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.

Comments

Misuse?

[neonprimetime]

Couldn't this have terrible issues of misusage? Government could block off any area they desire ... no pictures allowed (we could never uncover conspiracies then). It sounds like it's a technology for the power hungary.

Re:Misuse?

[Joe The Dragon]

bank robbers will love this as well as meny others how don't what to be seen

Sounds perfect for speed cameras

[mrbill1234]

In the UK many fixed speed cameras are digital - as are the automatic number plate (license plate for you americans) recognition for the congestion charging zone in London.

Re:Sounds perfect for speed cameras

[mgabrys_sf]

Traffic light cameras in the United States have been playing games with people who have been modifying their plates with additional paints and plastic covers that either impose polarizing refraction or light scattering techniques. The latter is my pick as adding paint that is of a higher reflectivity is nearly impossible to spot with the naked eye (like those of the police) but does quite the scattershot job on them at intersections.

Note - since the rise of cameras at intersections accidents have nearly doubled in some cases as people slam on the brakes in time for the person behind them to collide with them. But remember - it's safety - not revenue.

Brought to you by your local police and proection agency: To Serve - and Collect.

It's all nice and well

[roman_mir]

until they send a white laser beam into your eye glasses.

I imagine that based on the description of the detection system it should be possible to come up with a lens filter for digital cameras, that will let the light onto the CCD, but will scatter the light that is reflected back, thus negating this detector technology.

Way too dangerous.

[Rob T Firefly]

TFA: "Once a scanning laser and photodetector located a video camera, the system would flash a thin beam of visible white light directly at the CCD. This beam - possibly a laser in a commercial version - would overwhelm the target camera with light, rendering recorded video unusable."

Visible light would screw up the whole "darkened theater" concept, would it not? How irritating would it be to try and watch a movie with Laser Floyd going on all around you?

"Researchers say that energy levels used to neutralize cameras would be low enough to preclude any health risks to the operator."

And how safe is it for the person whose contact lenses are mistaken for camera lenses, who gets a pair of beams to the eyeballs? Or the person with a particularly shiny shirt button, which reflects the beam into someone else? Additionally, how complex would the system have to be to cover every geometric point in a room, and also detect lenses behind filters or one-way mirrors?

This whole thing seems way too dangerous and impractical to even think about commercial use yet.

Re:Again, won't work.

[Billosaur]

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?

Even easier: since this system will eventually work off infrared frequecise, you merely cover you lens with a substance the reflects or absorbs infrared light. Shouldn't matter to the camera and then you've neutralized the scanning portion, rendering the rest obsolete.

Re:My question is...

[cayenne8]

C'mon...the most OBVIOUS use would be in defeating the photo radar boxes (revenue generators) the cops keep putting out. Hell, if they could develop a 'personal use' wearable system like this, you could 'disappear' from all the cctv they're putting out more and more in the US. Hmm...will this system work with CCTV?

More and more I think the Monty Python "How not to be seen" skit is less of a skit these days, and more of a reality.

Re:My question is...

[dougmc]

Personally, I'd rather see cell phone jammers become more common--in restaurants and theaters, especially.

Of course, these devices are generally illegal in the US, and probably most other countries.

You can block the signal, but you can't actively jam it. If you want your movie theater to block cell phone signals, you make it into a faraday cage (which is probably going to be difficult when you need to block microwaves -- just a few inches open is all you need for a signal to get in) and then cell phones won't work.

If you wanted some extra flexibility in that setup, you could set up some dipole antennas for the various cell phone bands in and out of the shielded movie theater, and set up circuits to connect them inbetween movies and break the connections when the movie starts. That way you could turn it on and off ...

I'm not saying that this is a good idea, only that it would be legal. (But being able to turn it on and off like that? I'd say it qualifies as clever if nothing else.)

Personally, I think that technological solutions (jammers, faraday cages) to etiquette problems (talking on your cell phone and disturbing others) are a mistake, and I feel that people who advocate such drastic measures just to prevent themselves from being inconvenienced are more rude than the people they complain about. You don't like the person next to you talking on his cell phone? Don't ask the owners/government to make it so it won't work -- instead, ask the guy to stop, and remind him how rude he's being.

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.

Whats wrong with Film ?

[MajorDick]

A Minox B will only set you back about a C Note , look on Ebay for Minox , and film is fairly cheap.

For those NON--Film guys a Minox is a very high quality german SPY camera , the ones used in all those old movies.

Small , clandestine, and very good optics, far better than any small Digitals sport,
 
Makes this technology and all its research useless and a waste of money in my opinion.

And the way to defeat it is painfully obvious

[Weaselmancer]

False positives.

It's looking for "the reflectivity and shape of the image sensors", right? Well, just put a couple dozen of them on your hat. The system won't know what to target.

And that's that. Simple.

Re:My question is...

[networkBoy]

My father in law is an on-call police officer...
yes he leaves everything on
yes it's set to vibrate
yes he says "hello, officer ..." while still in the theater. If it's a real call he then leaves, if not he says "I'm busy" and hangs up.
-nB