I remember a while back Apple filed a patent that allows concerts to disable iPhones cameras if a certain signal is emitted from the stage. Apple never implemented this, but my pessemistic ass always try to think of worse case scenarios, like being used by government. Do you think this could occur in the future?
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36672001
You can search “Apple Concert Disable Camera” and find more about it.
If it does I’d expect it to catastrophically fail because the codes will undoubtedly get reverse engineered and everyone would be able to easily reproduce the signals, and they could easily be broadcasted everywhere until people are so annoyed they can’t take pictures anywhere that it’ll get dropped.
Also unless it somehow gets baked directly into the camera chip, you’ll always be able to root your Android phone and disable it, and jailbroken iPhones probably will easily disable that “feature” too.
I also think recording police activity especially if you’re involved is a protected constitutional activity. Generally you always have a right to record in public.
you’ll always be able to root your Android phone and disable it, and jailbroken iPhones probably will easily disable that “feature” too
That’s only techies like 10% of the population. They just need to control 90% and with the rest they’ll deal in case by case basis.
I tend to lean toward OP’s original scenario never happening.
Back when signal jammers first came out, people used doom and gloom to say that autoritarian powers would jam our phones so we couldnt use them. It never happened.
Not because there weren’t people who didn’t try. But because the United States doesn’t have one “government.” We have governments. So if an out of control state legislature tries to do something, the FCC fights back. And if Congress gets too crazy, courts will strike it on Tenth Amendment grounds.
In the end, people are going to find a way to record cops. So we will. And – despite internet pessimism – most of the people in our governments will actually back us on it.
Authoritarian states do use their power to cut off internet connection to prevent people communicating or getting the word out about atrocities.
I don’t think American police Jam signals specifically but they do spoof cell tower signals to man in the middle people’s phone traffic. The government hacks people’s phones. They arrest people who protest or expose government crimes. It would be tough to get away with preventing people from recording a police crime because the videos happen and spread so fast.
Also any older tech won’t be affected. Worst case, bring on that old camcorder or tape recorder.
Has anyone done this for the existing traffic light priority sensors? If the signal is “having extremely bright blue flashing lights in a public space” then you can understand why people would be nervous about using that signal.
Idk, that seems like a difficult technical and political challenge, so I don’t think that’s very likely.
However, what I think is much more likely to happen is cameras detecting copyrighted content and not recording it. Or automatic instant takedowns of copyrighted content when the video is shared. Then, all the government would need to do is play copyrighted music when they don’t want you to record.
Oh wait, this is already happening [1] albeit not commonly or to an extreme extent. But really, this is why we need to be very careful about technological enforcement of laws. It can lead to unintended (or intended) negative consequences to civil liberties. And its also why its critical for your devices to always be acting on your behalf, and not for the government or corporations.
1: https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/1/22558292/police-officer-video-taylor-swift-youtube-copyright
The political difficulty of implementing this will vary highly depending on the country. Technically, while impossible to enforce 100%, even if it is 90% effective it will be very effective at covering things up. The main accountability benefit of phones is the ubiquity, because everyone has a phone. If a fraction of people have workarounds it won’t be nearly as effective.
If this kind of thing becomes widespread, then people will find a way to broadcast fake anti-camera signals as well. Imagine a thief breaks into your house and you want your security cameras to record them… but guess what, the thief broadcasts an anti-camera signal and they all switch off, completely neutralising your security system. “Unintended side-effects”
I believe that eventually in the future it might become a “war” between the police having some form of device on them that prevents a phone from even being able to be turned on within a large radius, let alone being able to record audio/video, and those trying to record such acts. If anything, it might also turn into a thing of people turning to creative and innovative ways to get around that technology in that potential future and the police responding with updates that make whatever we use to counter absolutely meaningless.
It might turn into a thing - if it happens/becomes reality - that the vast majority people get used to it, similar to how in Japan, phones made specially for their market are required to have a sound go off when the camera is used. That’s a future we don’t want or need.
My one hope is that police departments (being bureaucratic organizations) might be so slow to update to the latest camera-disabling hardware / software they they may turn out consistently one step behind.
They will absolutely use this as a way to grub for money. It’s early, so I can’t think of how exactly they would spin this as a public safety need, but I’m sure there is a way they will twist it.
I can imagine those “support our police officers!” charities mailing out some nonsense like,
Officers are being surveiled and monitored by foreign secret agents, MS-13, and Soros-backed Antifa groups!
This puts our officers in danger and disrupts their attempts to serve our community. To root out crime and ensure officers’ safety, we need people like you to donate so selfless officers can afford countermeasures that protect them from this dangerous surveillance.
I guess that it is possible as our society becomes increasingly authoritarian. This is why I’m following Fair Phone. It’s a pure Linux phone that’s slated to become available this year or so I remember reading.
Fair Phone
except the fairphone runs android, unless you mean something else?
No, it actually runs Linux proper.
No, the Fairphone does not run Linux. Unless you are talking about the Librem 5 or something.
No, only if you run proprietary software. As long as you can run FOSS, this will not exist. Especially with FOSS forks of Android right now, they’re the most mature and private as they’ve ever been.
This seems like it would probably be trivial to defeat either via legacy tech or simply by removing/disabling the receiver, interrupting the signal itself, hacking the firmware, etc.
Police could try to counter this by using lights (either visible or anything a camera’s sensor can pick up) to blind the cameras, but then people could also start doing stuff like using polarizing filters to minimize this, hiding cameras, or some other more clever method I’m not smart enough to think of.
Doesn’t need to be 100% bullet proof to be highly effective at suppressing accountability though. Yes people will be able to get around it but the benefit of everyone having a phone is that it’s ubiquitous. Everyone has a phone so if there’s anyone in the vicinity of police committing a crime it can be recorded. With all those extra steps you listed, the number of people who will go through the trouble will be a small fraction of the current phone user base now.
It’s already happened with some things so the technology is there and used, so it’s not a matter of if, but when.
But then I could imagine a resurgence in analogue video and photography equipment. Mechanical apparatus that imprint on film; where that kind of technology would not work.
They will attack the internet itself to stop things like that from spreading. Basically the plot of Metal Gear Solid 2 and the illuminati censorship AI; except you don’t need a giant robot and there is no illuminati.
Haha, what a great idea! I love it! Sending me a signal about things you don’t want me to record!
I would build two things. First, an antenna that detects and (using multiple copies) locates these signals on a real time, public-access map.
Second, I’d build a security camera with a wide angle lens that turns ON whenever this signal is received.
Sure, 90% of people don’t know how to do these things – but I do, and I can put them in a store and the results on a website. Most people know how to buy a thing and plug it in, or access a website!
Then I’ll manufacture a ton of them at a factory here in Vietnam, and you will be able to buy them at a reasonable price. I’ll make a tidy sum, pay a bunch of taxes that will build highways and schools, and you’ll have more freedom than you started with.
We all win!
Tim Apple has joined the chat.
Sure, why not? It would probably be good fun to talk product development with the CEO of Apple.
Then maybe I can take a look at their implementation and see if I can secure it (standard consulting rates apply). Apple has a lot of good engineers, I bet they already know about the trivial stuff, so I could get right into the interesting problems.
I mean, a naive implementation uses bluetooth LE, but presumably users could just turn bluetooth off (among other problems). I can think of better implementations that don’t require radio or internet to work. I think a smarter approach would be optical or audio encoding. That would make it reliable in concerts (where lighting and sound are tightly controlled), but not reliable enough in most police-state contexts (where lighting and sound are not tightly controlled). Fine tuning it further to ensure that it only works in the context of concerts should be pretty easy.
I haven’t read the patent though, I don’t presently have access to BBC.
Sure, 90% of people don’t know how to do these things
I think you dropped a 9 or two.
I’m some sort of mercenary science hermit. So take any statement I make about human beings with a grain of salt :D
Science hermits unite!
I’m less successfully mercenary, though, so I know what I assume is a representative sample of tech muggles. Having thought about it, 1% of people could figure this out, and maybe 0.1% wouldn’t have to use other people’s tools to do it.
Hm, uniting people in general is like herding cats. Uniting hermits? Sounds hard. I’ll stick to science :D
Being mercenary is largely overrated – better to try and live a calm and happy life filled with friends and family.
Many opinions have been offered on whether the most valuable attribute in warfare (and by this I mean business) is loyalty or bravery, but few people are willing to admit it’s actually just hunger.
So you are just describing a security camera?
The camera part would work as a normal camera, sure. However, the fact that it would turn on whenever it detects the ‘don’t record me’ signal is an additional feature that provides context to the video recordings and also logs all times the signal is detected and used.
So similar to the way other popular security cameras provide new features, e.g. a camera that only records when motion is detected.
Anyway it’s something I literally just thought up in 15 seconds. Obviously it would be unreasonable to expect a polished, viable, feature-complete product idea. Which are a commodity in any case :D
Now, with thoughts like these I now don’t have any faith in humanity
They do it with printers and a hidden symbol on money already.
What do you think the odds of this happening is?
Extremely high for at least some places if politics goes the way I’m pretty sure it will.
Nobody besides currency counterfeiters gets inconveinenced by printers refusing to copy money. But with photos and recordings, some criminal could recreate the signal and prevent a crime being recorded.
Is that a challenge? Time to doodle the constellation on random legal documents, lol.
That sort of thing is part of the reason I always want a phone that can side load applications. Not that there aren’t end runs around apps from 3rd party app stores, but at the least it would be an arms race. And my next phone will probably be a Fair Phone.
An optimistic view (without any backing or real reason): Maybe Apple filed the patent to prevent others from implementing such a feature without IP issues.
If the tech were to be made widely available I would welcome it very much. There are plenty of spaces where people really shouldn’t be filming, mainly the gym, that would benefit from a passive and mandatory camera deactivation for all smartphones.
On the other hand, giving this to the government or law enforcement obviously is a massive breach of civil rights and the citizen’s ability to exercise control over their public servants.
100% odds this happens
