What Do You Need For Juggalo Face Paint

Information technology's xi a.1000. on an overcast morning in Berkeley in 2017, and I'm handing out cold bottles of Faygo soda at a protestation, in between bouts of police swarming united states of america to continue united states unsteady. While the mood is a little tense, we're doing our best to relieve it with some loud, cheerfully defiant music and sugary soft drinks. The anxiety dissipates somewhat when the crowd see our faces. Half of the crowd sport the signature clown makeup of Shaggy 2 Dope, the other half the markings of Violent J from the rap duo Insane Clown Posse.

The ICP was formed by Joey Utsler and Joseph Bruce in 1989. Over the adjacent 30 years, the Detroit group's horrorcore take on hip-hop music has attracted a loyal and obsessive tribe of followers known as the Juggalos.

I am attending a protest against white supremacy with Struggalo Circus, a grouping that seeks to bring Juggalos and radical activists together to provide help and medical intendance in the streets. We wait a bit out of place amid the activists and black-clad anarchists. But everyone smiles when they see us, welcoming us with a "whoop whoop," the internationally recognized call of the Juggalo community.

I have volunteered equally a medic at protests for over 10 years now. Sometimes, I mask my face, but not this time—instead, I'm wearing face pigment. However, with bandanas considered intimidating for some and often banned from protests, many activists are looking at alternatives ways to make themselves anonymous to confuse ever expanding facial recognition systems.

Their tactics tin can be quite low tech, including pulling their hair over their face, using certain makeup techniques, or pointing lasers at cameras to avoid photos being taken.

Only there is besides a growing consensus that face paint like the clown make-up that Juggalos already wear may also disrupt facial recognition software.

The aesthetic of the ICP is a mix of comic book gore and theatrical vaudeville. In the three decades since the grouping was formed, the ICP has built a self-sustaining, lo-fi universe of musical festivals and album releases. Fans proudly imitate the apparel and phase makeup of its founders. What is more, there is a growing consensus that face paint, such as the clown make-up worn by many Juggalos, may frustrate facial recognition software.

Juggalos, face paint and privacy

For many activists, anonymity is a matter of safety.

One Juggalo, who goes past the proper noun Dimensions, said, "I habiliment my juggalo paint to protests, crusade there'due south always grips of cameras, people streaming videos to YouTube, police photographers collecting information—even counter protesters at some events looking to runway you down, and dox you lot, or SWAT you. But when me and my Juggalo homies are mixed into a oversupply at some kinda demonstration, it's style hard to tell where or who any one of united states is."

1 anarchist, named Von, added, "I embrace my face at protests for two major reasons: To avoid doxxing (when your legal name, dwelling address, and other information is publicly released online for the purpose of mass harassment) and other negative side furnishings of surveillance, and for the aesthetic. Doxxing is the biggest threat posed by surveillance. Being outed as an antifascist to employers can risk losing a job, and our personal safety can be put at risk if our personal data is made public."

I know this to be a reasonable fearfulness. I was doxxed several years ago for being a street medic at a Blackness Lives Matter protest, by people who would become widely known every bit the "alt-correct". My elderly grandmother was threatened over the telephone, my employer harassed, my domicile no longer felt rubber. It fabricated me reconsider my tendency to exit my face uncovered at activist events—not just for myself, simply for the sake of those around me.

Utilise of sophisticated surveillance technology—specially that which relies on artificial intelligence—is on the rising. On the West Coast of the United States, where I live, police force take constantly been trying to improve their surveillance of citizens with increasing resistance from the public.

Globally, 64 countries are now using facial recognition surveillance, with much of the tech originating from either China or the United States. Information technology's non surprising, and then, to run into many protesters in Hong Kong using facial coverings, similar looking clothing, and their ain tech in guild to make recognition more than difficult for regime. In Chile, protesters used laser dazzlers to accept downward a drone that was tracking their movements. And none of this is new—Guy Fawkes masks, bandanas and balaclavas accept long been used past protesters keen to protect their identities.

"I guess I'd say that some of the appeal of wearing ICP paint has always been the anonymity it provides," Ape Boy, a Juggalo affiliated with Struggalo Circus, said. "A whole other name, face, or job, was already part of the game for the states; whether for fun or privacy, obscuring Identity is a juggalo speciality!"

While many Juggalos would hesitate to course themselves every bit especially politically inclined, they do understand what it's like to exist targeted merely because of who they are. In 2001, the FBI declared Juggalos a gang. Juggalos marched on Washington DC in 2017 to protest this designation, many in their trademark confront paint. Despite the Bureau's claim that there is no current gang list that includes the fandom, local constabulary forces states such equally Virginia however treat Juggalos as gang members.

Art equally anti-surveillance

A 2012 project past the creative person Adam Harvey, titled CV Dazzle, sparked involvement in types of camouflage that featherbed surveillance engineering science. Information technology included makeup looks and hair styles that interrupt the lines of the confront, making information technology harder for facial recognition systems to make a match.

Kelty Robinson, another artist working with facial recognition disrupting makeup designs, explained, "I discovered the use of blues, purples, and cubic shapes, particularly effectually the eyes and T-zone … The all-time manner to disguise yourself is to make the software think your facial structure is different than it actually is."

Just how tin can you tell if such measures really work? First with Facebook. "Accept a photo of yourself and see if FB tries to auto-tag you, begin your makeup application, repeat until the photo does not 'find a face' to tag," Robinson said.

Adam Harvey, meanwhile, continued his work with Stealth Wear, a line of wear launched in 2013 and designed to protect wearers confronting drone surveillance. In 2017, he unveiled Hyperface, a pixelated printed scarf that presents surveillance systems with multiple false face images.

Does it really work?

Should Juggalo face paint exist mentioned in the aforementioned breath every bit these projects? A Twitter posting from a informatics blogger known equally @Tahkion in 2018 seemed to indicate that it is at to the lowest degree an effective strategy.

In a directly bulletin sent via Twitter, Tahkion explained that they came to their conclusion while working on "a inquiry project to see how difficult it is to implement a nation-country-fashion mass surveillance system using freely bachelor tools—the answer to that was [that it was] really not that hard, which is scary to me."

So, how did that research lead Tahkion to Juggalo face pigment? "I was honestly just making a lot of Juggalo related jokes at work one day and said, 'I bet they break my facial recognition system,'" Tahkion said. "Juggalo makeup doesn't just evade facial recognition, it evades information technology better than most of the things I've tested that were deliberately designed with that intention."

Blake Lemoine, a senior software engineer at Google offers a succinct explanation of how Juggalo face paint bypasses facial recognition software.

"Most prototype systems apply 2d rendering and heavily rely on color contrast. Juggalo makeup masks the lines of the facial features which facial recognition systems use," Lemoine said. "If the system tin't observe the borders of your mouth, nose and eyes, it can't create the fingerprint it needs to check the database. It fixates on the paint lines instead and creates a fictional fingerprint. And so it will find a face, merely be unable to recognize which face up it institute."

For Juggalos, the news was a welcome, if amusing, development.

"I showtime saw those tech magazines researching our paint and 3D scanning Juggalo craniums, then coming up with nothing just a glitch," said a Juggalo past the name of RaiderLo. "I judge it own't come as too much of a surprise."

The face paint method of facial recognition avoidance probable won't work forever, though, Lemoine warned. "My suspicion is that adversarial techniques for disrupting facial recognition will get more sophisticated, as the engineering is deployed more than widely."

Not just well-nigh facial recognition

Ultimately, Juggalos don't seem to intendance much whether their face up paint will protect them from surveillance. For them, it is more well-nigh identity and belonging.
"My reason for face covering at a protest or march might be different from other folks' reasons for doing it," said Ape Boy. "I exercise it partly to rep my people, and permit them know Juggalos was out here when history was going downwardly. Information technology's dope for morale when a grouping of clowns bail through whooping and passing out ice-cold Faygos for dehydrated protesters."

"Anything you lot can practice that obscures y'all from automated detection will pretty much also be obvious to anyone around you," they said. "That'due south a weak point for Juggalo makeup, unless of class you're surrounded past Juggalos all the fourth dimension and can wear it without continuing out."

Source: https://www.codastory.com/authoritarian-tech/juggalo-paint-surveillance/

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