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Extracting Audio From Visual Information
rtoz writes Researchers at MIT, Microsoft, and Adobe have developed an algorithm that can reconstruct an audio signal by analyzing minute vibrations of objects depicted in video. In one set of experiments, they were able to recover intelligible speech from the vibrations of a potato-chip bag (video) photographed from 15 feet away through soundproof glass.
To follow up, look at the Electromax Laser Listening Systems.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
...Needs a tin-foil hat!
The countermeasure for laser listening was to install the windows inside a pipe *frame* and play music in the pipes. Using an object inside the building to extract audio defeats that countermeasure. This is 2014, do not expect any privacy, especially from government agencies...
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
For some reason, the person who posted the article or the Slashdot editors linked to a bad knock-off video that removed 3/4 of the details instead of the actual researchers' video. The real video makes it clear that they can also get results from a standard DSLR 60 FPS video by taking advantage of the rolling shutter effect. There's a fidelity loss, but it's a lot better than I would have expected.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman