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Ask Slashdot: Anti-Camera Device For Use In a Small Bus?
Paul server guy writes "I am building a limousine bus, and the owners want to prevent occupants from using cameras on board. (But they would like the cameras mounted on the bus to continue to operate; I think they would consider this optional.) They would also like to do it without having to wear any 'anti-paparazzi' clothing (because they also want to protect the other guests on board), and without destroying the cameras. (So no EMP generators, please). We've done some testing with high-power IR, but that proved ineffective. Does anyone have any ideas that they are willing to share?"
What are the paparazzi doing on-board in the first place? Paps are invariably outside the limo, i.e. off-board.
Just confiscate cameras before they get on the Girls Gone Wild bus. Rich People/First World Problems.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Can anyone come up with a sensible reason to implement such a thing?
You want to have your own cameras capturing everything on board, but you want to prevent your guests from doing the same.
Best advice is to stop being a dick.
People use limousine buses for special events and parties. These are the times people most want to remember and are likely to want to take their own pictures. Preventing them from doing so (even if it were possible, which in your stated scenario seems dubious) would be a pretty dick move.
Trunk Monkey!
This article is yet another confirmation that Slashdot just gets worse and worse. I hate to troll, but come on guys, up the quality some.
-- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
1) Cover all the windows
2) Passengers on high-class limo travel in the dark
3) Install an infrared camera
4) Sell film to adult and/or paparazzi websites
5) $$$PROFIT$$$
Got a couple of problems. As you found IR is ineffective, I think you will find anything that allows normal human sight to work will be ineffective or inconsistently effective. Have to assume that total darkness is not acceptable as well (though would be somewhat effective)
I have heard that its possible to detect cameras by IR lasers that they use for autofocus. So that leaves some ideas:
1. Detection rather than nullification. Maybe you can't prevent but you can at least know when,
2. Maybe you can use IR to fool the autofocus to one extreme or another?
Nothing is perfect of course, but if those could be done for the majority of smart phones, then it may still be worth doing for some purposes.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Really, what you want is a behavior control device, not a anti-camera device. Seriously, what the fuck? Why shouldn't people be allowed to take photos on the bus? What do they have to hide? If people want to take photos of each other on the bus, why shouldn't they?
I reject your fascist attempts at controlling others, as should others as well. In short fuck you and fuck beta.
You could just constantly play a movie in each corner of the vehicle. This way anyone trying to film your clients would inevitably end up making an unlawful reproduction of the film and then you just sick the MPAA on them.
Have you done any research into "The Cone of Silence"?
The best solution that comes to mind is to create a small black hole in the center of the bus. If it is of sufficient mass it will draw in all the light gravitationally, thus preventing the cameras from capturing said light.
Better known as 318230.
Distribute paper bags for them to put on their heads. Punch eyeholes.
You're asking for a technical solution to a social/political problem. The only feasible solution is to make sure your policy is clearly explained and understood to all who board the limo-bus, and then strictly enforcing it by expelling anyone caught with a camera. Sure, you won't be able to monitor people 100% of the time, but if you're strict with enforcement people won't risk taking snapshots. It will probably be more effective than any technical solution which would be expensive and easily circumvented.
And if the owners of the limo-bus are really that worried about photos onboard, the simplest solution would be for everyone to deposit their electronic devices into a bag, and they can then recover their devices after leaving the limo-bus.
My guess though is that your policy is likely to lose your limo-bus company customers, so the owners better make sure whether enforcing it is worth the cost.
And my owners want the traffic to clear in front of the limousine as the bus rolls into a congested area, but they are ok to have the traffic pile up behind the bus. We've done some testing with really loud honking but it proved ineffective. We don’t want to destroy other cars either, so no shooting torpedoes, please!
There's no such thing as "illegal download"
Shia LaBeouf, is that you?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
This is an excellent idea!
Just blind everyone so they can't find their cameras! Even if they do manage to find their camera, they can't see shit so their photographs will suck.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
So basically you want to treat your customers like dirt. I'm sure your business will find all the success it deserves.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
You've tried ultra bright IR but you really need flickering ultra-bright IR strobing at different rates and levels. A solid IR just sets things up for a better photo. Providing the camera didn't have an IR filter and did photograph IR a flickering IR would cause differing light needs within the exposure window which the camera would be unlikely to adapt to. If you are able to link the timing of the flickering in with your own cameras you'd be able to shut it off momentarily (electronically) and grab the photo.
To allow officials to accept bribes without fear of being photographed in the act? To allow folks to get rowdy and/or affectionate without being photographed in the act? To allow... I think you're seeing the theme here: what happens on the limo-bus, stays on the limo-bus. Or as someone else mentioned, to drum up business for the officially sanctioned photographer.
I can only think of one way to implement it safely though, and that is unlikely to be acceptable: black out the windows and remove all interior lighting so that the cameras can't see.
The challenge is that you want to let human eyes see, while electronic eyes cannot (if we're talking film cameras then it becomes essentially impossible - those things are generally even more reliable and durable than human eyes). If you're not allowed to destroy the cameras then you're limited to a few options:
1) Applying enough light that the sensors saturate - which is likely to damage human eyes with prolonged exposure since cameras are intentionally filtered to only be able to see roughly the same spectrum as human eyes, and high-intensity IR is known to cause eye damage due to overheating of the cornea and lens - the only part of the human body without an active cooling system.
2) Disrupting the electronics so that a photo can't be taken - which is pretty much going to require either a camera-destroying EMP, or a sustained string of low-grade EMPs that are just strong enough to reliably disrupt all electronics in the area without actually damaging them, and frequent enough that the cameras don't have a chance to finish rebooting before the next pulse arrives. Unfortunately EMPs are not exactly gentle to living tissue either, not to mention the pulse that will reliably disrupt a piece of high quality electronics will likely do at least some damage to low-quality electronics. Multiply that by maybe a hundred pulses an hour and you're going to end up with some fried electronics (and probably damaged neurons as well). Plus passengers are unlikely to appreciate having all their electronics forcibly rebooted and their hard drives potentially scrambled. And heaven hep you if anyone has a pacemaker or other implant.
I can think of a few ways to make the camera take really *bad* photos, but that's only relevant to the "official photographer" scenario, and I will not willingly contribute to exploitation via artificial scarcity.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Limo owner wants a defense in case something illegal happens or damage occurs.
Partiers want protection from each other - that no one will publish pictures so they can party freely.
Diffuse but relatively bright UV, implemented with either UV fluorescent tubes or UV LEDs should do the trick. Fit your own cameras with UV filters. Regular cameras will work, but will be affected by a strong 'white haze'.
The bright but diffuse UV should not be harmful to eyes for shorter intervals. Be careful about that, however.
UV??? wouldn't be my first choice. If it's bright enough to haze the image in a camera, it's bright enough to be dangerous if you look into the source-- and if you're doing this without clear warming, you can expect at random some people will be looking at the source.
The problem with UV is that, in any wavelength that's not absorbed by air, you're still only getting one electron per photon on the CCD detectors. So, since the photons are so energetic, it is terribly energy inefficient as a way to overexpose a CCD. You have to pump out a lot of UV to overload a CCD, and that's dangerous.
IR is much better choice-- the photons are low energy, so you're in the opposite regime. Use a wavelength of about 1 micrometer, and you can't see it, but the CCDs can.
Other than that solution, I think you're out of luck.
Beware of nicer cameras which might be fitted with a UV filter. They are common.
Yes, that's another flaw. Most professional-level photographers keep UV filters on their cameras just as a matter of course.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
"charge per photo" sign showing the cost per photo for licensing purposes -- i.e. you're allowed to charge for any commercial shot "license" and distribution rights are a part of that -- make sure you have them posted on all sides of your buses
The licensing contract that was not signed by the photographer will be null and void. Puff! This suggestion is equivalent of printing a t-shirt that says "anyone who looks at it owns me $100". Right, try enforcing that in court.
There's no such thing as "illegal download"
First off, as the subject says: beware of a customer/client who comes to you with "I've come up with this great solution that I'd like you to apply to this problem." Because, for one thing, they've already taken you out of the brainstorming, refining ideas and feasibility phases -- and since they've come to you, it's out of their area of expertise, so those steps probably weren't exactly done in an expert manner. There's a good chance that you won't get such a thing to work, then you're gonna have a problem getting paid for basically proving that it was a bad idea. Because workable or not, you're still gonna have spent your time and resources on it.
Secondly, this sounds like something way outside the core business of a party-bus sort of service. Because really, a selective photography-denial device would have a considerably bigger market than just protecting the interests of the owners of a rolling disco/bar/whorehouse/whatever. Who wouldn't want what is essentially a cloaking device? That business would dwarf whatever racket they're in now.
I'd tell them no, or direct them to a security device vendor instead. But if you really want to try anyway, maybe get them to pay for a "feasibility study" or something like that. It won't cost them nearly as much as a failed project, but you won't have to turn away business that you might need.
I am not a crackpot.
Imagine if this sort of technology was within reason to implement. Police of all kinds would jump on the chance to forbid others from taking pictures and allowing their own pictures. Riot squads would love it. There would be one of these devices on the front of every cop car.
Your best bet would be to black out the cab and have the only lights me lacking the red, green and blue wavelengths used by the majority of cameras and then using custom filters and image processing on the cameras inside, however that means that no external light can get in without also being filtered to exclude the red green and blue spectrum used by a normal camera. This will most likely end up resulting in a weird and possibly uncomfortable color cast to the light and still won't be 100% effective.
Rolling down any windows would defeat this though, as would opening a door.
AJ Henderson