TL;DR MIT researchers have developed an antitampering ID tag that is tiny, cheap, and secure. It is several times smaller and significantly cheaper than the traditional radio frequency tags that are used to verify product authenticity. The tags use glue containing microscopic metal particles. This glue forms unique patterns that can be detected using terahertz waves. The system uses AI to compare glue patterns and calculate their similarity. The tags could be used to authenticate items too small for traditional RFIDs.

      • QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        You’d have to read the article to know what they’re getting at.

        The use case provided was for businesses like a car wash that puts a sticker on a car windshield. The ML model would be able to detect if the customer attempted to transfer the sticker from one car to another.

        A pretrained ML model to detect this is actually a very good use case.

        However, I think the implimentation of this as an “anti-tampering detector” is a dangerous route to tread since there are other factors that need to be considered.

      • thejml@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Before LLM’s, people would call if/else blocks AI.

    • 0x2d@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      No, it uses quantum-computed blockchain hashes in order to contact the OpenAI servers to retrieve a decentralized, encrypted language model

  • TheOneCurly@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    We made a tag that can’t be reliably and deterministically scanned so we also included a machine learning model that takes a good guess at it.

    I just don’t see how you could possibly rely on a black box model for anything important. You have no way to mathematically prove if there are collisions in the model output or not, and newer versions of the model can’t be made backwards compatible. So if you have a database of thousands of these tags scanned, then they discover a critical vulnerability and provide a new model, you’re SOL and everything you have is worthless.

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      Can you imagine your house doorknob had to think about the shape of your key before letting you in, and then have the possibility of just saying “No. Not today.”?

    • Lmaydev@programming.dev
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      9 months ago

      It’s used to identify similarities in glue patterns. In what way wouldn’t this be backwards compatible? New versions would just be better at it.

  • QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    To clarify what OP meant by his ‘AI’ statement

    The system uses AI to compare glue patterns […]

    The researchers noticed that if someone attempted to remove a tag from a product, it would slightly alter the glue with metal particles making the original signature slightly different. To counter this they trained a model:

    The researchers produced a light-powered antitampering tag that is about 4 square millimeters in size. They also demonstrated a machine-learning model that helps detect tampering by identifying similar glue pattern fingerprints with more than 99 percent accuracy.

    It’s a good use case for an ML model.

    In my opinion, this should only be used for continuing to detect the product itself.
    The danger that I can see with this product would be a decision made by management thinking that they can rely on this to detect tampering without considering other factors.

    The use case provided in the article was for something like a car wash sticker placed on a customers car.

    If the customer tried to peel it off and reattach it to a different car, the business could detect that as tampering.

    However, in my opinion, there are a number of other reasons where this model could falsely accuse someone of tampering:

    • Temperature swings. A hot day could warp the glue/sticker slightly which would cause the antitampering device to go off the next time it’s scanned.
    • Having to get the windshield replaced because of damage/cracks. The customer would transfer the sticker and unknowingly void the sticker.
    • Kids, just don’t underestimate them.

    In the end, most management won’t really understand this device well beyond statements like, “You can detect tampering with more than 99 percent accuracy!” And, unless they inform the customers of how the anti-tampering works, Customers won’t understand why they’re being accused of tampering with the sticker.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        9 months ago

        My problem is that “AI” is an overly broad term that leads people to conflate very different technologies. I just want people to use more specific language.

        • lando55@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          There’s a corporate initiative where I work that we’re going to offer AI in 2024. When I politely asked to expound on that, I was met with blank stares.

          Like motherfucker do you realize even MS Teams uses AI for meeting transcription

          • uis@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Machine learning: we don’t know how it works AI: we don’t want you to know how it works

        • hark@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Exactly. They might as well write “magic” since it’s about as descriptive.

  • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    Oh, physical tag. I thought this was going to be about cryptographic data signing.

  • Pulptastic
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    9 months ago

    These tags should be smaller and cheaper, offloading tech to the scanners. Since a store uses lots of tags and only a couple scanners, this might make financial sense even if the scanners are more expensive as long as the tags are cheaper and enough of them are needed.

    • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Cost is somewhat relative at this scale. THz is just unstable over any normally expected usable distances since they are . At this scale, I assume they are thinking more like NFC replacement tech maybe? It’s definitely got more applications than just object tracking, but that seems to be it’s first test.

      • Kbin_space_program@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        It’s updated RFID tags that are even harder to detect, and unlike the standard ones, require specialized technology to activate, so they get security through obscurity.

        It has nothing to do with NFCs. Likely has a lot to do with the police state ID cards and vehicle tracking that the Bush Administation tried to implement in the late 2000s.

  • dyathinkhesaurus@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I read somewhere of a similar implementation using glitter mixed into clear nail polish. Take a close-up photo any time and visually compare with the original, no ML/AI model necessary