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Prototype System Blocks Digital Cameras

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lawyer's-wet-dream dept.

lee1 writes "Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have completed a prototype device that can block digital cameras. The team in the Interactive and Intelligent Computing division of the Georgia Tech College of Computing used off-the-shelf equipment (camera-mounted sensors, lighting equipment, a projector and a computer) to scan for, find and neutralize digital cameras. The system works by looking for the reflectivity and shape of the image sensors and saturating them with a thin beam of visible white light. The principal applications are expected to be protecting areas such as government buildings and trade shows against clandestine photography, stopping unauthorized amateur photography of, for example, shopping-mall Santas (really!) and defeating video copying in theaters. The countermeasure: film." Sounds perfect for copyrighted public spaces.

4 of 494 comments (clear)

  1. Easily defeated fortunately. by Espressoman · · Score: 4, Informative

    This might be practical for simply preventing happy snappers from taking photos of things you'd rather not, but I fail to see how this will prevent determined people from getting the pictures. For starters, a long tight baffle attached to the lens of a conceiled camera would be very difficult for the system to pick up on, *and* it would be very difficult for the light beam to get to the lense as well.

    The more practical and up-front approach would be to x-ray everybody and take their cameras off them.

  2. Timothy's subnote is idiotic by technoextreme · · Score: 4, Informative
    It's against the law to do limit pictures of public places. It took me about five minutes to find the law. You really can't get more explicit than:
    (a) Pictorial Representations Permitted. -- The copyright in an architectural work that has been constructed does not include the right to prevent the making, distributing, or public display of pictures, paintings, photographs, or other pictorial representations of the work, if the building in which the work is embodied is located in or ordinarily visible from a public place.
    --
    Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
  3. Re:Source? by zentinal · · Score: 5, Informative
    Some Sources:

    http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/06/687.asp

    http://pubsindex.trb.org/document/view/default.asp ?lbid=776666

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/technology/circu its/06came.html?en=8bc6df38e1042a40&ex=1262667600& amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;am p;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;ei=5090&partner= rssuserland&pagewanted=print&position=

  4. Re:Source? by jweller · · Score: 3, Informative
    Got a source for that one?

    Yes, I do.

    several in fact.

    http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/11185/fish-sto ries-from-the-operators-of-traffic-scameras.html

    http://thenewspaper.com/news/11/1189.asp

    http://thenewspaper.com/news/01/117.asp

    and that took me 10 minutes to dig up.