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Prototype System Blocks Digital Cameras
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.
I can't wait until they blind a few people testing this. I might want to go to concerts without my contacts or glasses.
Honestly, I know they will try to make sure that they don't accidently get someone's glasses. However, when some boffins tried to create an active cellphone jammer for planes, it coded a guy by stopping his pacemaker during the tests. Doesn't make me feel real snazzy about the idea.
In God we trust, all others require data.
"The system works by looking for the reflectivity and shape of the image-producing sensors used in digital cameras."
This means that spies could just design and use cameras which look non-suspicious by the sensors. And then again, what will happen when common glasses have integrated cameras in them?
As usual, this kind of systems can only block the legitimate public (which tries not to break any laws), while the truly dangerous people just use more advanced technology.
Expect to see this system installed at EVERY amusement park, and every landmark, and every tourist attraction.
The Powers That Be are determined to make sure that ANY information the masses have access to is paid for.
So... SLR-style cameras and cameras using CMOS sensors are invisible to the detector. Nice.
So basically, if you still want to be a photographic snoop, use a box camera.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
The countermeasure: film.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Haven't read TFA, but:
The technology is already out in the field (mostly wielded by PIs trying to spot hidden cameras and - much differently - by certain infantry units to spot enemy snipers). I imagine the real breakthrough here is not the detection mechanism, but in the mechanisms involved in the "blinding" process.
"can't run, can't hide...oh well, return 0"
If this system is used to disable digital cameras, and this system becomes widespread, then will we see a resurgence and acceleration in the development of film cameras.
Don't throw away your old Canon/Mamiya/Nikon yet!
Of course, this will work until owning analog cameras is made illegal.
I'm guessing that I could hide a camera from this device the same way I hide it from people. A fine mesh (like nylon stocking) in front of the lens renders it non-shiny enough that someone can stare at quite a large lens without realizing that it is a lens.
... call the lawyers. Don't try to tell me that the system is designed not to do that. All kinds of things happen that aren't supposed to be able to happen. At some point, it just boils down to who has the best lawyer.
If the device has enough power to saturate a ccd, it has enough power to saturate someones eyeball. So, someone is temporarily blinded or startled. They trip
Not always. A digital SRL doesn't have to have a mirror between the lens and the sensor.
If an electronic viewfinder is used instead of an optical one the sensor
is in play all the time.
If you drive into the back of someone you are far too close to the car in front. Of course, if you do keep your distance, some idiot will drive into the gap :(
Might also work as a countermeasure against the increasing permanent surveilance we're coming under.
If there were a device that disables CCTV, and it's cheap enough to buy and light enough to carry, I know I would have one with me and switched on all the time. I'm sick and tired of being treated like a (potential) criminal "for my own protection".
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
As described, this system will not work against *serious* digital cameras -- digital SLRs. In these cameras the CCD sensor (or, nowadays, more often the CMOS sensor) is hidden behind a mirror till the moment of the shot when the mirror flips away for a fraction of a second.
Not to mention that in order to work the system will need to constantly scan everything with, presumably, beams of visible light. I doubt this will work out well at most places...
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
1: Person 1 aims digital camera at 'forbidden' target.
2: Blocking device directs beam at camera.
3: Person 1 sees bright light in viewfinder, gives thumbs-up.
4: Person 2, standing a few feet away, whips up second camera and takes picture.
5: Profit!
And I'm sure somebody smart enough could devise a simple device to cover up a camera's CCD until an instant before the picture was taken. It could be called something like a 'shutter'...
You must think in Russian.
Place it at the back of a 6" tube and unless the blocker is in a very narrow apeture, it is not going to see the camera nor is it going to do anything but shine on the outside of the tube if it did.
And then there are....
multiple cameras- which one is real.
telescopes
this idea is a waste of money and time.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
This one ranks pretty high up on the "PhD idiot" scale. What I mean is that it continually amazes me, working in higher education, how people can be so educated yet know so little. The quote "An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows everythig about nothing" really rings true. You see plenty of soltuions developed that completely and totally fail to account for the realities of the world.
In this case, the problem is the way that a CCD is detected. They say they do it by checking it's reflection propreties. According to the article CCDs are retroflective, meaning they send light back to it's source, they don't scatter it. Ok fine but you think that will work reliably? Even if you get it so a system doesn't generate false positives (which will be a big problem, it's not like CCDs are unique in this property) what do you do when someone sticks a filter on their lense that changes the properties? I'm sure teh sense works fine when it's just a glass lense that does nothing but focus the light. I'm sure it doesn't work at all if you put the equivilant of mirror glass on the lense.
I don't see this going anywhere on a large scale, espically since it would be hell to make it pick up and deal with long range lenses. It's not hard (if a little expensive) to get a lense that gets good shots at 500+ metres. How do you deal with that?
Ah... but it is for this very reason that owning one will be immeidately illegal for common citizens, but perfectly fine for government agencies.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
To get around these devices, just put a one-way glass lense cap on the camera, only the CCD can see through it, nothing can view inside the camera.
"Movie piracy is a $3 billion-a-year problem," Clawson maintains -- a problem said to be especially acute in Asia. "If someone videotapes a movie in a theater and then puts it up on the web that night or burns half a million copies to sell on the street - then the movie industry has lost a lot of in-theater revenue.
Will someone please explain the Accounting here? This kind of statement really bothers me because it assumes a few things. 1. That consumers of pirated content have the dispossable income to purchase the 'legit' consumable. 2. That if piracy were to go away they would buy the 'legit' stuff.
So, I would argue that their actual lost revenue is quite a bit less. For example, I'm semi-interested in watching the new X-Men movie. When presented with a choice, I can spend $16 to go to a theater and watch it with a significant other (plus $6 for popcorn), or I can purchase a semi-decent bootleg for $5. Which do I choose. Hmm.. A bootleg sounds really nice. However, in the absence of a bootleg do I go to the theater? No. Because the interest is not sufficient to justify the cost. When presented with the theater and a P2P acquired copy, which do I choose? Hmmm...Not to difficult either. But in the absence of P2P copy, do I go to the theater? No.
So, I again ask, how in the heck do they reconcile the lost revenue???
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
Got a source for that one?
I'd like to point out that there is a reason the light turns yellow for several seconds before it turns red. Sure, you can always speed up when it would be better to stop so you can make it through the intersection before it technically becomes illegal, but if the guy in front of you doesn't do the same, don't expect blame to fall on him.
Yes, nothing makes a movie-going experience pleasant for everyone more than a fight breaking out.
Telling people to shut up doesn't work. I've been in plenty of theaters where multiple people are yelling at someone to shut up and just getting ignored or a "fuck off" in response.
This is all the sort of thing that ushers used to be for. Maybe instead of spending money on cell phone jammers we could pay an adult to be in the theater and escort people out for being disruptive.
I'd be mighty angry if I was at the movies, and the babysitter couldn't call me and let me know that my children had hurt themselves and was in ICU at the hospital. Sure, I set the phone to vibrate, but beyond that, if somebody calls me, I want to know about it.
..... if something happens, they come in to get you, you LEAVE, and use the phone. All without disturbing anybody else.
..... what the bloody hell is people's obsession, with being in touch with the entire world 24/7? What the hell is wrong with NOT being wired for an hour or two?
People have been dealing with that just fine since pagers first started coming out.
When you go to the theater, you leave your pager with an attendant, and he records where you're sitting
And lets' face it - it's s SHITLOAD more likely that you're gonna get called by some wanker who wants to know if you've picked up the cheese dip for friday's big game thatn to get a call that a close relative just died in a car crash.
And a partially aborted rant
One of these days blind people will see through the use of some implants connected to a digital camera, early prototypes are on the work (just search for it in /.)... will it means that blind people will have to suffer this stupid invention?
I remember reading this was true with an incredibly important caveat: the number of injuries and fatalities from red light running is way down. You're getting more fender benders as people belatedly obey the fscking law instead of body bags when they flagrantly flaunt it.
Personally, I think the fine for running a red light should be a 90 day license suspension on the first offense, increasing exponentionally with each subsequent. Then again, I was nearly run down at the intersection of Vermont and K by a SUV last week, so I may be a bit biased in this respect.
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are.
-- Colonel Adolphus Busch
Wow, I just totally disagree. I think a technological solution is ideal for these situations. In a theatre in particular, what proportion of cell phone rings are because someone simply forgot to turn off their phone? How do you fix that etiquette problem?
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
I'll say that an usher would be much more affective and would not need to be there for the entire movie. A single usher could easily monitor multiple screens and at 7/hour I don't imagine would be very costly in the grand scheme of things.
I'm with the grand parent here. Technology problems to solve cultural or etiquette issues will always fail. They are never a good idea and worse yet, they can be very destructive at the cost of a quiet theater. I don't see the ends justifying those means at all.Retroreflective means the surface reflects light back to the source. Stop Signs, taillights, and some fire hydrants are retroreflective. So are to a lesser extent, disco-balls, diamonds, and ball-bearings. But CCD sensors? Why? And since when? I've never seen one behave that way. And in a photosensor you want one that COLLECTS and absorbs light, not reflects it or even worse, retroreflects it.
Now at some angles, CCD sensors are going to show a diffraction pattern, due to the spacing of the sensor elements, but only if they're out in the open, without a lens. Are these "Reasearchers" seeing this effect?
This article sure sounds like high-grade snake-oil!
Obvious solution? A 'quiet area' signal. If a phone recieves such a signal (Which can come from a low-power transmitter in places such as theatres and cinema) then it automatically switches to vibrate.
Perhaps have different types of signal, so one disables the ringer but leaves vibrate on, one forces the backlight to turn off (So no glare), one disables the camera (good for schools) etc.
Obviously these would only be 'hints' to the phone and in special cases, such as on-call surgeons, they could be disabled but for the majority of users they would provide a hassle-free way of making sure their phone was - if not off (because being unavailable is not an option for some people) - at least courteous.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
What the hell did you people worrying about babysitters do ten years ago?
I call bullshit on your threats. In fact, you're probably the people who talk loudest on the cell phones anyway -- you get a call, think it's the babysitter, get your fucking blood pressure in a goddamn snit, forget that you're sitting in a movie theater, and then start yabbering to your sister-in-law about you thought she was the babysitter, but it's a good thing because you're sitting in a movie theater, trying to watch a movie and, yeah, it's pretty good because you just saw this scene where Jennifer Aniston did this thing where she moved one way but you thought she moved the other way and boy was in funny and, by the way, what are you doing next Saturday because me, I got nothing really planned.
It's bullshit. You go to a movie to watch a movie. If you're so fucking worried about being unplugged for two hours you got a shitload of shit wrong with your fucking head and the last thing you should be doing is sitting in a movie theater.
Ah. Yes. Much better now. Annoying isn't it?
I disagree.
I used to go to the movies weekly. Now I can't stand the disruptions and won't go but once or twice a year. I would go more often if I knew cellphones would not work (and the people who have them would not be there).
I'm sure they could work out some way to contact me in an emergency.
My other post is +5, Interesting
Really, my point was that jammers are illegal, and for good reason. If you want to block the signal legally, you'll have to do it another way. Though really, I don't understand what the big deal is. I've been to the movies perhaps ten times in the last year, and I don't recall being disturbed by anybody talking on the phone or even by a ringing phone. As for people taking in restaurants, well, they're already full of people talking, so who cares if they're talking to somebody who's not actually there? (Unless they're there with me but that's another issue.)
What bugs me are people walking around with headsets on, especially ones that are tricky to see, and it looks like they're just talking to themselves, and when they get close to me, I tend to think they're talking to me. But it's only mildly annoying, and even if it was really annoying, I'd not want to ban it or somehow break their phones.
Sorry, but for every person talking on their cell phone in the theater there are usually a hundred that aren't. You get a call in a theater you pickup, say hold on, then walk outside. It's common courtesy which seems to be a concept completely lost on you. Technology won't solve the problem because it only treats the symptom. When they don't get phone calls they'll go back to talking to the people around them. Those people have always been in a theater and you are a fool if you think otherwise.
I go to a movie to enjoy myself, I set my phone to vibrate so if I get a text from my mail server it disrupts no one by myself. It's never happened but hey, it could and thats more than enough. Completely ignore all the people like Doctors, EMTs, firefighters and anyone else who has a job where lives are at stake 24/7. Are they not allowed to go to the movies now? That's fucking ridiculous. So next time you see someone talking on their cell phone in the theater why not tell them to take it outside? Don't tell them to stop because that will result in a fuck off. When you remove their options you will only make them act out in other ways. Like it or not there are a lot of different kinds of people out there and most of them like to see movies.So yes, its annoying, but not as annoying as people making assumptions about me despite knowing nothing about me. I'm for personal responsibility and just because my job requires me to be on call 24/7 doesn't mean shouldn't be able to go out and have a good time every now and then. Especially since I can do it without shouting to four rows can hear me instead of the movie.
Think about Rodney King? The man had unnecessary force used against him in an extremely obvious way. Of course, all the officers involved still basically got away with it, and the L.A. Riots were completely justified. (Specific incidents that happened within the riots, such as racial violence, were not.)
But think about police abuse, and the abuse of the state in general. Think about Tiannamen Square in China. Think about Guantanimo, and especially think about Abu Ghraib.
Do you think we would even know about such abuses, if CameraBusting technology was ubiquitous? Hell no. Just like most of China's citizens do not know about Tiannamen square, most Americans would not know about Rodney King. Nobody would know about Abu Ghraib. (Which I admit I can't spell.)
Technology is good. The advent of digital cameras, camera phones, camcorders, and all that jazz are a check in balance, by the people, against their oppressive government. We are living in a rare time in which we have tools that can actually be used to "fight the power", so to speak.
It wont be long before this rare opportunity is over. Once they perfect this type of technology, good luck capturing abuse. Good luck knowing what is really happening.
Imagine the police being able to beat anyone in broad daylight, knowing that it would be impossible to be filmed. Far-fetched? I seriously doubt it. Technology is moving at what seems like an exponential rate, and I fear things are only going to get worse.
Were the Cyberpunk visionaries really that far off?
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Ten years ago, you could call a theater in an emergency, and they'd go find the person you were looking for.
Theaters won't do that now. Hell, they don't even bother to kick out the people talking in the theater. Why would they spend any effort finding someone in a theater?
You are right that there is an overreliance on staying connected but the whole point isn't the number of times you've heard it. It's the possibility that it could occur. All of these people I'm sure go to theaters and I'm fairly certain most of them don't have an issue with this. The whole point is that someone spouting off on a cell phone in a theater is not a problem but a cultural change that needs to occur.
Face it, 20 years ago there were a lot of fires that took a lot longer to get to and a lot more medical misshaps. Cell phones are a part of our culture now so we might as well deal with the underlying issue of rude behavior in a theater rather than treat the one symptom of the issue. She's shouting then take her phone away, better yet, have an usher take it away and if she wants it she can go outside to use it. Seems really easy? Makes sense doesn't it? It's logical? Why do we need to employee new technology to prevent or actively jam this new technology? It's quite an ironic stance especially here on Slashdot when everyday there is talk about the RIAA and MPAA smashing new technology to hold on to old practices. Keep in mind, I'm not calling you a hypocrite since I don't know your stance on said issue. Just a general trend I'm noticing on here on this day.Back to topic; the world didn't get along well without cell phones. It's kind of like saying we all did fine living in small farming communities. As for anecdotal evidence I have seen someone get a phone call and then rush out of the theater. Means nothing, its all about the possibilities and the risks not being worth the price.
I make no assumptions about you, you are perfectly civil and from the impression I get willing to engage in a debate which was all I was attempting to do as well. Of course I could be wrong but its simply amazing the response I get to suggesting a theater use ushers instead of technology to solve a problem. It's like people think that I don't have a problem with someone talking on their cell phone in a theater or at a doctors office or at the dinner table. There is common etiquette many people subscribe to and it only takes one person that doesn't to ruin it for the rest of us. Doesn't seem like a good idea to me but that is perhaps because it would personally affect me.The problem is a technological one and really didn't exist before 2000 or so. I think that is why people are drawn to technological solutions.
Perhaps etiquette will catch up with technology, but I have my doubts. From what I see on the roads these days, consideration for others is a lost art.
I think confronting rude cellphone users is the best thing we can do. If enough people do it, things might change. Other people who stay silent might be inspired to speak up.
I also understand the desire to fix a problem made possible by technology with technology.
I believe that things are worse because of cellphones. I've seen doctors get distracted by their phone while examining me. How many mistakes has that caused? What's wrong with scheduling enough doctors so the ones off duty can be off duty? What's wrong with firemen staying at the house like they did for hundreds of years? They'll get to the fire faster that way. I think cellphones make bad policy possible in many cases, and that it degrades quality. Also, they seem to make people ruder in general. Oh well, they're here to stay. I'm trying to get used to it, trying to make the best of it.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Wouldn't you need to know the "angle" of the polarisation filter for that to be effective ?