WIRED
3 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2020–2023
27:54 · 24M views · May 8, 2019
Former CIA Chief of Disguise Jonna Mendez reviews spy scenes from film and TV and explains how realistic they are, including disguise techniques and masks.
Referenced when discussing how real the disguise technology shown in spy movies is.
3 comments from Hacker News
Interesting theory and I suppose it's possible but unlikely. > We have hundreds and thousands of eyes in the sky but they will not report because they are afraid to speak. This isn't true. Pilots report UFOs all the time. > In past decades whenever military pilot reported UFO they were laughed at, sent to psychologist, evaluated, sent behind the desk. If true, this would only be true for UFOs that acted beyond the scope of modern technology ( aka "alien" ufos ). Not for normals UFOs that are simply unidentified flying objects. > Goal is to encourage pilots to report possible Chinese drones. Pilots were already encouraged to report chinese or any other drones. Not only that drones can be detected by drone-targeting radar. I know we are in a trade war and everyone has to push anti-chinese propaganda, but not everything is tied to "china". Before long every top comment is going to be nonsense with "china" in it. My guess is that after the "state" has come under attack recently and people have lost trust in the "state", the "state" is releasing information to seem more transparent and open and likeable. Sort of like how the CIA, FBI, etc are putting people all over media/social media. "Former CIA Chief of Disguise Breaks Down 30 Spy Scenes From Film & TV " this video "Former FBI Agent Explains How to Read Body Language | Tradecraft | WIRED" [LINK] The past few years have been relentless "china bad", "russia bad" and "we good" for understandable reasons. But who really knows. It coul
The CIA's former Chief of Disguise says they very much exist and are used, with some limitations [1]. Her comment on the 3d printer making the mask: "What if I said we had it". Of course that's not really surprising when you look at the kind of Halloween masks you can get if you are willing to pay [2]. I imagine if you could special order them to perfectly fit your head they would be very convincing to the casual observer and to software. 1: this video 2: [LINK]
To tag on to the others, the former 'chief of disguises' for the cia does interviews[1] all the time, I think also on the board for the Spy Museum (and featured quite a bit in it about both disguises and being a woman). Depending on their personality, why not play up the 'former cia/fbi/nsa' thing to educate/entertain/lend legitimacy to their business? [1] - this video