KAIST develops smartphone LED tool that detects hidden cameras in 5 seconds
Korean researchers pair a smartphone-attached LED with AI to spot spy cameras almost instantly.
What to know
- KAIST researchers combined a smartphone-attached LED with AI image analysis to detect hidden cameras in roughly five seconds.
- The story is currently circulating mainly as syndicated pickups of a single Chosun report, with no independent commentary yet available in the material.
KAIST Research institution behind the technology
The record 4 articles and posts · last 30 days
- summary covers to here · Aug 30, 5:39 AM · 1 piece above arrived after
What people are saying 24 voices from 1 site · best of 76 · verbatim
- Sep 2
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The HP 48G series graphing RPN calculator had such a powerful, software-controllable IR LED with a learning remote program someone wrote that could control TVs roughly 70' / 20 m away as long as the TV had a sensitive enough IR receiver circuit. Some hijinks might've happened in the physics lecture hall but no exams or lectures were harmed.
- Sep 1
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> taking pics when skiing, kayaking and other times when my hands aren't freeGoPros are great for that. You can get one that is small enough to stay out of the way, have a more secure mount than glasses and a recording device that doesnt try to hide the fact that its a camera.
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For what taking pics when skiing, kayaking and other times when my hands aren't free and Im already wearing glasses. For taking pics of nature and taking pics of friends and family whom asked for a picture?Let's see if Google/Samsung's upcoming smart glasses releasing Fall 2026 get as much flack as Meta who many techies hate Meta/Facebook.
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Ideally yes but in practice thermal cameras measure radiance not temperature and different materials are more or less radiant; putting a camera behind a wall blocks the signal or at least diffuses it; the resolution+SnR are not great at consumer price point; and background objects can be surprisingly warm. For example a tree at night can be about…
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The overall article and discussion here is detection, and all the weaknesses of detection.At some point, the only solution will be active destruction. Someone will build something like a multi-wavelength high powered laser device to sweep the room. Arrive, setup the device near the center of the space, set the Start-Timer, leave, return in 3min…
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Tapo C125 has a built-in physical shutter. Also, every PTZ camera can just turn to face the wall, that would maybe defeat this too (not sure).For the typical indoor WiFi cameras without battery backup, a simple way to detect them could be to turn all breakers off and on, and listen for their motors rotating on startup. Or make the room dark and…
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Next thing, hotels will use "microlens wallpaper", so the device becomes practically useless.See also:
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I think this Creepy Robert Scoble Google Glass High School Girls Recording is even creepier than his sharing naked shower selfies, because it involved subjecting teenaged girls to his classic brand of braggadocious self-aggrandizing behavior which he is so well known for, not just his own wet naked grinning body. That he lacks shame and…
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If you sneak up to a house and peer in the windows, there might be trouble. I haven't looked at court decisions, and those'd be regional/country based, but if a house is 200M away on a hill, and you need a pair of binoculars to see in it, is there 'public nudity' if they walk around without the shades drawn?I'd say no.Yet conversely, it's not…
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Also, thinking about it, you could probably defeat the optical retroreflection detector by putting the camera behind a Faraday rotator (optical isolator). But those are quite expensive and you'd need to be really paranoid to use one, plus it'll only really work well if you match the wavelength of the laser.
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If you walk up to it and point the camera at it, you can see a lot of detail about what is going on in the device.Here are some pictures of some ordinary electronics for reference:*
- Aug 31
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> though would never get the finger cause Im not a creep.Wearing them out in public is definitely enough to get the finger and be called a creep, because many people think they're always recording. I think you're underestimating the hatred of modern tech.
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Another strategy that's often used is to cause motion then detect the resulting transmission spike. That's also defeatable of course (cache+burst, CBR, etc).The ideal detector should incorporate multiple methods. Someone should make a site that rates these for each detection method then adds them into an overall score.
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There are SWIR, MWIR, and LWIR cameras among IR cameras. SW is just regular camera with the filter removed and they can't see heat. Somewhere between SWIR and MWIR are uncooled IR cameras that use MEMS heat sensor ish arrays built on top of a camera sensor that can actually see heat by differentiating between previous and current frames, with the…
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this is an old trick and works with any digital camera units. the flash reflects on the silicon behind lens or something. the operator is normally supposed to look across the area of interest through a special glass like a witch doctor to spot cameras using their skill and training, rather than letting an AI do the fun part.
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Can't a thermal camera can do this? It should be able to detect any difference in ambient temp, even a few degrees, and a CMOS sensor gets warm, not to mention any wireless transmitters, power sources, and ICs. Turn off everything in the room and walk around with a ~$100 ali express handheld thermal camera.
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People normally do this by scanning a 10mW 832nm laser with a mirror, according to Dan Gelbart in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MtRxX0crjU. The lecture is 77 minutes, covering nonlinear junction detectors, digital calipers, the US-embassy bug in Russia, laser microphones bounced off windows, and geometric errors from material relaxation. The…
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Strongly disagree. Most crimes are crimes of opportunity. Most 'pervs' don't start out that way either. Detecting increasingly easy to conceal sousveillance devices is probably essential for any kind of normative public sphere to continue to exist.
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Yes and no. The IR filter is pretty strong. If you have an intense IR source, then it overwhelms the filter, but it would blow out the sensor, without it. The sensor is biased towards IR.I've converted cameras (DSLRs) to IR, and you use a replacement IR-pass filter. The IR-blocking (default) filter looks like a piece of blue glass. The IR-pass…
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It sees it poorly. IR is deliberately (though imperfectly) filtered in the optical path.The dim purpleish glow from a remote that is seen through [many] digital cameras would be quite bright if this IR filter weren't in place.It doesn't have to be that way, but it usually is that way anyway -- as a design intent.Cameras used for surveillance…
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That was true years ago, but I haven't been able to use an iPhone camera to pick up an IR signal in a long time. Just tested it to be sure they hadn't reverted to an unfiltered lens (17 pro) and nope, no IR visible.
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If you're being surveilled in a way that you don't want to tip the observers is one thing, but if you're in an AirBnB type place, fuck 'em. I'd even be fine with running some lasers in the place that ruins the sensor.
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Perhaps to avoid tipping off the entity recording you by blasting their hidden cameras with bright lights. Granted, the PoC device in the article is not exactly subtly looking, but if you could turn it into a sleek device it would be more useful. Not playing your hand while you're under surveillance lets you control the information they're…
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Yeah I don’t think this will be effective, cameras can be put in certain angles that it can see with being seen, or how police do it, entirely behind clothes or similar fabric where it can see through and identify but not seen even if you’re looking straight at it.