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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.
Does it just "block" the cameras, or does it destroy them?
Either way, I hope this comes in a personal unit. It'd be a nice way to avoid being photographed at family gatherings.
-:sigma.SB
WARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
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.
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.
Nothing to see here, move along...
My other sig is funny.
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.
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.
You can't handle the truth.
This whole thing seems way too dangerous and impractical to even think about commercial use yet.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
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.
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SLR Camera (that's acknowledged in the article) --- the sensor isn't revealed except during the actual taking of the picture, the rest of the time there's a mirror in the way.
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Ordinary digicam, but use the optical viewfinder and keep your hand over the lens until you take the picture.
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If they're using wavelength X for the detection process, just use a filter that blocks that wavelength and work in black and white (perfectly acceptable for most trade show spying)
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Polarising filter will probably screw things up.
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Lens Hood would mean the detection system would need to be on-axis.
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Wear old CCDs as jewelery.
ianAs 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?
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.
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.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
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.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.