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"[Science fiction] is the only kind of writing that allows you to look at the world we live in and change one piece at a time."
- Frederik Pohl
 |
| Ugly T-Shirt | ||
| Uses disruptive patterning to make the wearer invisible to computerized surveillance techniques. |
| She turned and saw Garreth, and behind him Pep, wearing what she instantly knew must be the ugly T-shirt.
"I didn't think it would literally be that ugly," she said, stepping through the second zip. It was. Pep, in black cyclist's pants, wore the largest, ugliest T-shirt she'd ever seen, in a thin, cheap-looking cotton the color of ostomy devices, that same imaginary Caucasian flesh-tone. There were huge features screened across it in dull black halftone, asymmetrical eyes at breast height, a grim mouth at crotch-level. Later she'd be unable to say exactly what had been so ugly about it, except that it was somehow beyond punk, beyond art, and fundamentally, somehow, an affront. Diagonals at the edges continued around the sides, and across the short, loose sleeves. Pep leered at her, or perhaps only looked at her, and pulled the strap of a dark green messenger bag over his head, tucking what she recognized as Garreth's other party favor into it. "Don't forget to take that bag off," Garreth said. He was seated in a black workstation chair that appeared to have been taped to the shiny aubergine floor. "Queer the visuals, otherwise." |
| Technovelgy from Zero History,
by William Gibson. Published by Tor in 2010 Additional resources -
|
Here's another quote:
For earlier takes on the idea that there are particular patterns that can fool artificial intelligences (AIs) or pattern recognition systems (even human ones), see Van Goom's Gambit from Van Goom's Gambit (1966) by Victor Contoski and BLIT (Secret Basilisk) from BLIT by David Langford.
See also this paper Adversarial T-shirt! Evading Person Detectors in A Physical World.
For the more general case of suits that scramble input or otherwise fool the eye (and perhaps the machine) see the scramble suit from A Scanner Darkly (1977) by Philip K. Dick, the mimetic polycarbon suit from Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson and the abglanz from The Mountain in the Sea (2022) by Ray Naylor.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“The ugliest T-shirt in the world,” he said, and kissed her cheek.
“The Bollards will be disappointed,” she said, coming in and closing the door. “I thought they’d had me sleeping in that.”
“So ugly that digital cameras forget they’ve seen it.”
“Cameras can see it. The surveillance cameras can all see it, but then they forget they’ve seen it.”
“Why?”
“Because their architecture tells them to forget it, and anyone who’s wearing it as well. They forget the figure wearing the ugly T-shirt. Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure. That which the camera sees, bearing the sigil, it deletes from the recalled image. Though only if you ask it to show you the image. So there’s no suspicious busy-ness to be noticed. If you ask for June 7, camera 53, it retrieves what it saw. In the act of retrieval, the sigil, and the human form bearing it, cease to be represented. By virtue of deep architecture. Gentlemen’s agreement."
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Ugly T-Shirt-related
news articles:
- Adversarial Patches Trick Computer Vision
| China's 'Magpie Drone' Ornithopter |
| FTC: Says Ring Employees Illegally Surveilled Customers |
| Perching Ambush Drones |
| India Ponders Always-On Smartphone Location Tracking |
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