Cone of Silence 2.0 91
Posted
by
kdawson
from the would-you-believe-you-will-no-longer-be-able-to-hear-me dept.
from the would-you-believe-you-will-no-longer-be-able-to-hear-me dept.
Village Idiot sends word of a patent granted to MIT researchers for a cone of silence a la Maxwell Smart. This one doesn't use plastic, but rather active and networked sensors and speakers embedded in a (probably indoor) space such as an open-plan office. "In 'Get Smart,' secret agents wanting a private conversation would deploy the 'cone of silence,' a clear plastic contraption lowered over the agents' heads. It never worked — they couldn't hear each other, while eavesdroppers could pick up every word. Now a modern cone of silence that we are assured will work is being patented by engineers Joe Paradiso and Yasuhiro Ono of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ... Instead of plastic domes, they use a sensor network to work out where potential eavesdroppers are, and speakers to generate a subtle masking sound at just the right level. ... The array of speakers... aims a mix of white noise and randomized office hubbub at the eavesdroppers. The subtle, confusing sound makes the conversation unintelligible." One comment thread on the article wonders about the propriety of tracking people around an office in order to preserve privacy.
Re:Solution looking for a problem. (Score:4, Informative)
That won't help you against one of these.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabolic_microphone [wikipedia.org]
I happen to live in a small town, which doesn't have a lot of noise polution. One of my Uncles was a cop, and showed me a Parabolic Mic when I was younger. The thing lets you hear conversations inside a house an entire block away!
Whenever I see TV shows where _EvilCorporation_ goes to the effort to bug a house with tiny mics, and there's a black van(or icecream truck!) sitting outside all the time, I can't help but laugh.
If they want to know what you're saying, they don't have to get close to you or your house to do so!
Fricken Laser Beams (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Solution looking for a problem. (Score:5, Informative)
Less "Get Smart," more Dune... (Score:3, Informative)
It's been a ridiculously long time since I read Frank Herbert's Dune (or any of its sequels), but I remember at least one of the books had a couple of scenes with a "cone of silence" much along these lines.
Anyone inside the field could communicate with each other; anyone outside the field couldn't hear them. For added security, the conversants would face the inner wall (iirc the "cone of silence" was walled on three sides) to prevent lip-reading - something that this approach to the idea doesn't cover.
Of course, there's nothing preventing you from simply holding your hand over your mouth...