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Comment by inetknght

18 hours ago

> biometrics aren't passwords. You can't rotate your voice.

"My voice is my passport. Verify me."

I have to renew my passport every 10 years or so. How do I do that with my voice? I guess it's time to take some vocal lessons.

Vocal lessons are both a lot of fun and a lot of work. I haven't been using any voiceprint systems but I know most humans are unable to tell that my trained voice is the same physical person as my old voice. Would be curious to find out if an AI voiceprint system can discern whether it's the same or not.

  • Are you talking about singing lessons, or actual talking training? Singing lessons helped me sing but didn't change the way i talked at all, but i was only able to afford them for a summer so maybe it takes more time than that

    • When I was in NYC a while back, I met a woman at a friend's dinner party. She sounded totally American, but was in fact Brazilian. She worked as a lawyer, and said that she'd had to get extensive voice training in order to sound American so that people would take her more seriously professionally. I have no idea if the professional part worked, but the accent, mannerisms etc was amazing - I would never have guessed.

    • I'm referring to speaking, not singing. After a _lot_ of work, I can speak passably as a woman or man and switch freely between the two. Depending on context I generally choose just one for the entire conversation, as switching tends to cause whiplash in the listener (^_^).

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Biometrics are "what you are", not "what you know" or "what you have".

Voice fingeprinting is essentially useless because it is easily recorded and reproduced.

  • I have been telling people for years that biometrics (face, fingerprint, voice) is your username, not your password. But people are easily swayed by convenience.

just take up smoking heavily

  • Easier to inhale an undisclosed amount of helium before recording your password voice

    • Excellent idea!

      Do you need to calibrate it to be able to repeat it, and does that calibration change if you are at a different altitude and in different conditions, such as humidity?

      Does merely changing altitude (or ambient pressure) change voice enough to be considered different by a recognition or synthesizing system?

  • Despite popular belief, even heavy smoking does not alter your voice in a significant way.

Smoke 40 cigarettes a day, your voice will be unrecognisable in no time

  • Also: it’s not just the first order smoking, respiratory issues, increased chance of illness, and chronic coughing can damage your voices presentation.