Howdy – Windows Hello style facial authentication for Linux

Why does it depend on python2…?

Ask the Fedora maintainer? The README instructions only say Python 3. The OpenSUSE package's specfile only says Python 3, and to be sure I tried installing it and it did not pull in Python 2 packages.

Actually even the Fedora package's specfile only says Python 3, so I'm not sure why the README says that it still needs Python 2.

Edit: Okay, the explanation is in this commit message: https://github.com/boltgolt/howdy/commit/305e42fc79ef38f66c5... . The dep on Python 2 is from Fedora's PAM module package, not from howdy itself. On OpenSUSE the corresponding PAM module package depends on Python 3 already.

Last time I tried it, I wished the DM indicated its processing my face and also if it failed, and a button to retry. Also will the model be fooled by an IR photo of my face?

I did have fun opening the IR camera feed and seeing objects of various opacity in visible spectrum behaving differently in IR.

This isn't "Windows Hello style." This program extracts features from a 2d image instead of doing depth reconstruction first. This makes it easy to fool with a piece of paper.

Also this only handles user authentication unlike on Windows where it can be usedpasskey. disk encryption and for passkeys.

Edit: This program also saves the landmarks of your face into a file in plain text when it gets added.

yeah its more of a taster demo. I wish them luck in developing it properly though... I'm doing an ubuntu MOE for a corp atm and man, I really miss the windows hello logins.

Really? When I tried on an hp spectre 5 years ago it made the hell sensors make a horrible clicking sounds and the LEDs glow red. I assumed it was doing something with depth analysis.

Main dev here: If you're on the 3.0 version you'll be able to install howdy-gtk, which will show a popup at the top of your screen when authenticating.

You can also enable "rubberstamps" which require an action from you like nodding yes to confirm authentication and making it harder to fool. As noted in the readme though, Howdy is never going to be 100% secure

Depth reconstruction with IR cameras in laptops today is incredibly hard. While the camera itself is exposed in Linux as a USB camera, the sync with the IR emitters is completely lost. Because of this we cannot extract a "left" and "right" lit image reliably as Windows hello does

Is 'Hello' and those kind of biometrics generally enabled at $CORP? The ones I've gigged at have been the polar opposite of using it, due to regulatroy requirements. Even disabling macos fingerprint reader company-wide, which is prerry darn good imho.

FWIW Microsoft's branding team fumbling everything into Windows Hello isn't the project's fault. The "Windows Hello" part that they're trying to find an alternative for was the only "Windows Hello" for a while before Microsoft also decided that all of their TPM operations were now Windows Hello things.

That said, without the depth reconstruction, I do agree that this is nowhere close to Windows Hello's features. That's not the devs' fault (that kind of mostly-secure facial recognition is very hard) but I also don't think the comparison is apt. But who knows, if this project gains popularity, maybe in the future that kind of thing becomes possible.

This is more akin to Android's facial recognition, except for using the IR camera. Which is still acceptable for plenty of people. After all, many fingerprint readers on Linux share similar risks and are often regarded as secure enough. I think the availability of this project, even if it's nowhere near Windows Hello's standards, is a great addition to many Linux desktops, as long as their users understand the limitations.

As for the plaintext, Linux doesn't really have a secure storage mechanism (even the standard secrets API is easy to fool) so obfuscating the facial features doesn't really serve a purpose. As long as your disk is encrypted, I don't think that's a risk (and if it isn't, whoever is looking at your laptop can just browse through your photo albums anyway).

I know there was extensive testing when face recognition authentication came to smartphones. I wonder how an open source project like this one compares. I suspect there are substantially more false positives/negatives than on a commercially developed version that needs to support everyone to be successful.

Apple's Face ID uses what is essentially a 3D camera, a simple 2D color camera cannot compare to that in terms of accuracy.

I wish we had good support for fingerprint readers instead.

The project seems active, but the last release is from 2020... Why no new releases?

I use fprintd and it works well with GNOME + builtin Elan sensor. It indeed needs more complex configuration than Touch ID or Windows Hello though.