The Flo Control Project, named after the feline Flo, has posted a promising update on their animal access control door. They added a facial-recognition system to try and deny Flo access if she has something in her mouth. Technically they are basing recognition on a shadow profile, rather than on Flo’s actual face.

The database of images for access success and failure is probably the best part of the entire story. The key weakness (pun not intended) of physical access systems is usually related to monitoring. A building with only ten doors and half that many cameras can easily find an operations center overwhelmed or soon uninterested in the data. One way to avoid this is to create an analysis and alarm system. Another is just to run tests that are interesting or even amusing. Flo gives a perfect example of the latter:

Flo was allowed in in all of these instances, appropriately so. The vast majority of captured images are like these, just Flo by herself. She goes in and out 5-10 times a day, so we get a lot of these. Cases when the latch does not open are much more rare, especially now, when there are not many animals for Flo to catch. Still, she tries to bring something in occasionally, and we also get other unauthorized visitors: skunks and even birds. Below are some of the cases when the latch did not open.

This brings to mind the story of Little Red Riding Hood. It certainly has shades of “what a big nose you have!”

It also brings to mind the purpose of a cat bringing its catch home. Perhaps a better setup would be a cat-trap (e.g. man-trap for cats) where Flo could deposit her catch to secure it and receive praise. A similar model could be a DCZ (De-Catch-ified Zone) that would exist as a segment between outside and inside.

Personally, I have been thinking about another control I would add to an animal control system, which I’ve mentioned before on this blog. Perhaps if I have time I’ll give it a go and test it on my own animal(s). Right now, however, my pet(s) are not violating any policies and I do not have unauthorized animal access issues.