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.
Strawman since anything I personally post or any YouTube link I could post (serach for "freeze lock compressed air") or any Instructable I post you'll just call out as "fake". You're like those Christians looking through Galileo's telescope: unable to believe it even if happened before your very eyes.
As for the window, that's why they make Slim Jims.
No Charles, what I'm doing is saying you are talking rubbish and giving you a chance to make me eat my words by PROVING me wrong.
Yes you could just fake the said video from anouther source, but that would only prove to you that you can fake a video, and in all likelihood that would take longer and be fundamentally less interesting than the experiment you claim as old science.
You were the one saying this could be done, implying that the task was simpler than cutting some plastic with a hacksaw, and could be done with readily available materials.
I say that's pure, unadulterated bollox and suggested a way you could change my mind.
As expected, you are taking the Clever Young Thing Path and appealing to preponderance of opinion. You quite rightly state that I will not accept those sources as conclusive.
So, to be clear: You do this on camera in a way that makes the footage uambiguous and allows me to duplicate your method (so I can see if it works for me; you know, science), and that being so I will say here and anywhere else you choose that you are right and I am wrong.
It's okay. I won't hold my breath. We both know where this is going.
The crack a window advice was a suggestion to avoid your breathing in the fumes as you steal the car.
By the way, you really should read the comments on any "Instructable" you link to support a dodgy claim.
A large proportion of the comments on the one under your link are calling Shenanigans. *I'm* not saying it was faked, but plenty of others were when you linked to it.
So I'm even less inclined to accept that you can damage a club lock cylinder with "a can" of refrigerant (even the con-artist on your linked instructable claimed he used two).
Disbelieve.
A large proportion of the comments on the one under your link are calling Shenanigans. *I'm* not saying it was faked, but plenty of others were when you linked to it.
Bloody hell, it's worse than I though! For whatever reason (actually said or otherwise) I thought he was referring to the proper cans of freeze spray.
But the compressed air for cleaning out computer parts? I've noticed some slight icing on the nozzle, but if they really froze stuff enough to get a brass padlock down to brittle temps, well, think what a freeze like that would do to electronics, especially a rapid freeze (the different contraction speeds between the metal and the non-metal parts for a start, eg circuit board material and the copper tracks on the board....). Pretty sure you won't be seeing that level of freezing in less time than it takes to cut through a cheaply replaced steering wheel!
"I've noticed some slight icing on the nozzle, but if they really froze stuff enough to get a brass padlock down to brittle temps, well, think what a freeze like that would do to electronics, especially a rapid freeze (the different contraction speeds between the metal and the non-metal parts for a start, eg circuit board material and the copper tracks on the board....)."
That's why the instructions say (a) use it in short bursts to allow the can and contents to warm back up, and (b) like most aerosols, keep the can right-side up.
As far as I can see this freeze-spray/belt with hammer technique works only in two cases:
a) On TV
b) In the movies.
But as I said to Charles 9, all he has to do is set up a video feed that can be relied upon (hence the timecode) and film himself doing this in whatever ideal conditions he chooses, and I will say wherever he likes and however many times that he is right and I am wrong when I say that cutting the steering wheel with a ten dollar hacksaw is faster, cheaper and all-round a better idea than freezing whatever part Charles deems best to defeat a Club device.
The Club (and its distant cousin, the Krooklock) work by having a spring-loaded ball bearing engage in detents along the shaft. When the lock is turned, a metal cam holds the ball in place. Older Krooklocks could be beaten by attempting to telescope them in rapid bursts (if one was strong enough) which I think caused the innards to shift and defeat the lock, but newer designs aren't susceptible to that attack mode.
My own feeling is that this freeze-the-lock idea might be made to work if one could use a cryogenic liquid, but pouring one into a Club's keyhole while sitting in the driver seat would require more balls than I have (and more heavily insulated ones than I deem practical for the fast getaway).
Parenthetically, to beat the "U bolt" type bike locks once thought to be the bee's knees for bike theft defeatage on account of the revolutionary cylindrical key/keyhole, all one needs is a Bic crystal pen casing apparently. Actual witnessed science performed in NYC.
Have you tried attacking the LOCK CYLINDER? Much smaller parts, hole traps the refrigerant, making it much faster than the hacksaw.
Clearly you haven't :) The hole is quite a narrow gap. The spray entering the hole freezes on contact with the metal, quickly bridging the gap. Even if you can put the tube from the spray can right in the hole and work it back as the hole is filled, very little spray enters the lock mechanism. You will freeze the mechanism but you will not achieve the temperatures required to make the metals brittle (except with some of the locks that use shitmetal in their bodies, but then they're already brittle at room temperature and freeze spray is not even remotely necessary!).
Even if you were to use liquid nitrogen you would find that the water (and other) vapour in the air would conspire against you to block the hole. Perhaps if you could remove all of that stuff you might get somewhere, but we're talking in the passenger cabin of a car, not ideal controlled laboratory circumstances.
No matter how you try to argue this, no matter what very imaginative WHAT IF's you come up with, ye cannae change the laws of physics laddie! :) It's quite difficult to get the spray (and cold) to penetrate enough to make the metal brittle enough to break, especially in real world situations.
It'd be quicker and easier to unbolt the steering wheel and bolt your own one on in it's place (or use a pair of vice-grips, just don't try any get-away driving!). Or, as mentioned, cut the steering wheel. They're not expensive to replace!
And yes, cars ARE stolen intact, to fence, to high-demand foreign markets.
Perhaps less time watching crappy Cage movies, and more time in the real world? :)
If you're stealing a car for resale, you have to be able to turn the ignition - a) the ignition modules on many models of car are made difficult to replace and b) at least in some areas there are restrictions on purchasing replacement units. Damage the module, end the resale value of the car. You're not going to be sticking a screwdriver in the lock.
And the sort of people who "protect" their cars with "clubs" don't own cars that are of value in "high demand foreign markets". They put their money into effective security systems, not metallic snake oil.
"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"
Cracking people's bank accounts is probably more lucrative than stealing bikes. Defeating the "easy" methods will not solve the problem. No serious criminal would give up so easily.
I've heard this argument before - i.e. What's the harm if the cost is low.
Well, the harm(s) are as follows
1) Giving the illusion of safety, thus short circuiting security awareness
2) Yet another excuse to sample more data about a user and their environment, thus yielding ever greater capability of privacy violation (it is for their safety!)
3) (as others have noted) biometrics is crap and should stop now. The inability to change biometric profiling coupled with mass data breaches yields a mess. Stop one or the other - but the latter is already out of the bag.
4) There would probably be all kinds of amusing situations where the magnetometer readings get hosed by environmental factors. For example: electric vehicles use high powered magnets as part of their drive mechanism. Or maybe being near a refrigerator covered with magnets. Or pranking with a bit of magnet on a pin.
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.
I have quite a bit of changing magnetic fields around me. Not just my speakers but other stuff as well (you should see the fields generated by nearby transmission lines, cars etc etc, let alone my neighbours!). If I was someone who wanted to shout to the world how important I amuse voice recog, if I used this "security feature" it'd instantly block me simply because of my environment. Same for people in factory environments (many electrical motors and interesting EM fields), automotive and electrical repair (lots of stuff to generate magnetic fields far stronger than speakers would) - places where voice recog is good because you can use your phone without touching it, meaning no need to wash hands or worry about metal fragments scratching.
It's one of those features sold to the gullible.
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.
Pretty easy actually (though the increase in cameras may make getting away with it slightly more difficuly but "security" camera resolutions are generally pretty crap still, and someone has to report you at the right time (most people won't bother). Consider that many bike parks are in very bad places WRT security/visibility, ie they're in busy places with lots of people rushing past who don't have the time to pay attention to the person with the bolt cutters only visible for a few seconds and if you look like you belong, are quick enough etc you simply won't be noticed. Chances of being caught on camera are minimal, especially if you wear a generic hoodie, or sunglasses, or cap, or... And the bike isn't worth the cops time of even looking at the footage! Only takes a few seconds to whip the cutters out of a bag, snip the lock, put the cutters away, pack the lock up like you're someone who belongs there getting their own bike out.. Take your time, don't look hurried, you're fine.
And yes, I have done this. But to my own bike and to prove to a mate that he should be putting his bike inside by his desk. The lock was a name-brand and probably very strong, but the chain was some cheap mild-steel jobbie sold in an expensive and pretty rubber sheath. Took a moment to cut it, and no one bothered to even take a second look let alone challenge or question me. If you're going to use a bike lock make sure it's something with a good quality hardened steel chain/cable. Price doesn't necessarily mean quality.
jdoe, this is along the lines of what I was thinking. I use my headphones and mic when on my mobile as much as possible. 3.5mm jack in phone connected to speakers and the input source for the voice playback wouldn't allow this detection to work.
I think an earlier post mentioned this being "interesting", and I agree. But it's just an academic exercise and has little real-world value.
Out of context: then, no need to authenticate, nothing to secure.
In context: they said know and are-- not have-- even though it's reasonable to have my own fingerprints, they are still merely a bit of what I am. And then, what does value have to do with this, or what kind of value did you mean? The essential property of whatever bits that you are is uniqueness, and of bits that you know is obscurity ... did you mean to imply assigning of value based on either of those?
[not a security expert, barely a security amateur, but I'm just not really keen on biometric approaches ever since forever ago when someone pointed out you can't revoke or reset your fingerprints]
I mean if you demand something they KNOW, I respond with someone with a terrible memory, where "correcthorsebatterystaple" becomes "donkeyenginepaperclipwrong". As for something they HAVE, what about the person who's always late to everything because half the time he/she forgets the house or car keys?
And, I'm speaking from experience (not me but the people I have to help regularly).
I am all for this as a solution to security. This technology will absolutely secure your voice authentication! You can now safely use voice commands with all of your electronic gizmos and doo-dads.
The gummy bears? I need them for later ... I mean I'm saving them for later.
Let me be the first to congratulate you on setting up your phone's NFC to be an electronic wallet. It was a smart move. Pulling out a real wallet these days is so dangerous. Let me shake your hand.
Absolutely 2-factor authentication works! No one can possibly clone your cell anymore. This is no longer the '90s. And isn't it great how strong the signal quality is here? So many bars.
Hey, try out these new USB headphones! Their audio quality is so much better. Only five dollars...
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