Ultratech and The Police

[hal]

OK, as you might guess, when I ask a question, you know I intend to explore what is written versus what might be reasonable vs "the old way" of doing things from GURPS 3rd edition revised.

Working from ULTRATECH Classic, pg 89, we have facial scanners. It goes into detail that if one were to gain some form of facial modification, that it could fool the scanners. There are however, zero references to skill level of the scanner. My guess is, that like fingerprint scanners and retina scanners, it simply scans the image in front of its sensors and compares it against specific prestored data in a database. If it is a match, good. If not, then not good.

Then on page 95, we have the ability to utilize sensa skin masks, which can fool facial scanners as well.

Page 33 of the same book talks about Optial recognition programs, which can recognize among other things - faces. It is a complexity 4 software pacakge.

Page 88 of the same book tells us:

"A simple closed-circuit video camera, connected to a monitor, is one of the best security systems possible. To be effective, constant human monitoring or a Complexity 4+ computer with the Optical Recognition program, is required."

There is no actual "Skill level" involved here, it simply either recognizes someone inside of a database, or it doesn't. The real issue then, seems to be the issue of how long does it take to recognize someone in a database? A database of 500 people is probably going to be searchable much more quickly than is one with 5 million. There are rules for how long it takes to search a database if I recall correctly...

Ultratech 2 has some more information on this, page 44 being useful, but it more or less rehashes what is already in Ultratech classic. That the information involves wearing vid glasses is the added information for the most part.

Then we have this in GURPS ROBOTS (pg 57):

"A robot will accept someone as a master if a command code validated the order to do so. The robot must be told exactly how to recognize its master. The means of identification depend on the robot’s sensor and brain capabilities. Usually, it is a voiceprint, since this will work over radio and out of sight. Occasionally some other means is used (for instance, facial recognition if the robot is not blind and has a brain of Complexity 4 or higher). However, requiring facial recognition (for instance) means that a robot will not obey its master’s orders if it can’t see his face, which has obvious drawbacks!"

Again, we're seeing that facial recognition software is deemed to require complexity 4 level computers and/or software for it to be functional.

And finally, we have on page 149 for GURPS ULTRATECH for 4e:

"Silhouette (TL9)
This optical recognition program specializes in identifying targets of military interest and providing background or technical data. The quantity and accuracy of supporting information depends on the databases used. High-quality commercial databases offer expensive subscriptions and constantly updated content, but lack detail. Military databases are usually encrypted and contain very detailed information, including hyperspectral emission profiles, countermeasure tactics, and usage instructions. Military databases require Military Rank or Security Clearance. Complexity 5; double normal cost."

This to me implies that for a Mature TL 9 setting, optical recognition programs are complexity 5 software as opposed to complexity 4 software from GURPS 3e. The databases that contain the information are double the normal price (Possibly that the original silhouette is double the normal cost of a TL 9 complexity 5 program?).

If you look on page 56 under Memory Augmentation, you will find that the databases listed for facial recognition either work or they don't. Either the face is in the database, or it isn't. The wording of all of this implies that the facial recognition works on a yes/no function, not on a variable skill function that requires a roll to see if the database aspect works or not.



Now the real question to ask in all of this is this:

Current sofware capabilities of facial recognition is flawed to a large degree. If today is deemed to be TL 8, and using GURPS ULTRATECH page 8 suggests that we will hit TL 9 at the accelerated rate in the year 2020 (which has come and gone already and we're still TL 8 as best as I know), then we'd have to look at the other "dates" for Progression start dates.


Year 2025 - seems to be way too soon for reliable facial recognition capabilities.

Year 2030 seems to be too soon as well. Conceivably, we might see all of the issues resolved within the next 8 years. I doubt it, but possibly.

Year 2040 MAY be about right. 2050 is deemed to be "Retarded" progression, but when and where it comes to predicting the future, I doubt that GURPS will be 100% on the money (else our authors would be ultra-rich by now with their predictions).

In just about every bit of wording for things involving facial recognition in GURPS ULTRATECH for 4e, there does't seem to be any real "skill" or "attribute" tests involved. Artificial Intelligence software or simply database comparison software that measures, categorizes and then compares data points against other datapoints (much like fingerprint software finds matches) - generally tends to be very reliable.

To that end? I would largely avoid using a "skill" approach to facial recognition software. I would largely suspect that the sheer volume of faces being viewed by software may slow things down a bit, but I would suspect that the way it would work is like this:

Faces can be described by a series of complex mathematical descriptions much as finger prints can. The real problem then, is identifying what "complexity" computer software is required to create "facial pints" data.

https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/facial-recognition/

The link above describes in a little bit more detail what is involved with facial recognition. I was initially searching the net to see if laptop computers can handle facial recognition. Sadly, they can. Equally sadly, those recognition security features can be fooled with a simple photograph. Which in turn, brings us back to facial recognition sensors other than simple video cameras.

For now, I'm simply going with the premise that if a face can be picked out of a crowd at any given time, and the database can be queried fast enough and spit out a response - that real time facial recognition as described in vid glasses and Augmented memory - does indeed function without skill rolls.

Which brings me back to my original point:

One would think that if you have sufficient skills or resources to FOOL a facial recognition scanner, that the Police forces will not be on the tail of a wanted criminal as easily as would happen vs a criminal who lacks those skills or assets. If a criminal learns to lay low and avoid scanners entirely (which may be very difficult in high density areas of a city for example), then again, he can avoid having the police get a lead on their whereabouts. Having a simple "activation" value for the Police as an enemy should be "modified" by a contest of skills between the hunters and the hunted.

Why?

I'm not worried about the narrative of NPCs vs NPCs. I'm more concerned about the narrative of PC's vs NPC's or vice versa, NPCs vs PCs.

Knowing PCs after GM'ing all these years, sooner or later they player characters will become the hunted.