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New System to Counter Photo and Video Devices
Incongruity writes "News.com is reporting that a team from Georgia Tech has developed and demoed a system that actively searches for and effectively blinds cameras and camcorders within a 10 meter radius." From the article: "In this system, a device bathes the region in front of it with infrared light. When an intense retroreflection indicates the presence of a digital camera lens, the device then fires a localized beam of light directly at that point. Thus, the picture gets washed out."
Paparazzi Shields for famous celebrities. It's like a force field!
Can't wait to see how many people will go blind with this contraption!
People with glasses?
I don't want to get blinded every time I walk up to a trade show display.
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(-.-) Give me back my damn feet!
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Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
Wouldn't this blind people with glasses?
She lit a match and felt the warm glow of its meager heat before it burned down to her fingers and she dropped it in the snow. Then she lit another and another until all her matches were gone and she began to feel icy fingers of winter clutching at her tiny frail frame.
She moved along the street looking for an open door, shelter, any shelter. Then she thought, what's this? She felt a deep warmth the likes of which she had not felt since her mother's embrace. It was glorious. She sat down to rest and soon fell asleep.
And thus it came to pass, she was found roast to a golden brown, like a Thanksgiving turkey, before the offices of the Central Intelligence Agency.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I would guess the MPAA & Co. would love this, but would multiple units be required for a theater (line-of-sight...) or would they be useful mounted on ceilings, what with the angles?
Heck, didn't Alan Bean discover a way to do this in 1969 while on an Apollo 12 EVA? (he says tongue firmly in cheek).
Ignore Alien Orders
I would sure hope that the localized beam of light doesn't do any damage to any camera at all... otherwise it would be pretty easy for the person with the cam to file suit for damage, despite what they may or may not have been doing at the time.
On a related thought... I wonder what it would take to trick the system into shooting the beam at ones eyes... heck, with a system like this you could just claim that you were blinded by the system for a few moments and now you suffer from crippling migraines and what not... ka-ching!
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Big deal. International Rescue had them already, 30 years ago, to protect strangers from photographing the Thunderbirds.
In this system, a device bathes the region in front of it with infrared light.
Are there any infrared filters that can be made easily? If so, I see a counter to this!
Are you accusing the editors of duping a story?
The next step is a video/still camera that detects an infrared source and closes an iris to keep the light from bouncing back. Or better yet, a coating that keeps the infrared from bouncing out of the lens.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
I was thinking the exact same thing. I'm not a biology major by any stretch (boy, could that phrase be misconstrued!), so I don't know what kind of effect such infrared beams would have on the eyes. But if the beam is going to be strong enough to completely blind a camera, I'd be really concerned about what it could do for the eyes.
Maybe I'm just slightly paranoid and it will have no effect at all. But since the article doesn't state anything about impact to human eyes and most eyewear protection is meant to filter out UV radiation, this should be cause for concern until we're told otherwise. Anyone more knowledgable about ocular physiology care to educate us?
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
They're using an IR emitter to generate a reflection that is sensed with the camera to trigger an ambient light source to overwhelm the offending camera. Not to mention the modulated light attack that would launch on the eyeballs of anyone happening to be looking in that direction.
seems like since CCD's are IR responsive in the first place (which is how they are detecting them), why not just continuously bathe the area in an overdose of IR and skip the detection and visible light altogether?
I'm gonna get like 10 for every room 'cause I know you're watching and trying to keep me from talking about the Alie^H^H ...mmmmpppph
[Remote Peer Quit Unexpectedly]
now the police can give the beat downs without any fear of being caught
back in the day we didnt have no old school
Thanks goodness, no one has invented the infrared filter!
Am I wrong, or does this seem too easy to defeat?
Democrats and Republicans only disagree about how to enslave you
How long before someone takes this technology to "blind" the security cameras at a casino or other location that handles large sums of cash?
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.
On the other hand, I most certainly do agree that we need to be watching government use of public surveillance very, very closely. Not that this has much to do with the current topic, really.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Or a potential fuck you *from* anyone who doesn't want the public to be able to document them. Immagine if these were used to keep any non-approved journalists from taking pictures/recording events? Or used to cover an entire area where a protesters are demonstrating to make covering the event harder?
There's still other details to work out, like the armed guards, the exploding ink in the money packets, etc., but I'm glad those Georgia engineers solved one of my problems.
What about an identical system to flood the sensor with IR light and take the shot ? ;)
So businesses are going to spend thousands of dollars on this technology so that they have an automated means to blind camera phones. It works by detecting the reflection of infrared light off a camera's lens and directing a 'blinding' beam back to the point of reflection. It probably has one detector and one blinding beam.
o r can act as an even more distant and separate dummy source. $10 and I have again defeated you, Georgia Tech!
Let's think. Two people set 10-20 feet apart create independent sources of reflected infrared light that cannot be covered by the same beam -- the interposed populace will not be pleased with inadvertent 'blinding', unless it is also comparatively low intensity infrared that can be defeated by a simple filter. So we can use two cameras. $200 and I have defeated you, Georgia Tech!
Better yet, let's assume that I'm a cheapskate. I can spray paint my shoes with infrared reflective paint. Now I have three sources of infrared reflectance for the cost of a can of paint. If I'm a social cheapskate, my girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse/compadre/co-conspirat
I would pat myself on the back, but there is a serious drawback if the blinding system uses visible light -- I'm going to walk around convention halls looking like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever from time to time. *cue disco music*
There was an episode of Mythbusters on this. They didn't have an anti-reflective plate cover though. What they did do is solder 300 or so infrared LED's around the plate.
Didn't affect the speed gun in the slightest. In my travels, I use a RADAR detector on long journeys, but in most cases, staying within 5-10mph of the speed limit (and driving an old man car! Grand Marquis) helps lots.
Karnal
Since they specifically mentioned digital cameras, what about non-digital cameras?
;) My old 35mm don't seem to have anymore lens coating than a pair of glasses. The new digital is quite shiny alright. Time to go back to the old spy cams from the back of Boy's Life :)
While not as easy to hide as some new cameras, a old 35mm isn't impossible to hide either. Don't ask, i just know
Ouch, it's gonna be expensive to sneak in that instamatic instead...cheap 126 film is now gonna be a buck a shot! Ahh, a 110 camera is still doable tho and many of those are palmable.
hehe, i wonder what it would think of this silver can of root beer?
And, of course, the eyes of some animals (cats, alligators) are strong and precise retroreflectors.
People, too.
That's why you get "red eye" in the picture if the flash is too close to the lens.
For people it's probably a vestigial remmanant.
For animals it's a night-vision adaptation. The retro-reflector is behind the light-sensitive part of the retina. Any light that makes it through the sensors is sent back (nearly) the way it came in, giving the retina a second chance to catch it and thus a tad under a 3db increase in sensitivity - at a slight cost to focus. The shine you see is what made two passes without being caught.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
In waiting for your response, I will be tucked away nicely out of sight.
Yeah, that's what you think...
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Read the article. The device works with visible light, using only infrared to identify the location of a camera lense. Once located, a strong focused beam of visible light washes out any picture taken, and as the article said, works both when there is an IR filter on the lense, and when not.
Seems it can be "tuned" to detect the retro-reflectivity of CCD Cameras. Also, the authors did say that there are many ways the system can be fooled. Personally, I would just attach a paper tube to the camera, long enough to allow a photo to be taken while blocking out the IR beam from the detector. For those worried about getting IR beams in their eyes, remember that they are just using your standard IR LEDs, not LASER LEDs. From the paper: In summary: 1) It is harmless if a false positive (camera-like device) is detected. It cannot damage cameras. 2) This probably won't work on CMOS cameras, which are likely to be the next generation technology used in digital cameras. 3) Limited angle of detection, range of detection (based on resolution of sensing camera) and numerous counter measures makes this system an interesting prototype at best. Its still a ways off being used by the 3-letter government agencies.
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
I know I sugested that about a year ago here on slashdot. //yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137379&threshol d=0&commentsort=0&tid=158&tid=126&tid=153&tid=173& tid=155&tid=137&mode=thread&cid=11485581
Part of "No Pictures, Thanks" from 1/26/05
It's actualy easier, you just need a high powered IR source, such as a bunch of LED's,
the Cameras AGC automaticly adjusts so you turn totaly dark.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
They had this 35 years ago (or will have it 55 years from now, depending on your perspective) on the Thunderbirds puppet show. I noticed that this disappeared in the recent (lousy) live action film. This of course begs the question, does art immitate life or vice versa.
Just put a cardboard tube around the lens. If the detector is not right in front of the camera (i.e. you are taking a picture of the detector) it wont be able to see the lens.
In my (not so) humble opinion the law should treat tail-gaters as harshly as drunk drivers. There's no excuse for either and both are incredibly dangerous to other road users.
</rant></offtopic>
Since pinhole cameras do not have lenses how does this system is supposed to work?
Many surveillance cameras this days are pinhole.
Like this
Ha :-) They realy didn't think of that, now did they ? Yeah, sure you can prevent people from taking pictures and stuff, but once installed, they render their own surveillance system useless.
The short answer is simple: Drive at a speed that allows you to stop within the distance you can see. If people tail-end you, it's their friggin' problem.
If you drive 10m behind the car in front of you, at 80 km/h, then you're utterly stupid, irresponsible and reckless. If the car in front of you starts to brake, you'll run into it simply because of your reaction time. Simple physics will tell you that you're going to hit the other car about 2 to 3 seconds after it started decelerating, unless you have big-time better brakes.
Could governments now use this to keep reporters cameras from showing a peaceful protest being broken up by riot police? Could police cars be equipped with these devices so that there is never another Rodney King video?
I dont like the sound of this.
-- Does anybody know where the 'any' key is on the keyboard?
Correct, and in the UK, that's actually the offence. I once ran into a car from behind (well, 4 people collided, all in a row because someone 4 cars ahead decided to slow down suddenly to turn off without indicating).
As it happened, a police car passed by a minute later, and stopped. The policeman told me that I'd committed an offence, which was "Driving at a speed from which you could not stop in the distance you could see to be clear." (It rolled off his tongue like he'd said it many times before)
Unlike seemingly many people, I didn't get annoyed with him - I accepted it was my fault, and learned the lesson. I now drive far enough behind other cars to stop.
As mentioned, the "how the hell else am I supposed to drive really fast in driving snow" argument is bullshit. Reminds me of the time during bad weather in the UK with torrential rain, some random motorist was on the TV news blaming the police for accidents because they hadn't turned on the temporary (slower) speed limit signs. The guy actually said, and I quote, "How the hell do they expect me to drive at 70mph in this weather?"
Sometimes people's arrogance and stupidity is overwhelming.