Japan's face-authorizing cigarette machines no match for Bruce Willis photo
Remember those Japanese vending machines that use face recognition to scan for wrinkles and saggy skin before authenticating cigarette purchases? Surprise, they're so easy to circumvent that even a nicotine-addicted kid can do it. Turns out the cameras will authenticate "a 15-centimeter (6-inch) wide magazine photo of a man who looked to be in his 50s." Smaller clippings work too as demonstrated by a successful cigarette vend using a 3-inch photo of a woman in her 30s -- a 1-inch wide photo failed, however. Still, only 4,000 of Japan's 570,000 cigarette vending machines feature the cams and these are due for a software update in response to the flaw -- the rest use RFID readers to check the smoker's Taspo age-verification card. Nevertheless, we don't think it's much of a stretch to predict that this system, like that of DRM controlled music, is destined to fail.
[Via The Raw Feed]
