  Polarization is a fundamental property of light that encodes abundant
information regarding surface shape, material, illumination and viewing
geometry. The computer vision community has witnessed a blossom of
polarization-based vision applications, such as reflection removal,
shape-from-polarization, transparent object segmentation and color constancy,
partially due to the emergence of single-chip mono/color polarization sensors
that make polarization data acquisition easier than ever. However, is
polarization-based vision vulnerable to adversarial attacks? If so, is that
possible to realize these adversarial attacks in the physical world, without
being perceived by human eyes? In this paper, we warn the community of the
vulnerability of polarization-based vision, which can be more serious than
RGB-based vision. By adapting a commercial LCD projector, we achieve locally
controllable polarizing projection, which is successfully utilized to fool
state-of-the-art polarization-based vision algorithms for glass segmentation
and color constancy. Compared with existing physical attacks on RGB-based
vision, which always suffer from the trade-off between attack efficacy and eye
conceivability, the adversarial attackers based on polarizing projection are
contact-free and visually imperceptible, since naked human eyes can rarely
perceive the difference of viciously manipulated polarizing light and ordinary
illumination. This poses unprecedented risks on polarization-based vision, both
in the monochromatic and trichromatic domain, for which due attentions should
be paid and counter measures be considered.
