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Magazine Photos Fool Age-verification Cameras
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Jun 29, 2008 01:11 PM
from the porn-magazine-photos-doubly-so dept.
from the porn-magazine-photos-doubly-so dept.
gregor-e writes "Japan has scheduled a full-scale rollout of visual age-verification on cigarette vending machines. Unfortunately for them, a Sankei Sports news reporter has determined that this system can be fooled by holding up a magazine photo of an adult."
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Technology: Facial Recognition Vending Machine Debuts 172 comments
Peter Hanami writes "Yesterday in Japan, a facial recognition vending machine went on sale that can tell the age of the buyer based on a range of features including number of wrinkles, bone structure and how the skin sits on the face. It was developed as a way to stop minors from buying cigarettes from vending machines. In Japan, cigarette vending machines are a common feature on the street and presently few safeguards exist to stop younger users from purchasing them. This new machine is seen as a positive step to reduce under age smoking. If the machine doesnt deem the buyer to be of suitable age, 20 years old, the buyer must provide further identification such as a drivers licence."
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Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, this whole idea is fantastically stupid in so many ways. In a sense I admire the gall of whichever company sold this technology, as they must have known that it couldn't possibly work. No doubt they'll roll out some ad-hoc solution to the magazine workaround (earning themselves another hearty payday as all the machines are updated). This can be repeated for each new workaround until everyone involved retires rich and their customer is too embarrassed to admit that the whole thing was obviously a waste of money.
At least it's a tobacco company getting shafted. Can't feel too sorry for them.
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
Eh, actually they don't want it to work. This way they can say "we tried to stop it from selling to kids!", but when the machine dispenses anyway they can make some extra bucks. It could easily be a way to avoid the age limits on who they can sell to.
Parent
Re:Impressive (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Age-controlled vending machines have a place (Score:5, Insightful)
Their place is in an age-restricted building or room.
Cigarette vending machines in bars, casinos, adult-entertainment establishments, and other placed where Junior can't get in without bribing the doorman, er, I mean presenting a convincing fake id, are no problem.
If they really wanted to handle this with a machine, they would make you insert your driver's license, tell you to close either your left eye or right eye or make some other facial expression at random, then compare the faces. They would double-check with the driver's license database to make sure the face on the license matched the face on record.
Thankfully, we aren't quite to this 1984 scenario yet, but this is coming.
Parent
Re:Age-controlled vending machines have a place (Score:5, Insightful)
According to the article, if you fail the visual check you have to insert your license. My question would be why don't they just always require the license? If you're old enough to smoke you should have a license. No idea how it works over there but I thought you could get a "non driving" driver's license here in the states to use as an ID.
I suppose this also says something about how many people there smoke, if they have to have cigarette vending machines around every corner. Here there are no such things anymore and I don't see anyone rioting over it. One would think the only reason they have those vending machines right now is to sell to underage smokers. Which is probably why the whole issue is under attack in the first place.
Anyone have any stats on what effect the age verification systems are having on cigarette sales from machines? I wouldn't be surprised to see sales drop 80%. For the sheer convenience and that most smokers are 1 or 2 pack a day addiction, you'd think most reasonable smokers would be buying cartains, not singles. Prices in the machines tend to be higher than by the cartain too,
Parent
Re:Age-controlled vending machines have a place (Score:4, Insightful)
There's the main flaw in your logic. Anyone who pays (way too much) for the privilege of habitually inhaling toxic smoke and gases (which is contrary to any living creature's survival instinct) cannot be described as "reasonable". Reason doesn't come into the equation for estimating how nicotine addicts will profit the tobacco companies.
Parent
Re:Age-controlled vending machines have a place (Score:4, Insightful)
Somebody once told me that it's not the days in your life that count, but the life in your days. Is your entire goal in life to live to the oldest age possible? If so, you should probably avoid driving cars or being near major roads, stay away from computers to prevent blindness and spend most of your day maintaining whatever the currently accepted level of aerobic exercise is.
Fuck that. Life is about having some fun too. If I enjoy inhaling toxic smoke, then maybe that is the way I want to have the fun in my life, and if me choosing what I want to do for fun doesn't match your "reason" or Big Brother's "reason" then fuck you both.
Parent
Re:Age-controlled vending machines have a place (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have the mental faculties to be able to properly weigh the risks of the actions you choose against their benefits to you – whether that be using a computer all day or smoking – and there are no social costs inherent in your actions, then by all means, do what you want.
But society has decided that if you are under a certain age you do not have these required decision making capabilities, and so you are restricted from making the choice. That is all.
If a child really wanted to inhale toxic fumes its parents could make that choice by going to the cigarette machine and buying the fags, but the child itself can't. Seems reasonable to me.
(This post restricts itself to the narrow issue of age restrictions and ignores facets such as taxes on "undesireable" goods)
Parent
Re:Age-controlled vending machines have a place (Score:5, Funny)
>>...stay away from computers to prevent blindness...
Wait, computers make you go blind? I thought the only thing that made you blind was masterb... OOOHHHHH I get it.
Parent
Re:Age-controlled vending machines have a place (Score:4, Interesting)
Whoops, you just made the assumption that survival instincts are based off of long-term cost/benefit ratio. On the contrary, most instincts (fight-or-flight, sexual attraction, whatnot) are based off of estimated short-term benefits. Hence why people continue to smoke...
Regardless of its truth and long-term effect, the "inhaling toxic smoke" argument borders on propoganda. It completely ignores one side of the argument.
Parent
Re:Age-controlled vending machines have a place (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever wonder why so many movies or TV shows portray this scene:
1. Some bad boy/girl wannabe lights up their first smoke
2. They choke and cough, being generally shocked at how awful it is
3. They are then ridiculed by the veteran bad boys/girls who do smoke
This is such a common theme because -- wait for it -- the short-term instincts of animals tells them that smoke (or its source) is hazardous to the animal's health or well-being.
I'm about as anti nanny state as most people get. The poster who offered me the friendly "fuck you" totally missed the point. I don't wish to curb such self destructive behavior -- more power to those who enjoy it, so long as it doesn't negatively affect my own health, taxes, or insurance premiums. I just want smokers to acknowledge their habit is about as rational as shitting in their own water supply or jumping from cliffs.
Parent
Re:Age-controlled vending machines have a place (Score:5, Insightful)
addiction and logic do not work in tandem. addiction is the defeat of logic, therefore you cannot use logic to describe the actions of the addicted.
Try talking to someone with an addiction. Be it alcohol, nicotine, or crack. Try reasoning with them. Odds are they will agree with you but won't change their behavior.
Parent
Re:Age-controlled vending machines have a place (Score:5, Informative)
The article is pretty skewed. The real story is that Taspo [wikipedia.org] is starting July 1st. Taspo is a card based system that doesn't use any age verification. It's being deployed nationwide. You have to apply for a Taspo card using some form of state-issued photo identification. Maybe there's a weak link in the application procedure, but only one card is issued per person and cards that have been lost or are being abused can be disabled remotely. The article says that there will be 4000 age verification machines (in a country of 130 million), but I've never seen one. Every day, I see dozens of machines that say Taspo will be required starting July 1st. All the smokers I know have Taspo cards.
Parent
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Funny)
Slightly more like here?
Parent
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Funny)
Can you just imagine what Japan would be like if marijuana were legal there?
Awesome
Parent
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be a huge improvement. I love it here in Tokyo, but sometimes it would be nice to burn one with some Japanese friends just to chill out. So many people here are overly-stressed, anxious, and unwilling to talk about it. Sure, those things are cultural, but they're also the sorts of things pot actually helps alleviate.
What's better? The high rate of suicide in Japan? How about the high incidence of alcohol poisoning? I fail to see how pot would make things worse.
Unfortunately, MacArthur made sure that Japanese demonize marijuana and think of it as more dangerous than heroin or cocaine.
Parent
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
The funny thing is that a lot of young people talk this way. And yet when they get older, they don't start offing themselves. Turns out that while a lot of people talk about how they'd rather die than be decrepit, when they're actually faced with the choice nearly all of them choose life.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Impressive (Score:5, Insightful)
It is similar to airline security mentality -- make everything secure by installing a fancy machine.
If it is sufficiently expensive, it must be effective.
Parent
Complex systems, simple workaround (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes it would, and yes they do... (Score:5, Informative)
They are Japanese.
You really think THEY didn't come up with that technical idea by now?
TFA:
Parent
Re:Yes it would, and yes they do... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yes it would, and yes they do... (Score:5, Funny)
In the real world, people don't just work M-F 9-5.
If they're making you work weekends the least they could do is let you look at a little pinktentacle.com
Parent
The moral of the story (Score:5, Interesting)
Never send a computer to do a human's work.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe as an parable, it's good, but the "space pen vs. the humble Russian pencil" has been widely debunked as an urban legend. Still an interesting pen!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen [wikipedia.org]
timothy
Re:Complex systems, simple workaround (Score:5, Funny)
You gotta start somewhere.
Parent
Re:Complex systems, simple workaround (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Complex systems, simple workaround (Score:5, Informative)
no, the truth of the matter is, they're just panties scented with the popular perfumes that are in vogue with highschool girls, with a statement that they're used' but it's rteally just marketing, it's much cheaper to buy perfume, spray it in a pair of cheap panties and package it in a machine as 'used' panties. actually using used panties would be gross, it's all about the 'image' people think they're really used by high school girls, and the perfume makes the buyer shell out the equivalent $80 got a $4 item, they think because it's perfumed that it's been warn, especially since the machine has big signs saying so!
most likely the item was dreamed up by some yakuza thug, of how to turn $4 into $80. I bet it's quite profitable.
Parent
Cracking at its best (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW it is easy to fix this if the machine asks the people to move. This will work ... for about a week, until they start creating animations of old people that can move on command for EEEs or other such netbooks.
Re:Cracking at its best (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW it is easy to fix this if the machine asks the people to move
Or better yet, add a second eye to make sure the subject has... depth!
Parent
Re:Cracking at its best (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Cracking at its best (Score:5, Informative)
more likely temperature. When taking a urine sample for example, one of the things the tester does immediately is check the temperature of the sample. This helps prevent people from bringing in a medicine bottle etc with a 'clean' sample to drop in the cup. if it measures much below 95 deg, they will know you brought it in.
Reminds me of something I read awhile back, guy tried this stunt and didn't get caught until later. "Mr Doe you'll be happy to know you passed your drug test. The doctors also felt they should inform you that you are approximately two months pregnant." oops...
So expect thermal (I.R.) sensors. Most digital cameras (CCDs) are highly IR sensitive anyway if you remove their IR filter, so this has to be a really easy mod for them to make. Won't be terribly easy to fool. A bit like those thermometers used to measure high temperatures of materials. They usually have a red laser light dot shine on the target, but that's purely for aiming. It shows where the IR sensor in the test unit is focused on. They can do this same thing with the face presented to measure the surface temp of the image. (without needing the red laser dot since the target is being presented in a known location)
Parent
And in related news (Score:5, Funny)
Japanese vending machines are now configured to dispense pictures of cigarettes.
Re:And in related news (Score:5, Interesting)
The machine could even keep their money, because I doubt a teen is going to report a cigarette machine took it!
Parent
this reminds me of a book... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. I just finished it, and it's full of stuff like ths. Great book, btw, HIGHLY recommended.
Jailbait detector? (Score:5, Funny)
Old Space Quest III trick (Score:5, Insightful)
Steal a picture of the CEO, photocopy, put it back, hold up in front of your face when trying to access the secret room and let it scan you.
God I wasted so many damn hours on that game.
What about being too old? (Score:4, Funny)
Wait, a McCain picture might give error messages indicating you are TOO old to buy cigarettes.
Humans can't even do it properly... (Score:4, Informative)
So I don't know why any trust is given to a machine to guess someone's age based on the appearance of their face. A lot of retailers I've seen have a sign posted at the till that says they will ask for ID if you look under 35. 35! This enormous margin of error is due to the fact that you really can't tell if someone is over or under 18 without some seriously obvious clue. I was 30 before people stopped guessing my age to be 20. My neice was able to get service in a bar once at age 14, and it could easily be seen why.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My neice was able to get service in a bar once at age 14, and it could easily be seen why.
Huge jugs?
Leisure Suit Larry Age Verification Fail (Score:5, Funny)
Who the hell is Spiro Agnew? LSL taught me.
Also, why didn't I find out Alt-X would skip that quiz until nearly 20 years later?
mr.
Easy Fix! (Score:5, Funny)
The solution is obvious: make it illegal to sell magazines with pictures of adults to minors.
Re:In Korea only old people (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"In North America, of course, magazine photos use young people."
there fixed that for you. you do realize the impact of magazines on widespread society, and the popularity of various talking heads and celebrities, especially this 'tween' star trend... the forbes top 100 celeb list had like 10 'tween's on it.
Re:In Korea only old people (Score:5, Funny)
No no, you're thinking of Japan.
Parent
Re:not a big surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:not a big surprise (Score:5, Funny)
I had to carry around a fake beard just to buy cigs.
--
I quit sigs.
You should quit cigs too.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In my European country... (Score:4, Informative)
Problem But tobacco companies' lobby will do anything to prevent it. So will do nicotine-addicted to get another cigarette.
Parent