these companies could make a good baseline so we could compare their efficacy. evaluating the trade off with the level of drip.