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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.
So... SLR-style cameras and cameras using CMOS sensors are invisible to the detector. Nice.
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.
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
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.
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
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