The Camera-Shy Hoodie
It appears there's a terribly contagious case of switcheroo fever in the comment section here.
The objective of the hoodie is to prevent face recognition.
Those who have come down with switcheroo fever are saying "aha! This actually makes you more recognizable, not less!"
But this is not a trick question and this is not the type of thing where the switcheroo is meaningfully responsive.
The objective is to prevent a camera from recognizing your face, and it does that. If you have tested positive for switcheroo fever, you should start your comment by stating out loud that you understand this is the objective and you understand that it does indeed achieve the objective before proceeding elaborate on your own personal variation of the switcheroo. And perhaps, if you dare, proceed to challenge mode, where you acknowledge that this might be a trade-off that was consciously chosen, and does not come as a surprise to the people who designed the product.
If the camera has its own co-located IR source, you can just use a normal retro-reflective hoodie like this one https://www.amazon.com/TR-Super-Bright-Reflective-Jacket/dp/... (also great for walking/biking at night).
In a dark area it completely obscures your face (https://twitter.com/frankus/status/1499257277894705155), and you have plausible deniability in terms of wearing it specifically for defeating cameras.
Off camera it's just a generic, anonymous hoody, but on camera it is readily identified as the unique and unmistakeable camera shy hoody!
The strobing seems to defeat the effect -- you only need one good frame with a face showing to defeat the hoodie, and this seemed slow enough that I could pick up the face of the demo guy with my own eyes in realtime.
There's a bunch more adversarial fashion over at... adversarialfashion.com
This would not be highly effective with most modern security cameras. First, color low-light video is becoming more common, as image sensor technology has progressed. When a digital/surveillance camera is in color mode, there is an IR filter in front of the lens to remove these wavelengths from reaching the imager (they cause color tinge issues).
Even for cameras that are not in color mode in low-light video, most newer units have good dynamic range, whereas these low-power IR LEDs would likely not be able to fully obscure a persons face in the video.
Great, so now when the cops get aggressive with you there will be an IR LED blurring any evidence you might have had? >_>
It’s 2023 pandemic if you want to be anonymous wear a mask.
Our gated community spent $80,000 on upgrading their cameras system and bought state-of-the-art 5MP surveillance cams (total of 5 of them) that "lets you read license plates from within 100 meters" and "does a color-in-the-night type recording". They were sold on upgrading the whole freaking network of cables to cat 9 for God only knows reason. And I kid you not - less than 2 months later, we were hit and 6 cars were stolen. Apparently it doesn't matter how fancy your camera is, if the perpetrator setup a stand alone red laser at cost of $6 that shines directly at it...
Nothing like putting giant flashing sign on yourself that says "I'm purposely trying to avoid surveillance"...
I wonder if such strong IR light is capable of harming the eye, even if we're unable to see it.
High power LEDs in the visible spectrum are terribly bright, and when I accidentally get them shined into the eye, it really feels concerning if any harm has been done.
People wear facemasks in camera footage now, so you have to go by their pants, belts, shoes, fingerprints..
I remember my old android phone would pick up IR as a purpleish color: https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d8d68a82c1ec4b4975b8e...
I wonder if it's possible to make it bright enough to blind regular (non IR filtered) cameras too?
> As the hoodie uses IR light, it’s effects are imperceptible by human eyes when activated, only effecting IR sensitive equipment
Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it can’t hurt you. If it’s it’s not directed away from your eyes, a bright IR light an inch away from your eye can cause harm.
https://ehs.lbl.gov/resource/documents/radiation-protection/...
Now that more and more cameras use AI models to detect and infer things in real time, wonder if a very specific adversarial t-shirt could render the wearer completely invisible to the AI (not to humans looking at the CCTV monitors or the video recordings). I think William Gibson wrote something like that in the Zero History book, "the ugliest t-shirt in the world" or something
How much do you have to worry about high-intensity IR damaging eyesight?
interesting. i always thought that IR LEDs wouldn't be bright enough, guess they are (at least in total darkness)!
as mentioned all over in the thread, adding jitter would probably help.
worth noting that every camera is going to have a different AE algo, so it could not be relied on and you only need one frame to succeed for the system to be defeated.
what you would definitely get, however, is excessive triggering of any region of interest detection for the video stream. not exactly low key!
all told, pretty cool experiment nonetheless!
on a related note, i often used to think it would be cool to put IR LEDs in public places where people take pictures, sort of like hidden messages or art for people to discover, but only after they look through their phone cameras.
Wonder if CCTV cameras will start to detect incoming infrared and use a visible light spotlight in response.
>Darkness is no longer the refuge it used to be Tbh from personal experience darkness still is the refuge for people like me going on quiet night walks, until the time I got mugged. Darkness was a great refuge for them, not so much for me after that day. Or the time that a burglar entered my house at 4am and was cleaning out my room, reaching over my sleeping body to grab my phone charging next to my pillow. Great refuge, felt so safe.
For home surveillance I may just have to equip motion spotlights as well, now.
OK, but why? If you aren't doing anything illicit wearing this seems like a hassle (does this even work on non-IR cameras?) and if you are doing something illicit wearing this will make you standout.
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Curiously enough, the 940nm NIR wavelength used in this hoodie was recently shown to reduce covid symptom severity resulting in an average 3.7 day earlier hospital discharge when compared to a placebo group using the same LED vest without turning it on.
So this hoodie is actually a covid hoodie too (assuming you turn it inside out)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S101113442...
As someone with experience in this area I always find these proposals to add IREDs to block identification hilarious.
First, almost every security camera on the market these days has a IR cut filter switcher which means these aren't going to be affective against cameras in the daytime as the IR light is filtered out.
Second, there are other methods of identifying people using cameras if facial recognition fails. You can identify people by their gait, or by their clothing, track them back to their car and get their license plate, etc.
Just wear a buff over your face. The batteries don’t go flat on those.
Wouldn't IR filters defeat this once it becomes an issue? You can just glue them on the front of the lens or it can be on the sensor though the latter requires a new sensor.
See also Becca Ricks https://beccaricks.space/Unidentified-Halo
Many security CMS at this point use wifi for data. Wouldn’t a network attack with a deauthor or the like be as effective and less eye catching?
There's a scene in Baby Driver where they go rob a mail agency, and use google with IR leds to confuse the local cameras.
Looks like a safety concern honestly, a bunch of bright IR lights flashing around your face isn't good for your eyes.
There's always a relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1105/
Privacy is both important and valuable. However, during the product demonstration, was it truly necessary to have the actor dressed entirely in black, walking into someone's backyard? What specific use case do they believe they are showcasing with this demonstration?
In last few seconds of video (around 0:49) you can clearly see the face even with strobe LEDs turned on, if CCTV looks directly at the face and not from the angle, so they actually showed it doesn't really work with well placed CCTV at face level.
The way the LEDs are blinking together one can definitely see the face in the periods they are all turned off. The only advantage I see is that this is not humanly possible to do in real time, but not sure how big an advantage this is.
I think this idea has been kicking around for decades. Fun to see someone make one.
I believe the iPhone front facing camera can pick up infrared wavelengths so you can use it in the dark to pick up any IR illumination.
Point it at the front of your TV remote control and press a button to see it in action.
Hasn't this already been done before with hats, hoodies, and glasses? What makes this any different from projects 10+ years ago that used IR LEDs for this purpose? The model of the LED? Strobing effect?
Could these IR-LEDs be effective for movie theaters to prevent pirate cammers from creating viable recordings? Seems like it'd be pretty easy to implement if the studios really felt threatened by piracy.
Does this only work at night?
During daytime, I assume cameras use visible ambient light (that's at least how my baby monitor works fwiw :-). And of course any regular camera e.g. Dslr I assume wouldn't care much?
I thought I remembered this exact post as being shown by others to be "non-functional". In other words: click-bait.
But I trust this community understands this tech better than I do.
I don't like the idea of a hoodie blasting high power IR which could easily get into your eyes. Perhaps it'd be better to make a camera-shy baseball cap.
I am pretty sure there was a comic where everyone were wearing hoodies like these due to global surveillance. Just can't remember it.
Wouldn't the brim of the hat be the best place as it's closest to the face, and probably more robust than within clothing?
if you really wanted this to work you would wear the strobes all over so they don't pick up arm movements or leg gait, i'd even go as far as all of your knees, feet, elbows, shoulders, and wrists/fingers
if you can eliminate your movements and shape then you're ahead of the game, otherwise you're identifiable
Will be popular with shoplifters, package thieves, and bus thugs.
Obligatory Key & Peele prior art reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztRSm_SJP58
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Is having this much IR light right by your face dangerous?
Oi! 'Ave you got a loicense for that 'oody?
Does it have A 100% FARADAY cage pocket to put the biometronomic tracking device (phone) within in addition to shield that, plus an array of UV lights to shim cams off?
2009 just called https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaIIswjQ8OA
Or buy a $0.95 mask.
Great 2600 vibe
Perfect for people in san francisco robbery business!
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Freud taught us an enduring lesson, pay attention to to the words we use, they tell us what we are thinking.
> Hoodie is a DIY adversarial garment
who wants to wear an adversarial garment? adversarial people.
man, life is so much better when you don't approach it adversarially. most people are happy to see your face, and you can see it on theirs.
