# On Feasibility of Intent Obfuscating Attacks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.02674 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.02674/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 23 of its 44 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Jul 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.01497/) (2015)
- [Towards Deep Learning Models Resistant to Adversarial Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.06083/) (2017)
- [Feature Pyramid Networks for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.03144/) (2016)
- [You Only Look Once: Unified, Real-Time Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.02640/) (2015)
- [SSD: Single Shot MultiBox Detector](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.02325/) (2015)
- [Fast R-CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1504.08083/) (2015)
- [MMDetection: Open MMLab Detection Toolbox and Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.07155/) (2019)
- [Cascade R-CNN: Delving into High Quality Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.00726/) (2017)
- [Object Detection with Deep Learning: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.05511/) (2018)
- [Adversarial Examples for Semantic Segmentation and Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.08603/) (2017)
- [Adversarial Attacks and Defenses in Images, Graphs and Text: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.08072/) (2019)
- [DPatch: An Adversarial Patch Attack on Object Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.02299/) (2018)
- [On Physical Adversarial Patches for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.11897/) (2019)
- [Role of Spatial Context in Adversarial Robustness for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.00068/) (2019)
- [Context-Aware Transfer Attacks for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03223/) (2021)
- [Connecting the Dots: Detecting Adversarial Perturbations Using Context Inconsistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.09763/) (2020)
- [Exploiting Multi-Object Relationships for Detecting Adversarial Attacks in Complex Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.08421/) (2021)
- [ADC: Adversarial attacks against object Detection that evade Context consistency checks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.12321/) (2021)
- [Understanding Object Detection Through An Adversarial Lens](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.05828/) (2020)
- [Law and Adversarial Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.10731/) (2018)
- [CCA: Exploring the Possibility of Contextual Camouflage Attack on Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.08281/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Intent obfuscation is a common tactic in adversarial situations, enabling the attacker to both manipulate the target system and avoid culpability. Surprisingly, it has rarely been implemented in adversarial attacks on machine learning systems. We are the first to propose using intent obfuscation to generate adversarial examples for object detectors: by perturbing another non-overlapping object to disrupt the target object, the attacker hides their intended target. We conduct a randomized experiment on 5 prominent detectors -- YOLOv3, SSD, RetinaNet, Faster R-CNN, and Cascade R-CNN -- using both targeted and untargeted attacks and achieve success on all models and attacks. We analyze the success factors characterizing intent obfuscating attacks, including target object confidence and perturb object sizes. We then demonstrate that the attacker can exploit these success factors to increase success rates for all models and attacks. Finally, we discuss main takeaways and legal repercussions.