Who will save us from voice recog foolery from scumbags? Magnetometer! Scientists are working on a way of using the internal orientation sensors in smartphones to defend against efforts to trick voice recognition systems. As the use of smartphones, wearables and voice-based assistants is on the rise, so is the risk that criminals will try to use those systems to their advantage by impersonating …
I place a thin sheet of metal between the speaker and the phone.
Your system is - quite literally - foiled.
If someone really wants to go the way of faking such things, they'll do so.
Just STOP relying on replayable, unchangeable, interpreted biometrics to secure stuff. You're not in Star Trek, you just don't have the technology enough to make it reliable.
"I place a thin sheet of metal between the speaker and the phone."
I just use the tried and tested 'Hankie over telephone mouthpiece' method.
Personally I place a thin sheet of metal over my own head, cunningly fashioned into a hat. This has the bonus that not only will nobody ever be willing to get close enough to me to record my voice, but also blocks the voices of the alien lizard overlords that I can hear when not so-equipped.
The only problem is that they're still putting stuff in the water, and the only way I've found to combat that is to only drink whisky. Or meths...
Likewise, in particular I was thinking of the old-style headphones they used to have in planes before they moved to those newfangled electric thingumabobs with the wires that tangle and knot up and snap internally to give you that nice crackle-o-matic experience.
Presumably some logistical reason for the change, surely can't have been cost? Or were they genuinely worried about sound quality in that environment? A plane is only ever silent for the short time it takes for people to start screaming...
(on consideration, changed icon from specky to bah humbug)
"Presumably some logistical reason for the change, surely can't have been cost?"
I think it WAS cost-related. Much easier to just install some wires and a bog-standard audio port in the armrest than a pair of tiny speakers. Plus by switching to the 3.5mm standard, more people brought their own, meaning fewer loaner headsets needed to be cycled in and out. Probably wasn't as practical early on, but once the Walkman craze hit (late 80's), ubiquity made things easier.
> Plus by switching to the 3.5mm standard, more people brought their own, meaning fewer loaner headsets needed to be cycled in and out.
Are you sure about that one? I could have sworn the last time I flew it was a dual/twin 3.5mm plug, not something I have anywhere, unless of course it's one standard out of many...
Last 2 sets of flights I have taken have been on Virgin Atlantic and they had the standard 3.5mm, then again they put out the headphones for free.
The last flight I was on that had the twin plug bit charged for the hire of the headphones, as it was a cheap holiday charter flight.
So I think it difference is economic, as on the charter flight if you had your own headphones but not adapter you still had to rent their headset to get the adapter.
Twin-sockets (which are 2.5mm, BTW) are probably older planes that haven't been refitted lately. A charter flight makes me think the plane's of that type: low priority on the maintenance budget. I think I last saw the tube-types around 1991, and the twin 2.5mm jobbers around 1992. Since around 2006, every plane I flew in that had video in it had the 3.5mm jack. I know because I brought and used my own headphones (modestly-priced over-the-ear noise-canceling phones that make transoceanic flights a little less ear-wracking).
The industry could standardize a small, cheap, easily replaceable, easily lost kind of dongly thing which acts like a metal key and provides a numerical key. If a person always loses their keys AND forgets their passwords then they must have a bigger problem-- probably they need an aide to do lots of things for them, so it isn't the technology's problem to solve. One or the other ought to be suitable, or something else, anything(!), while "biometrics is the ONLY thing" seems to lack imagination ;)
Yes, the people I deal with regularly (a) couldn't remember 12345 to save their lives (it comes out 52431 or 32514 instead), (b) routinely lose their keys, too, (c) are too proud to ask for help, and (d) are family, and I dare not say no lest they consult things like their reunion plans and wills.
To detect if your ear is in the vicinity of the phone.
Even as kids we used non electro-mechanic contraptions to convey sound. A tin can telephone could work too.
To detect something as 'near' is not possible. You could use parabolic reflectors to get the sound 'near'.
Maybe we need a distinction between scientist and "scientist".
> the strange fad for holding phones horizontally
Otherwise all that electromagnetic radiation will shine into the your ear and IRRADIATE YOUR BRAIN!
(plus it means that they have to put it on speakerphone so that everyone can hear how special their conversation is)
(plus it means that they have to put it on speakerphone so that everyone can hear how special their conversation is)
A guy in the pub yesterday was doing this. Unfortunately the conversation (I use the term loosely) was with his elderly, dementia suffering mother. There are some things you'd much rather not hear, because the deep pathos is combined with the knowledge you can do nothing to help.
Err, I can actually feel when a phone is transmitting on GSM or Edge - I get a horrible tingly sensation on that side of my head above my ear. For that reason, I do use the phone on speaker so nothing unusual for me there.
Thankfully, now we're mostly on 3G or better I can happily irradiate my brain without being aware of the effects...
Icon because speakerphones avoid discomfort.
"(*) WTF is that all about anyway?"
It was invented so that people on reality TV programs were still recognisable when holding a phone up., and didn't have an arm in way of the camera. As with so many things on TV programs (like people crossing the road straight into parking spaces because nobody wants to watch people park) the watchers of the boob tube promptly copied it.
No, it wasn't "invented by reality TV". It is the way that makes the most sense to hold the phone if you are talking on speaker. So long as I'm not around others, I'm always talking on speakerphone. Usually I put the phone down, but if I'm standing/walking I'm holding the phone out in front of me with the bottom facing me, because that's where the microphone is.
(*) WTF is that all about anyway?
Don't you watch South Park? It's so idiots can talk loudly while complaining about the lack of privacy and other people listening in to their conversations. Bonus points for doing it somewhere inappropriate (eg in a library) and complaining even more loudly about someone trying to interfere in your life (etc) when they suggest you take the conversation outside. That they refer to being able to hear your very loud conversation in the first place is conclusive proof that they're deliberately listening in and your privacy is being invaded!
(even more bonus points for claiming a "Zionist", Muslim or Russian conspiracy behind it, more so if you can claim it was Zionist Muslims at the behest of Russian Jews!!)
"the strange fad for holding phones horizontally"
Sometimes it's because the phone is broken such that speaker phone is the only way it will work. Sometimes it's because they're listening to music through headphones which don't include a mic, so they have to talk at the mic in the phone.
Still looks silly either way.
There seems to be a lot of complaining that this is pointless because there are ways around it. Of course there are, but just because something isn't perfect doesn't mean it's no use at all. For essentially zero cost - a tiny bit of extra processing power on top of speech recognition, plus a very low power sensor - this can prevent by far the easiest way of spoofing speech recognition. Most bike locks are completely useless against someone equipped with a £20 set of bolt cutters, but they're still very good at preventing theft because most people aren't wandering around carrying bolt cutters and it's difficult to use them in public without being arrested. Similarly, if your phone has been physically taken and an attacker can mess with it at their leisure, there's not a lot you can do about it. But if they're trying to do something relatively publicly in a relatively subtle way, a measure that makes it at least a bit more difficult for them at essentially zero cost to legitimate users can only be a good thing.
But walking around with a large set of bolt cutters helps identify you as a bike thief with a high degree of certainty. It's a substantial risk you'd get caught.
You can reproduce sound at any phone, anywhere, anytime, using almost any equipment, and with complete impunity. Doesn't necessarily even have to be the target's own device.
The only way of this being useful is if the user's voice is identified AND the response is uniquely identifiable as them. Rather like speaking a password or OTA code. Utterly useless. The alternative is hidden forensic signals in ALL available methods of recreating the sound of a voice (akin to hidden yellow printer dots), but that's almost unlimited scope of equipment and thus entirely out of control.
They prefer to destroy "The Club" because it leaves the steering wheel intact, raising its fence value. Anyway, the can's not THAT expensive and easy to buy in an auto parts store. Its covert factor makes it worth the buy unless you can find one of those smaller bolt cutters you can conceal in a jacket.
You don't steal the sort of car protected by The Club (or The Krooklock) to "fence it".
You steal it so you can chop it and sell the bits, the least valuable one being the steering wheel.
But go ahead. Let's see which is faster to do in real life (as opposed to in the movies): Cut a small slot in the steering wheel, or freeze the lock cold enough to shatter the innards without just making the entire thing seize solid just as the can runs out of juice (or cools so much the pressure drops to a negligible value, thermodynamics being what they are).
They prefer to destroy "The Club" because it leaves the steering wheel intact, raising its fence value.
Steering wheel is cheap and very easy to replace on many vehicles, from a scrap yard probably cheaper than your cans of refrigerant.
And the cans available would be unlikely to freeze something like those devices enough to shatter the metal easily. 1) The cans are relatively small (don't think I've seen any above 500ml, 2) the metal of those devices (of those I've seen) are at least 15mm thick, 3) they're covered in a thick plastic/rubber "paint" which is a very good heat insulator, 3) things frozen like that seldom break as easily as shown on TV, or as quickly, and 4) the swinging room in a car is quite low.
Much easier to use a hacksaw. If you believe it really is that easy to use a spray can, you might also want to take a good look at those highly scientific and not even remotely dodgy UFO, "Atmospheric Noise" and "proof that the earth is flat" videos also available from You Tube.
No, I don't have any experience with stealing cars (well, not on the criminal side anyway :( ), but I have done my hours in metallurgy and have plenty of experience with various methods of cutting/breaking metal.
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