Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Group of Chinese students invent a coat that will make you invisible to security cameras.
If you’re getting marketing emails in your inbox, you should know that the companies are likely using the messages to spy on you. They’re using a technology developed for email called tracking pixels (invisible images) which lets companies analyze how and when you’ve interacted with their emails. They can then use the information to fine-tune marketing campaigns and even link the data to other information they have on you.
This is how email marketing has worked for years, with many users unaware that they’re being tracked by images so small the naked eye can’t spot them. The good news is that email apps are getting better at protecting you against tracking pixels. And there are third-party services that can help with additional layers of protection.
Chinese Students Invent a Coat that Makes the Wearer Invisible to Security CamerasYouTube
On November 27th, a team of college graduates from China won a creative work contest called the China Postgraduate Innovation and Practice Competition, an event run by a computer science professor named Wang Zheng from Wuhan University. The winning group presented an invention to the judgment panel called the InvisDefense coat (aka the invisible cloak). This outerwear has been described as a ‘plain-looking’ jacket capable of concealing the wearer’s identity from artificial intelligence and security camera during the daytime or night. The trick is in the temperature patterns and the coat’s camouflage design, which was created to bamboozle the human eye, making it undetectable under artificial surveillance.
“The most difficult part is the balance of the camouflage pattern,” said a core member of the innovative college group named Wei Hui. “Traditionally, researchers used bright images to interfere with machine vision, and it did work. But it stands out to human eyes, making the user even more conspicuous,”
Now, the obvious question is how will the “invisible coat” be used and by whom? Wei Hui said that his team’s ground-breaking invention might be an ideal fit as a defensive mechanism during a time of war.
“InvisDefense might also be used in anti-drone combat or human-machine confrontation on the battlefield,” said the Ph.D. student. Wei Hui and his group mates present the InvisDefense coat at the heralded annual artificial intelligence meeting called the AAAI 2023 Conference in Washington, DC, in February of 2023.
As LaptopMag explains, tracking pixels are images so small that you’ll have a hard time observing them in the body of an email. They measure 1 pixel by 1 pixel, hence the name. And companies will usually include GIF or PNG files in their emails, as they can turn these images into tiny white pixels.
So not only are they very small, but they also match the usually white background of your email client.
If you see the tracking pixels somehow, you’re already too late. Opening the email means the tiny image loads in your browser or app. Once that happens, the image pings the server where it’s stored. As a result, the advertiser will get a bunch of information about you. They’ll know you opened the email and how many times you returned to look at the message. And they’ll see your location from your network information as well as the device you’re using.
Furthermore, the blog notes that studies have shown advertisers can link email trackers to browser cookies. If that happens, they’ll be able to identify you in other places. They can use such fingerprinting techniques to market products or for nefarious activities.
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