The hack that could make facial recognition think someone else is you

Novavax has announced encouraging early results for its coronavirus vaccine

Sponsored by Alegion The Download Your daily dose of what’s up in emerging technology 08.05.20 Good morning! Today: a hack that fools facial recognition into thinking someone else is you, and encouraging early results for a new experimental coronavirus vaccine. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. The hack that could make facial recognition think someone else is you   The news: Researchers from the cybersecurity firm McAfee have demonstrated that they can fool a modern facial recognition system into seeing someone who isn’t there. How they did it: They carried out the attack on a facial recognition system similar to those currently used at airports for passport verification. Using machine learning, they created an image that looked like one person to the human eye, but was identified as somebody else by the system. The researchers used an image translation algorithm called CycleGAN, which morphs photos from one style into another. They used 1,500 photos of each of the project’s two leads and eventually created a faked image that looked like person A to the naked eye but fooled the facial recognition into thinking it was person B. Some caveats: While the study raises concerns about the security of facial recognition systems, the researchers didn’t have access to the actual systems airports use to identify passengers. And this sort of attack requires a lot of time and resources. But the researchers say their goal is ultimately to demonstrate the inherent vulnerabilities in these AI systems and make clear that human beings must stay in the loop. Read the full story.  —Karen Hao and Patrick Howell O’Neill Novavax has announced encouraging early results for its experimental coronavirus vaccine The news: Maryland company Novavax has announced encouraging results from a preliminary study of its experimental coronavirus vaccine. The trial enrolled 131 healthy volunteers, gave them either a placebo or one of four escalating doses of its vaccine, and found that everyone who received the vaccine produced a high level of antibodies against covid-19. Side effects were mostly mild, with no hospitalizations, Novavax said. Some provisos: The data has been published on a preprint server, which means it hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet. Much like vaccine study results recently published by the Oxford/AstraZeneca team, and the Moderna trial, it’s too early to draw firm conclusions about whether the vaccine will protect against coronavirus long-term. That’s why Moderna and AstraZeneca are now enrolling tens of thousands of volunteers for the next stage of trials, when we’ll get a clearer picture of just how likely these vaccines are to work. The bigger picture: There are more than 150 vaccines being developed around the world, with at least 25 already in human trials. Given the virus has infected 18.5 million people globally and killed over 700,000, the pressure is on to find a viable solution—although scientists warn that clinical safety cannot be compromised in the face of political and nationalistic pressure. Read the full story. We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.)   + A cat that went missing on a family holiday in Scotland was found 12 years later.   + Which songs from the 90s are still recognized by Gen Z?   + A website where every dot is a historic event from Wikipedia.   + An open, worldwide meditation group that meets for half an hour on Zoom every day.   + There’s a subscription service for everything these days, including tinned fish.   + A new documentary charts the wild story of American rock ‘n’ roll magazine Creem.   + Chipotle has found a use for all those avocado pits: a clothing line. Sponsor Message Case study: How to scale data labeling and increase efficiencies by 85% To effectively label data for machine learning, you need a platform that can perform at the quality and scale you demand. Data labelers can only be as good as the tools they use, and many end up using multiple tools with varying degrees of complexity and functionality, wasting time and money. Read how Alegion’s platform built for annotators increases your quality and scale. Learn more here. The top ten must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 What it’s like to go back into lockdown Melbourne provides a case study as it implements some of the strictest restrictions anywhere. (NYT $)   + Why do some people get so much sicker than others with covid-19? (NYT $) 2 SpaceX’s Mars-faring Starship has successfully “hopped” 500 feet Now it just needs to be able to travel another 35 million miles. (CNET)   + Hear me out here—maybe knowing how the universe ends is kind of comforting? (BBC)  3 AI is learning when it should and shouldn’t defer to a human A new tool decides whether a doctor or an AI system is better at diagnosing a particular patient. (TR) 4 Is TikTok promoting “digital blackface”? Black creators have their videos yanked, while white users see similar posts and memes promoted. (Wired $)   + The challenges Microsoft faces in trying to buy TikTok’s US operations. (Ars Technica)   + The media in China is calling it a “smash and grab.” (NBC)   + How a nonsensical song and a dancing llama captivated TikTok. (The Guardian)   + These are the apps scrambling to replace TikTok. (Wired UK) 5 The first post-covid-19 cruise has been canceled due to an outbreak 🚢 Maybe let’s just give cruises a miss for a bit, eh? (Ars Technica) 6  A former Google engineer is going to prison for selling secrets to Uber The judge called the theft of over 14,000 self-driving car files the “biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen.” (BBC) 7 A vigilante is hunting down people who cheat at video games 🎮 A hero for our times. (Motherboard) 8 Tech companies are betting kids will make friends with robots 🤖🧒 It’s all just a bit dystopian. (WSJ $)   + Now here’s a job robots definitely can do: cleaning. (NYT $) 9 An anthropology professor died—then it turned out she didn’t exist 😮 She was a character invented by an academic. (NYT $) 10 Two stranded sailors were rescued after writing a giant SOS in the sand Oh, so that tactic can work. Great! (The Guardian) Our world has hit an inflection point. Now is the time to reset, rethink, and rebuild. Join us online at EmTech MIT, our annual flagship event on emerging technologies and trends that you can leverage to help you lead with innovation. Register now. Quote of the Day “The more things change, the more they remain the same. I believe that now.” —Gerri Schappals, a 102-year-old New Englander who has survived Spanish Flu, cancer (twice), and covid-19, tells the Washington Post she still thinks most people are innately good. Top image credit: MICHAEL ALEO | UNSPLASH Please send tinned fish to hi@technologyreview.com. Follow me on Twitter at @charlottejee. Thanks for reading! —Charlotte Was this newsletter forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Sign up for free Leading with Innovation. Join us online, October 19-22. *View this in a browser You received this newsletter because you subscribed with your email address *Edit email preferences   |   *Unsubscribe from all emails Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142

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