Story perspectives

Defcon Demo Drops Person-Detector Confidence 0.75 to 0.21

8/13/2026

Summary

Story summary

Bill Swearingen, a cybersecurity professional, demonstrated onstage at Defcon a pattern that dropped a person-detector’s confidence from 0.75 to 0.21, prompting a “No person detected” message.
Swearingen’s noRecognition project aims to make clothing that exploits person-detector flaws to fool AI surveillance.
Digital tests found torso patterns most reduced detector confidence.
A pattern that succeeded on four subjects failed on eight, leading Swearingen to withdraw a 33% performance claim.

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Story summary

Bill Swearingen, a cybersecurity professional, demonstrated onstage at Defcon a pattern that dropped a person-detector’s confidence from 0.75 to 0.21, prompting a “No person detected” message.
Swearingen’s noRecognition project aims to make clothing that exploits person-detector flaws to fool AI surveillance.
Digital tests found torso patterns most reduced detector confidence.
A pattern that succeeded on four subjects failed on eight, leading Swearingen to withdraw a 33% performance claim.