DRM Moves From Digital To The Real World With Anti-Photographing Device

from the just-what-no-one-needed dept

Tue, Jun 20th 2006 3:47pm — Mike Masnick

There's been lots of talk today about the system under development at the Georgia Institute of Technology to try to stop digital cameras from working in some areas. It works by detecting the presence of digital cameras, and then "blinding" them with white light. There are still some kinks to work out -- and apparently the system sometimes confuses things like diamond earrings with digital cameras. They talk about how this can be used to stop people from videotaping movies, for instance, but this is really just an attempt to expand "DRM-style" blockades to the photography and video of objects in the real world -- and, just like DRM on digital content the arguments don't make much sense. While perhaps the technology can be used to stop some people from videotaping movies, it won't stop anyone with an analog still or video camera, and all of that content will still be available online (usually from better sources than taping in the theater). Instead, what's more likely is that this technology will be used to prevent ordinary people from doing perfectly legal things like taking a photo of their kid with Santa, rather than paying the professional photographer to do so -- or, perhaps, it will be used by overly paranoid security people to stop perfectly legitimate photographs of buildings. Once again, it won't stop the availability of this type of content, but it will annoy plenty of people by preventing them from doing perfectly legal things.

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31 Comments

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Mike, 20 Jun 2006 @ 4:16pm

Screw the MPAA, RIAA, DRM, etc...
Nobody needs them anyway, IMO.

I can't wait until all this BS blows up in the faces of those who are trying to step on us all.
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Speedy McSpeederson, 20 Jun 2006 @ 4:23pm

Quick! Patent this idea:
How about a mobile device for cars that would defeat photo-enforced intersections. Who's with me?!
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Mike, 20 Jun 2006 @ 4:25pm

Re: Quick! Patent this idea:
Now that's a use i'd go for!! ;-)
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2006 @ 4:41pm

God another bullshit story from you guys. All i see on this page is DRM, lawsuits and patents, you guys must be flat broke.

Deliver some real news not these bullshit stories.
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mongoose5150, 20 Jun 2006 @ 4:55pm

Blame Bush
I blame the Bush admin. for this crap. Anything and everything possible to take our rights away.
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Dosquatch, 20 Jun 2006 @ 5:17pm

Re:
God another bullshit story from you guys.
You're right. This site sucks. Absolutely nothing here worth reading. If I were you, I'd just quit visiting all together. I completely and sincerely suggest that.
But noo, you'll just keep hanging around like bad wallpaper, won't you?
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Dufus, 20 Jun 2006 @ 6:03pm

I've got one of these "white light" blockers in my bedroom. The models I sleep with are always trying to get pictures of me.
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Brainiac, 20 Jun 2006 @ 6:07pm

You passed up the story about the 2 French Manganese finches photographed having anal sex to post about this one?

Now the finches were news worthy!
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KOD, 20 Jun 2006 @ 6:08pm

Anti-Photographing Device
It's all just a matter of time before the bad guys figure out how to block surveilance cameras while they are in the midst of a terrorist act or a major crime. They should focus on more important things than blocking people from taking pictures!
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ken, 20 Jun 2006 @ 6:45pm

get off it
When do you get off your blog and do something about it? We've heard all the arguments. Quit letting big money help themselves to our future.

I don't know if it's the right answer but it is a start. Some good ideas, be sceptical of political motivations but they are talking about a fundamental change in what affects the majority of us.

www.unity08.com
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Jun 2006 @ 6:51pm

Re: get off it
skeptical
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Josh, 20 Jun 2006 @ 7:21pm

Damn
I heard a rumor that Kodak was funding the research for this technology so that they could keep analog cameras and film around.
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Kevin Mesiab, 20 Jun 2006 @ 7:42pm

This Just In
Breaking news...

MPAA and affiliates are beta testing a band of highly trained ear and eye gouging monkeys. These thug monkeys are trained to extract the ear drums of passers by who may steal music performances from nearby cars, headphones turned up too loud, or open windows.

The monkeys have also proven effective at gouging the eyes out of felons viewing broadcast media without paying appropriate licensing fees, such as movies played on department store TVs.

Motion Picture employees laud the new technology claiming, "finally, Little Timmy can get his surgery."

...In other news, Little Timmy was seen leaving a popular Beverly Hills plastic surgery outpatient office sporting new ab implants...
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qreepii, 20 Jun 2006 @ 8:02pm

another thought
im a security specialist in the navy, and I would see this technology being contracted by the DOD. mainly for our nuclear and submarine areas of shipyards and bases. mainly because the little signs at the gate telling people "No Cameras" does mean your camera-phone as well. Although i'm not a big fan of its commercial uses I do support it being used to protect my fellow servicemen in that it could be used to stop terrorists from gathering intelligence on our installations, especially those in afghanistan and iraq. the men and women standing at those gates deserve every edge we can provide them.

As General Westmoreland said "the military doesn't start wars, politicians do. My brothers and I pay for it."

So if this technology is used to deter a carrolla laden with explosives from killing five gate gaurds. then I'll support it's use. Remember the people who stand those watches are just regular people you know. People who have kids, wives and car payments.
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quasar_cannon, 20 Jun 2006 @ 9:52pm

fight the DRM
I do not know how many of you know about the DBD movment, but check out this site:

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/
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jeff, 20 Jun 2006 @ 10:02pm

that's cool
i'm perfectly willing to watch a copy of the omen that was recorded in a theater on a vhs recorder. still a lot better tha paying 10 bucks for a ticket, 10 more for popcorn and a soda so i can go sit in a seat some little kid pissed in, but WAIT i can't get out of the piss-chair, my feet are stuck to the floor by way of the soda and napkin papier-mache on the floor. yeah, i'll sacrifice a little quality.
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Shohat, 20 Jun 2006 @ 10:27pm

It's good news
There are many army facilities that have problems with then new mobile phones , so this kind of a device is actually very useful .
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Junyo, 21 Jun 2006 @ 6:14am

Isn't the argument that "this is bad not because it doesn't have legitimate uses but because it will probably be used for stuff we don't like" pretty much exactly the same argument used by the RIAA/MPAA/et al to stifle technology. How about picking a logical side and sticking to it? The fact that it can be abused a) makes it like pretty much any other technology, b) makes the abusers of it douches, and c) doesn't really speak to the actually usefulness of the technology itself.
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Jezsik, 21 Jun 2006 @ 8:21am

Anti-spy technology? Hardly!
Any spy, political or industrial, will have no problem getting around a technology that affects digital cameras. Analog cameras are still around and there are plenty of ways to hide them.

I'm also curious as to how this device could possibly detect a digital camera. Some cameras use emiters to focus, but it's not too difficult to create a camera that uses fixed focus and manual exposure.
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Anon, 21 Jun 2006 @ 8:52am

Re: Re: Quick! Patent this idea:
This product already exits. Looky

http://phantomplate.com/
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I, for one, 21 Jun 2006 @ 9:08am

Savvy VC's won't touch it with a shitty stick
It's an economic money pit. Anybody investing in this should seek professional help immediately. For one simple reason -

It addresses the current generation of CCD/lens based digital cameras, and by all accounts does so rather badly anyway. Digital cameras are a fast moving target, there are at least 4 alternative technologies in the making all based on significantly different physical principles. Almost certainly, the next generation of digital cameras will be invulnerable to this detection method. In the final analysis you cannot detect from point A that a photon of light incident on B has been received at point C. I'm sure better physicists than me can explain this better. Furthermore this detection method can be trivially defeated by a number of simple modifications.

On a philosophical note, I am staggered by the bonfire of wealth and resources going into impossible task of controling digital content. Are we so bereft of anything to create/do/accomplish in this world that our entire focus has become protecting abstract information as property? History will judge this period of pathological thinking with disgust and ridicule.
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Anonymous of Course, 21 Jun 2006 @ 10:41am

Not Totally New
I looked into patenting a device that would foil
cameras using IR but found there were several
patents in this field already.

Detecting the CCD is novel. But easy to circumvent
or even better, spoof. I could give away really cool
lapel pins and flood the theatre with targets.

Anyone watching some crap recording isn't going
to fork out the bucks for a ticket or buy an over
priced DVD. It's not really lost revenue.

Better the movie theatre owners / film makers
should improve the experience and provide more
value in buying a movie ticket. Add interesting
trailers and behind the scenes stuff like they do
with some DVD's.

They used to use Air Conditionoing to lure people
into the house... they need to find a new hook.
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Nova Lounge, 21 Jun 2006 @ 12:59pm

Consumer version needed...
as an alternative to ccd-tuned nondestructive personal EMP devices... Tech always has multiple uses - what can stop vacationers from photographing a monument can be used by average citizens to disable the ubiquitous surveillance cameras and enforce public privacy... Food for thought.
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ryusen, 21 Jun 2006 @ 1:55pm

Re: Damn
I heard a rumor that Kodak was funding the research for this technology so that they could keep analog cameras and film around.

I don't know about that since Kodak, like many other companies, is already starting to ramp down on film.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Jun 2006 @ 11:57am

Sure, let's blind patients with retinal implants.
http://www.bostonretinalimplant.org/
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Andy Kuiper, 12 Mar 2013 @ 4:20pm

Tough issues to deal with talking about DRM at a cocktail party is like talking about politics or religion... it's a loaded topic :-)
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Chris Bungay, 12 Mar 2013 @ 4:23pm

DRM is a tough area of law - changing all the time. Interesting article Mike; looking back a few years.
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Mac James, 12 Mar 2013 @ 4:31pm

"It works by detecting the presence of digital cameras, and then "blinding" them with white light."

This is a very slippery slope: what's next?
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Gordon, 23 Apr 2013 @ 7:48am

The younger generation are not aware...
Many kids today don't have an inkling about 'rights' when it comes to digital property. Many think "I'll just find it online"
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Stephan Bureau, 11 May 2013 @ 9:54am

Getting my money's worth
I own a Nikon D3000. What a shame it would be to have my photography stopped, and my camera "blinded" on me every time I want to capture a beautiful - and perfectly legal - photograph of my friends and I in public, especially when I've paid so much to do it.
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Bignold, 11 May 2013 @ 10:00am

Isn't the argument that "this is bad not because it doesn't have legitimate uses but because it will probably be used for stuff we don't like" pretty much exactly the same argument used by the RIAA/MPAA/et al to stifle technology. How about picking a logical side and sticking to it? The fact that it can be abused a) makes it like pretty much any other technology, b) makes the abusers of it douches, and c) doesn't really speak to the actually usefulness of the technology itself.

I agree with you. Why not find a static purpose and aim for the technology, I think that would definitely help in the public in utilization and clarity of DRM tech. Keeping in mind that many people will be using it however they see fit regardless.
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