if you invent some passive way to damage tech by just being in its vicinity. not only would it be illegal. it would be a super weapon.
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2025
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A weapon to surpass metal gear?
Snake?!
Snaaaaaake!!!
bro's got the level 9 EMP aura
What you describe is simply not possible with a passive material. Funnily your example of something shooting lasers is probably the only thing that could come close to actual damage
The most you can do is one of those adversarial patterns that just confuses the white balance and autofocus. There is nothing you can do to affect someone shooting in manual mode
If you could damage a camera by pointing it at something, the manufacturer would fix the issue before selling it, because no one is buying a camera that does.
If you could damage a camera by pointing it at something, the manufacturer would fix the issue before selling it, because no one is buying a camera that does.
Recently, there were news about the LIDAR of Volvo cars destroying camera sensors when they were aimed into the direction of the IR laser beam. Yet, this is not a passive item.
Even that was debated. No one proved it continued when you took another video, just that it broke the video of the lidar itself.
Here is a video demonstrating the lidar killing pixels in a phone camera sensor.
They also tried cameras on other vehicles but those were not affected, only the cellphone aimed directly at the lidar suffered damage.
So I tried watching it and never saw them close the camera app or restart the phone, so again, waiting on some actual proof with some science behind it rather than "dude totally said so". That only proves that the software controlling the picture adjustments has been sent out of whack(as evidenced by the fact that it would show true colors eventually when pointed at something else). If the pixels were "dead", they wouldn't reset. We have a separate phrase for that. It's "stuck pixel".
It's the same effect as being in a truely white lit room and everything looks orange in a camera. It's the color correction when you shine a crazy bright light at the sensor. It assumes you're on the sun and adjusts accordingly.
I am thinking if you could wear a mirror that would direct all the sunlight right at the camera. That would have to be an active tracking system, but wouldn't emit any light itself.
It would have to be parabolic and yeah as you suggest you would either need a big robotic rig to aim it or you would have to be very very obvious with your intent to damage given there's pretty much only one specific place a given parabolic mirror can be to damage something else.
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Rick and Morty did this once, Rick simply put on a hat with a QR code that made a robot army recognize him as a high level commander.
A few days ago I read a short story, comp.basilisk.faq by David Langford, which sketched a world in which specific images could irreversibly crash the brain, leading to a full scale worldwide ban on images on the internet and many other places as well. The story postulated hundreds of potential info-hazards with many of them simple enough to be applied via stencil and spray paint. Two of them are branch families of the Mandelbrot set 'and no we won't tell you where, do not look'
Other examples;
- Snow Crash — Neal Stephenson
- Blit — David Langford
- The Atrocity Archives — Charles Stross
- Doctor Who — “Blink” / “The Time of the Doctor”
- SCP Foundation — SCP-096
- SCP-7387 (“The Mathematician’s Grin”)
"Keep your eyes peeled or we'll peel them for you wholesale!"
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Might not cause damage but there is the Camera Shy Hoodie: https://www.macpierce.com/the-camera-shy-hoodie
Instructions for how to DIY provided, so it doesn't have to be a hoodie.
Although that really only works as long as the camera doesn't have an IR filter in place.
If the camera has an IR filter, how would IR be able to make night viewing possible?
It works in the opposite. With the IR filter you get a nice colorful image in daytime, but not the IR lights at night
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there was an x-file episode, where the guy emits radiation, which pratically jams cameras, which also gives him xray vision. and also posess the ability regenerate a whole body.
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It's not possible to damage cameras passively, so there isn't an answer. But if it was possible it probably would be made illegal to wear those around cameras.
More like illegal to wear anywhere in the USA considering that we're quickly becoming a surveillance state.
Quickly?
Every country is already a surveillance state, and has been for multiple decades.
Just look at Britain with cameras everywhere since at least the 1980's.
Fucking Ring crap just doubled down on it, and idiot people don't even care they're providing the means. 1984 nailed it.
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- Create sentient AI
- Let AI take control of the internet upon receiving the QR code
- Wear your t-shirt containing the QR code, show it to a camera connected to the internet
- Now AI takes over the world
Black Mirror S7E4 - Plaything
That was an episode that ended right where it started getting good. Not that the episode was bad before that, but it left me wanting more of that, not a jump to a new premise in the next episode.
The story of this episofe had enough potential for a 6 episode spinoff series. Or maybe 4. Anyway 1 was way too soon.
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ITT: People debating whether such a shirt is possible and not answering the actual question.
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My dude is trying to create a shirt that just continuously recharges and fires EMPs lol
Strap a lidar emitter to yourself. Those car sensors have been shown to damage cameras.
If you want privacy from cameras, there are those hats with strong ir leds. Not sure how well they work.
I think it depends on whether it’s active or passive. Active - e.g. a laser that damages a camera sensor, then yes, your device is actively damaging someone else’s camera - deliberate property damage. Passive - e.g. reflective strips so the exposure is bad, a pattern that is hard to focus on or similar- that’s fine - camera owner is making a decision to expose their gear to the environment. Even if, say, it’s a changing pattern that deceives the autofocus into working constantly (no, I don’t know exactly how that would work, but it’s the best I can think of at short notice) so it wears out faster.
It depends a lot where your story happens. Laws are quite different.
In my country, this little detail would save you ....
it's not like my shirt is emitting damaging laser beams or anything, it's entirely passive.
... unless you were deliberately wearing this for the purpose of doing such damage, and somebody could prove that.
Creating something that damages nearby electronics? Yeah, that's probably not going to fly. It really doesn't matter if it only damages things that actively film/photograph you. Like, it'd be illegal if I walked up and hammered every camera that photographed me too.
It'd also be illegal to point a laser light into a camera to damage the sensor
I was watching a dude on TV just now whose shirt pattern was going apeshit because of the camera
Probably aliasing aka moiré effect. Harmless to the equipment.
Also, is there anything like this scenario in real life/law?
Speed bumps do something similar? Entirely passive, harmless, untill encountering certain equipment - a vehicle.
There, technically, hypothetically, could be a situation where such shirt is possible. But it would require a bug in the camera firmware, which would probably work on just one camera model. For example, a shirt with a pattern that tricks the camera into detecting more faces than it was designed to, causing a buffer overflow and a crash. Reasonable, although extremely unlikely
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Yes it would be. You're wearing it with clear intent of damaging equipment.
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Best i can do is an Elton John style jacket. Dazzle them to hell and back.
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Damaging a camera is very different from something that makes taking a picture impossible. It doesn't matter if it is passive or active, only the end result is important.
A celebrity might get away with it when just trying to get home but would probably be required to pay for damage to the camera. Anyone at a large venue is going to be ruining everyone's cameras and that would be a huge deal.
A similar thing that might be possible is to create a shirt that shows something that exploits a vulnerability in software. Some hardware can be bricked by software (this used to be the case for MacBook batteries).
OK you're going to need CO2 gas, 2 mirrors, a glass. Container and a high voltage capacitor.
...
Step 3454674) charge the capacitor to 60078V.
Step 5746678) now run!
Invent?!? Bro, just use infrared LEDs 😂
No
maybe if its wearing a shirt with radioactive elements, usually its lethal amounts.
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