Ask Slashdot: Anti-Camera Device For Use In a Small Bus? 478
Paul server guy writes "I am building a limousine bus, and the owners want to prevent occupants from using cameras on board. (But they would like the cameras mounted on the bus to continue to operate; I think they would consider this optional.) They would also like to do it without having to wear any 'anti-paparazzi' clothing (because they also want to protect the other guests on board), and without destroying the cameras. (So no EMP generators, please). We've done some testing with high-power IR, but that proved ineffective. Does anyone have any ideas that they are willing to share?"
Makes no sense. (Score:4, Insightful)
What are the paparazzi doing on-board in the first place? Paps are invariably outside the limo, i.e. off-board.
Confiscate cameras (Score:5, Insightful)
Some requests should be ignored (Score:5, Insightful)
Can anyone come up with a sensible reason to implement such a thing?
Advice? give up. (Score:5, Insightful)
You want to have your own cameras capturing everything on board, but you want to prevent your guests from doing the same.
Best advice is to stop being a dick.
People use limousine buses for special events and parties. These are the times people most want to remember and are likely to want to take their own pictures. Preventing them from doing so (even if it were possible, which in your stated scenario seems dubious) would be a pretty dick move.
Slashdot continues to get worse (Score:5, Insightful)
This article is yet another confirmation that Slashdot just gets worse and worse. I hate to troll, but come on guys, up the quality some.
Re:Some requests should be ignored (Score:2, Insightful)
Sensible, no.
It sounds like they want to be able to monitor the bus, and maybe they consider the decor to be copyrighted or something.
Essentially they want to be able to record you, while not allowing you to take pics.
you mean behavior control device? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, what you want is a behavior control device, not a anti-camera device. Seriously, what the fuck? Why shouldn't people be allowed to take photos on the bus? What do they have to hide? If people want to take photos of each other on the bus, why shouldn't they?
I reject your fascist attempts at controlling others, as should others as well. In short fuck you and fuck beta.
Not Possible (Score:2, Insightful)
Anti camera tech that blocks the taking of images, but allows the taking of images by certain cameras, but you can't be required to do or wear anything special/different. So, basically, we need a non-existent cloaking technology that we can see through with our own cameras.
Dude, it is clear that you work for complete fucking idiots. Unless you are also a complete fucking idiot, (which I think you might be since you posted this on Slashdot) you need to find another job with a better employer. What will you do when they demand that the limos be driven by Yetis and lead along the road by unicorns?
Re:Makes no sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
To do so whilst reserving the ability of the limo owners cameras to work is unreasonable, and doesn't deserve any suggestions.
Technical solution for a social problem (Score:5, Insightful)
You're asking for a technical solution to a social/political problem. The only feasible solution is to make sure your policy is clearly explained and understood to all who board the limo-bus, and then strictly enforcing it by expelling anyone caught with a camera. Sure, you won't be able to monitor people 100% of the time, but if you're strict with enforcement people won't risk taking snapshots. It will probably be more effective than any technical solution which would be expensive and easily circumvented.
And if the owners of the limo-bus are really that worried about photos onboard, the simplest solution would be for everyone to deposit their electronic devices into a bag, and they can then recover their devices after leaving the limo-bus.
My guess though is that your policy is likely to lose your limo-bus company customers, so the owners better make sure whether enforcing it is worth the cost.
Re:Confiscate cameras (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some requests should be ignored (Score:2, Insightful)
Or they should be better worded.
"I want to stop all electronic devices from passively collecting visible light but still desire riders' eyes to passively collect visible light."
Re:Makes no sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Treat em like dirt (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically you want to treat your customers like dirt. I'm sure your business will find all the success it deserves.
Re:Confiscate cameras (Score:1, Insightful)
I think you misunderstand. This has nothing to do with the passengers not wanting their picture taken. This has *everything* to do with the jackass owner trying to ensure that nobody can take their own pictures, because I guarantee he's got a photographer onboard who's taking "professional" pictures which are sold at ludicrous prices. Have you *been* to a themepark?
All that effort to protect what has become a job selling buggy whips.
Just drop the "professional" photog bullshit already. No one needs to pay to have their picture taken. Do you know why? Because it's not 1964 anymore, and every fucking person walks around with some kind of camera on them.
Like I said, selling fucking buggy whips.
Re:Heil Hitler (Score:4, Insightful)
"charge per photo" sign showing the cost per photo for licensing purposes -- i.e. you're allowed to charge for any commercial shot "license" and distribution rights are a part of that -- make sure you have them posted on all sides of your buses
The licensing contract that was not signed by the photographer will be null and void. Puff! This suggestion is equivalent of printing a t-shirt that says "anyone who looks at it owns me $100". Right, try enforcing that in court.
Re:Confiscate cameras (Score:5, Insightful)
Having any exclusive pictures is not really a thing anymore (buggy whips as you say), as well as anything involving film, but taking a very good quality picture with a good camera is still a profession.
Re:Confiscate cameras (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people's cameras today are in their phones. Can't confiscate those without cutting the same people from their communications. And that may not be as agreeable as giving up cameras.
Yes, we used to live without portable phones only 20 years ago, but that's not going to convince many guests today — and next time they might pick a different limo-company.
And in a few more years, people's eyewear will have a camera in it too... No, confiscation of the devices is not the way to go.
Beware the client with a solution (Score:5, Insightful)
First off, as the subject says: beware of a customer/client who comes to you with "I've come up with this great solution that I'd like you to apply to this problem." Because, for one thing, they've already taken you out of the brainstorming, refining ideas and feasibility phases -- and since they've come to you, it's out of their area of expertise, so those steps probably weren't exactly done in an expert manner. There's a good chance that you won't get such a thing to work, then you're gonna have a problem getting paid for basically proving that it was a bad idea. Because workable or not, you're still gonna have spent your time and resources on it.
Secondly, this sounds like something way outside the core business of a party-bus sort of service. Because really, a selective photography-denial device would have a considerably bigger market than just protecting the interests of the owners of a rolling disco/bar/whorehouse/whatever. Who wouldn't want what is essentially a cloaking device? That business would dwarf whatever racket they're in now.
I'd tell them no, or direct them to a security device vendor instead. But if you really want to try anyway, maybe get them to pay for a "feasibility study" or something like that. It won't cost them nearly as much as a failed project, but you won't have to turn away business that you might need.
Re:Advice? give up. (Score:4, Insightful)
Other possibilikty. The guests don't want party pics of themselves getting wasted and stupid showing up on Facebook, but the limo owner wants footage for liability in case of damages.
Re:Rewriting the summary... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's probably for the "Bang Bus", a nasty porn site that allegedly drives around picking up women, promises them money, boinks them on camera, then kics them off the bus without their clothes. Never could tell if these were pre-arranged porn actresses or actual "civilians" being picked up and boinked, but they used to show up on free porn sites a lot.
They even had Ron Jeremy ride the bus once, and he was very firm about actually paying the woman. It seemed to shock the jerks on the bus. (I like Ron: anyone that ugly and goofy who still manages to do porn gives hope to normal, ugly,l chubby men like me.)
Re:Confiscate cameras (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, anyone can push a button to take a picture.
I find very few people know how to set up lighting, posing, get the white balance right, have the proper aperture and/or shutter speed (if they have cameras that can control all these features) to take a properly exposed image for a pro look.
Once that is done, how many avg. folks know how to or would even bother to learn the software out there needed to post process the images to get what would generally be considered a professional image?
Sure, everyone on earth has cameras with them leaps ahead of what used to be available only to pros, however....they still don't know how to use them to get the images that are of quality that is on the level that people make a living taking and selling.
Re: Just shit in the camera users mouths (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course it does - there are statistically no viewers and not many comments. Anyone can build a site under those parameters.
Re:Confiscate cameras (Score:5, Insightful)
All that effort to protect what has become a job selling buggy whips.
Just drop the "professional" photog bullshit already. No one needs to pay to have their picture taken. Do you know why? Because it's not 1964 anymore, and every fucking person walks around with some kind of camera on them.
Like I said, selling fucking buggy whips.
Yes, and everyone walks around with some kind of writing tool on them and thinks they're an author too. The unreadable dreck that has turned the self-pub market into a steaming shit-pile makes it very clear that people like you are the ones doing it. Photography is art. Just because you have a tool that is capable of creating art, doesn't mean the person wielding it is, anymore than the billions of people with computers that can run a compiler are capable of writing a useful application.
Re:Makes no sense. (Score:5, Insightful)