Gizmodo
Well damnit. I guess my voyeurism business may be dead in the water. It seems GIT—like MIT, but less Massachusetts and more Georgia—is developing a technology that will render image capturing devices useless in specific ranges. The system works by using off-the-shelf equipment to detect the image producing sensors used in digital cameras and then sends a small beam of white light at the sensor whiting out the entire image. One of the targeted uses is in movie theatres to prevent piracy. This project is far from complete though, because the algorithm for detecting the sensor is not complex enough to only detect camera sensors and not bright earrings and such. So my voyeurism business and piracy business may be in trouble? Damn you, GIT!
New System Blocks Digital Photography [Digital Photography Blog]
Comments
Hmmmm, I wonder if this would work on those damnable red light cameras?
hey cant they use that against GATSO cameras, that'l be kool
So if I pull my cameraphone out to see what time it is, I'm gonna get shot by the light?
... and 20 minutes after the release someone will post a how-to on the net to take polarized lenses out of your 7-11 cheap-o glasses and defeat the system.
Ooooooh... the government isn't going to like this.
I wonder what the papparazi would think about this? [Did I spell that right?]
It doesn't affect paparazzi (no, you didn't) much. Most pro photographers as well as serious amateurs use SLR cameras with interchangeable lenses. Because SLRs have a mirror in front of the sensor (so that usually light goes into the viewfinder, not the sensor), this system can't work to detect the sensor except at the exact moment when a picture is being taken - when the mirror flips up to reveal the sensor - by which point it's too late. Detecting video cameras is a lot more realistic because of the timing issue (if somebody's trying to record a whole film you have plenty of chances to spot it). That's probably the only realistic application at this point, but I can't help thinking that (a) why would cinemas fork out a presumably large some of money in order to fractionally reduce piracy, especially given that every cinema in the world needs to have this in order to have any effect, and (b) couldn't you probably detect the image of somebody holding up a video camera just using existing IR cameras on the audience anyway? You don't even need to do it automatically, some security guy could just glance at the camera once or twice.
This thing works because CCD's are retroreflective (they reflect light directly back at the source). This gadget emits a light at a certain frequency, detects bright reflections at that frequency (which would indicate a CCD reflecting directly back rather than something else simply scattering the light), and then shines a light beam at the CCD to disable it by overwhelming it. It's built with the ability to disable multiple CCD's simultaneously. How many? 5? 10? 20? Okay, so how do you defeat this? Well, CCD's are NOT the only retroreflective items out there. You know the reflective bits on running shoes, backpacks and the like? Retroreflective. Little squares of that stuff will be about the right size and reflectivity to mimic a CCD. Good thing it isn't easy to come by or this system would by EASY to overwhelm with just a bunch of bits of safety tape! *cough* Google: reflective safety tape *cough*
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