I was thinking about those outfits celebrities wear that mess with flash photography equipment, and I was watching a dude on TV just now whose shirt pattern was going apeshit because of the camera, and I wondered if there could ever be a pattern or material that, when filmed, caused the camera irreversible damage. And if that were physically possible, I wondered if intentionally showing up to camera-heavy events wearing said shirt would constitute a crime on my part.
It’s just a shirt after all. It’s not like I’m grabbing a camera and smashing it on the ground. But at the same time, I know it will have that effect, so I’m accountable. But it’s not like my shirt is emitting damaging laser beams or anything, it’s entirely passive.
Also, is there anything like this scenario in real life/law?
Pretty sure those devices that block cellphone and radio signals are illegal in public and people have gotten in legal trouble for that
The FCC has (had? Do they still exist?) rules about this, very straightforward.
Creating something that damages nearby electronics? Yeah, that’s probably not going to fly. It really doesn’t matter if it only damages things that actively film/photograph you. Like, it’d be illegal if I walked up and hammered every camera that photographed me too.
It’d also be illegal to point a laser light into a camera to damage the sensor
A similar thing that might be possible is to create a shirt that shows something that exploits a vulnerability in software. Some hardware can be bricked by software (this used to be the case for MacBook batteries).
maybe if its wearing a shirt with radioactive elements, usually its lethal amounts.
ITT: People debating whether such a shirt is possible and not answering the actual question.
Im all for this. Im all for all the side discussions that emerge from a post like this
OK you’re going to need CO2 gas, 2 mirrors, a glass. Container and a high voltage capacitor.
…
Step 3454674) charge the capacitor to 60078V.Step 5746678) now run!
this is really a stupid question
Might not cause damage but there is the Camera Shy Hoodie: https://www.macpierce.com/the-camera-shy-hoodie
Instructions for how to DIY provided, so it doesn’t have to be a hoodie.
there was an x-file episode, where the guy emits radiation, which pratically jams cameras, which also gives him xray vision. and also posess the ability regenerate a whole body.
Although that really only works as long as the camera doesn’t have an IR filter in place.
If the camera has an IR filter, how would IR be able to make night viewing possible?
It wouldn’t, and I think the other responder, while saying a true fact, may have misunderstood this question’s purpose.
The hoodie will only work with cameras that support IR night vision (most security cameras, no IR filter), but won’t work for most others (phones, dash cams, SLRs (filtered)).
And the dork in me must say, Raspberry Pi offers their Camera Modules in both formats, because noyce.
It works in the opposite. With the IR filter you get a nice colorful image in daytime, but not the IR lights at night
Strap a lidar emitter to yourself. Those car sensors have been shown to damage cameras.
If you want privacy from cameras, there are those hats with strong ir leds. Not sure how well they work.
The Camera Shy Hoodie works.
But what if I just want to buy one?
I don’t have time to make my own; I have a job.
There are some companies makong them for sale.
Thanks but that’s 3x more than I’m willing to pay for a piece of clothing. There’s no reason why it can’t be $20 tops.
Oh come now, surely we can think of one reason.
No
There are things that damage a camera when you point at them, but they aren’t passive. Things like x-ray sources could do that. Also the sun.
So no, even if you reflected 100% of the light from the flash back into the lens, there’s just not enough of it to do any damage.
If you were somehow able to focus all of it on one single pixel on the sensor, you might be able to damage that pixel, but that would require a large piece of optical equipment basically on top of the camera.
My dude is trying to creating a shirt that just continuously recharges and fires EMPs lol
What you describe is simply not possible with a passive material. Funnily your example of something shooting lasers is probably the only thing that could come close to actual damage
The most you can do is one of those adversarial patterns that just confuses the white balance and autofocus. There is nothing you can do to affect someone shooting in manual mode
If you could damage a camera by pointing it at something, the manufacturer would fix the issue before selling it, because no one is buying a camera that does.
Rick and Morty did this once, Rick simply put on a hat with a QR code that made a robot army recognize him as a high level commander.
A few days ago I read a short story,
comp.basilisk.faqby David Langford, which sketched a world in which specific images could irreversibly crash the brain, leading to a full scale worldwide ban on images on the internet and many other places as well. The story postulated hundreds of potential info-hazards with many of them simple enough to be applied via stencil and spray paint. Two of them are branch families of the Mandelbrot set ‘and no we won’t tell you where, do not look’Other examples;
- Snow Crash — Neal Stephenson
- Blit — David Langford
- The Atrocity Archives — Charles Stross
- Doctor Who — “Blink” / “The Time of the Doctor”
- SCP Foundation — SCP-096
- SCP-7387 (“The Mathematician’s Grin”)
“Keep your eyes peeled or we’ll peel them for you wholesale!”
I am thinking if you could wear a mirror that would direct all the sunlight right at the camera. That would have to be an active tracking system, but wouldn’t emit any light itself.
It would have to be parabolic and yeah as you suggest you would either need a big robotic rig to aim it or you would have to be very very obvious with your intent to damage given there’s pretty much only one specific place a given parabolic mirror can be to damage something else.
If you could damage a camera by pointing it at something, the manufacturer would fix the issue before selling it, because no one is buying a camera that does.
Recently, there were news about the LIDAR of Volvo cars destroying camera sensors when they were aimed into the direction of the IR laser beam. Yet, this is not a passive item.
Even that was debated. No one proved it continued when you took another video, just that it broke the video of the lidar itself.
Here is a video demonstrating the lidar killing pixels in a phone camera sensor.
They also tried cameras on other vehicles but those were not affected, only the cellphone aimed directly at the lidar suffered damage.
So I tried watching it and never saw them close the camera app or restart the phone, so again, waiting on some actual proof with some science behind it rather than “dude totally said so”. That only proves that the software controlling the picture adjustments has been sent out of whack(as evidenced by the fact that it would show true colors eventually when pointed at something else). If the pixels were “dead”, they wouldn’t reset. We have a separate phrase for that. It’s “stuck pixel”.
It’s the same effect as being in a truely white lit room and everything looks orange in a camera. It’s the color correction when you shine a crazy bright light at the sensor. It assumes you’re on the sun and adjusts accordingly.
- Create sentient AI
- Let AI take control of the internet upon receiving the QR code
- Wear your t-shirt containing the QR code, show it to a camera connected to the internet
- Now AI takes over the world
Black Mirror S7E4 - Plaything
Is that Doctor Who?
That was an episode that ended right where it started getting good. Not that the episode was bad before that, but it left me wanting more of that, not a jump to a new premise in the next episode.
The story of this episofe had enough potential for a 6 episode spinoff series. Or maybe 4. Anyway 1 was way too soon.
