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This hat uses what to fool facial recognition technology?

Answer: LEDs.

As facial recognition technology has become more widespread, so too has the market for devices and methods for fooling it. The latest of these anti-facial recognition techniques was developed by researchers from Alibaba Inc., Chinese University of Hong Kong, Fudan University in China, and Indiana University and is composed of a baseball cap and a set of LEDs.

It works by projecting infrared dots from the LEDs, which are attached to the inside of the cap, onto certain spots on the wearer’s face. This subtly alters how the features in those “strategic spots” appear to facial recognition cameras, causing the system to misidentify the face.

In 70 percent of trials pitting the hat against the facial recognition system FaceNet, it successfully fooled the system into thinking the wearer was a public figure like Lee Hoi-chang, a Korean politician and Moby the singer.

Kate is a senior copy editor in Northern California. She holds a bachelor's degree in English with a minor in professional writing from the University of California, Davis.