South Korean cam-hunter squads conduct electronic sweeps of public spaces | Hacker News Reader

South Korean cam-hunter squads conduct electronic sweeps of public spaces

independent.co.uk

55 pointspmoriarty63 comments

> though there are scores of such teams nationwide, police officials say none has ever found a camera – but perhaps that is not the point.

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> Last month, the province’s police force received about $267,000 (£203,000) to focus on the problem, according to local police official Chae Kyoung-deok.

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> despite the focus on hidden cameras, 90 per cent of the crimes involved filming with regular smartphones, statistics show.

This is seems to be similar to terrorism, in that the fear of the problem is much bigger than the problem itself, and because attacking the root causes is too difficult, most of the effort is spent on useless security theater.

I was wondering the same thing. The focus seems to be on a small/virtually non-existing part of a bigger underlying issue.

Dealing with the issue of everyone always carrying a camera, disguise as a phone, and sometimes someone will take your picture without your approval is going to be extremely difficult.

You really shouldn't downplay the issue. From what I've read, the issue of peeping toms is a real issue in SK, especially given the gender norms there. That said, of course people should be mindful of unintended consequences or the co-opting of movements for women's right like these recent SK protests specifically to push in culturally conservative directions. SK has in the past been more receptive to a strong government in the private realm including censorship of satire and the like. This was under the previous government that was at the center of a corruption drama but those elements still exist of course.

I guess what I mean is both could and might be true: molka is a problem and it is being used to push the society in culturally conservative directions.

Sorry, I wasn't meaning to downplay the issue. What I am question is how the issue is handled. Going around looking for hidden cameras apparently haven't yielded any result, nor have it addressed the underlying issue.

If we follow your logic, fire safety inspections should be cancelled because they find no violations most of the time.

I'm pretty sure that fire safety inspections do find a lot of violations.

And they have the benefit of educating people -- for example, we didn't know that you shouldn't place a chimney cleaning door in a bedroom. It seems obvious in hindsight, but we just didn't question the guy who installed it.

Several women felt safer, that is a tangible result.

Aah, but that's the issue isn't it. They felt safer, but they're not. They are just as vulnerable as before, because the underlying issue wasn't address.

As someone else pointed out, it's "security theater". You haven't made the women safer. You're saying: See, we did something. It's just that the thing you attacked was never the problem.

I'm not sure it is security theatre, these sweeps may well be very capable of finding hidden cameras. Then their failure to find anything demonstrates that the danger has been severely overstated in several locations, that seems like valuable knowledge to me. Decreasing uncertainty is an important aspect of providing security.

Of course, the scans could be incapable, either by neglect or incompetence, and then they do provide only false security.

They were probably only scared because of the security theater in the first place.

While I fully believe you that you didn't intend this, but that exactly sounds like a men's complaint after enjoying years of "freedom". I feel that years of inappropriate handling of gender issues are gone and the debts are finally fighting back, sometimes in the unexpected ways. I do expect a lot of hiccups and unfortunate situations over the course but won't characterize them as "conservative" movements.

Even if they did find something, are they going to keep checking every single day forever? While it is good they are trying, problems like these can only be solved by changing the societal mindset and raising boys to be better men

Until someone posts a video of one of these teams missing a hidden camera they provide a real sense of security to women that can't really be provided in other ways.

Isn't it a false sense of security?

It's the opposite. A false sense of security is feeling safe when it isn't safe. In this case, it is safe, but people mistakenly feel unsafe.

The police are providing a real sense of security that both represents the actual security and the peoples' feeling of security.

You don't refuse painkillers because someone broke a leg and just needs it to heal. It's not problematic to treat symptoms of underlying cultural gender roles but cultural change of course should be an endgoal.

I mean I generally agree it may end up in a security theatre area, but if they do find hidden cameras used for molka, I think that's helpful, not useless.

I think they should definitely make it a much more serious crime with harsher penalities. It's too hard to catch everyone with a camera, but if you catch a few people and give extremely heavy fines and jail time, you will discourage others.

All smartphones sold in Korea are required to make shutter sound when taking a photo, to prevent spy cam using a phone in a public place. If you buy an iPhone in Korea there is no way to turn it off.

There was an article on HN about a dev who played the inverse shutter sound when taking a photo, which would destructively interfere with the OS camera sound (this was iOS) before being output by the speakers, resulting in no audible sound.

It's there to let the moral panic-ers feel safe. It doesn't take much effort to remove the shitter sounds.

It can be fixed by adding little randomness into builtin shutter sound. Or by adding a LED that is physically connected with camera voltage supply.

A better fix is for the camera to take full control of the audio output for the duration. It can override volume and such while it's at it.

It's still kinda a stopgap, though. If one is a dedicated creeper, opening a cell phone and disabling a speaker is intro-level electronics hacking, hardly even worthy of the term. I mean, I've accidentally disabled the speaker on my laptop once because I sealed it up after a hard drive swapout and simply forgot to hook the tiny speaker wires back up afterwards.

That's actually a beautiful solution

It's also possible to silently take pictures in the background using termux on an android phone with one line.

>Usage: termux-camera-photo [-c camera-id] output-file Take a photo and save it to a file in JPEG format.

-c camera-id ID of the camera to use (see termux-camera-info), default: 0

That used to be pretty common in all smartphones in the early days I was surprised that the feature was removed same goes for the mandatory recording LED.

On Android ofc you can always disable them if you root or flash your phone.

On top of that, iPhone makes shutter sound when taking a screenshot as well. I heard jailbreak also could disable them but not sure it is possible lately.

The iPhone isn’t making any shutter sounds when silent these days, not sure when they were removed I remember the 3G having those and not being able to disable them.

what about video? and I think small/hidden devices are of more concern...

It makes sound only when start recording. Small cams are actually regulated by the government (you need to get a permission to buy one) but of course there are black markets.

That is the right thing, but might be a bit annoying. They should also add a LED showing that the photo or video is being filmed.

It is a joke, a piece of tape over the speaker effectively silences any phone sound.

Wonder if there is a way to have a device that can detect whether you are being recorded. Is that even possible, if yes, that would be a good idea for someone to build? Would make lots of cash given the current climate of concern (especially for kids). Interesting article on this topic https://mashable.com/2017/12/04/airbnb-host-spying-webcam/

Some sensors (CCDs, i think) are strong retro-reflectors. So you could detect possible cameras with a strobe light and some more cameras.

And their camera (array) detects yours and tries to disable it ... we're going to need lasers (sharks optional).

A device to detect cameras would likely be a camera, thus aggrevating the problem. I'm not sure what the solution might be.

true, suppose you could have a small camera that in real-time scans live stream using AI to detect camera's point at you. But that would be adding to the problem.

Relevant hackernews thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16381592

I know there's that cool hack of pointing your IR tv remote at your camera to see if the battery still works. Could you create some kind of IR ball that shoots beams of IR in all directions constantly? Would that blur the cameras vision?

I would guess any heat lamp warm enough to blind a camera is also liable to make you uncomfortably hot too.

IR LEDs aren't hot.

Weak IR LEDs aren't hot, but they aren't likely to be blinding either.

just mandate image sensor manufacturers to include a resonant structure, to aid detection? then its a matter of time before old image sensors start to fail or get replaced...

I think that buying or posessing a hidden camera should be illegal. So that police could arrest people only for ordering such device. Also, there should be a punishment for porn site owners who host such videos. They should check the documents and verify that video is taken with permission from models.

30 years ago that might have worked, when "hidden camera" was arguably a distinct category of device. But every cell phone has a camera in it that 30 years ago would have been government spy level tech, and it's not hard to buy the cameras alone or with minimal supporting electronics for perfectly reasonable reasons, and anything that fits in a cell phone is also small enough to be easy to hide. Even an old cell phone is not that hard to make into a "hidden camera", honestly, body and all. Here's a CNET article on the basic principles, just to show how mainstream this tech all is: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/turn-your-old-phone-into-a-home-... It takes only modest creativity to hide that fairly well.

There isn't a such thing as a "hidden camera" as a distinct product any more to be banned.

What?

My phone is a hidden camera.

...while in California you almost have to stay indoors if you are to avoid seeing scantily clad - sometimes a bit too young - women!

Probably a unpopular view / idea. But if we just took the tabo out of being nude... It would resolve the issue 2 fold, people would not be afraid of being seen nude, and the drive for people wanting to take pictures of people nude would go down too.

There once was a time a ankle showing, then it was the knee was taboo too.

Remember we were all born nude, and the idea that being nude is taught.

I have a meeting, wanted to say more, but no time, sorry. TTL!

This is a pretty big privacy invasion and privacy is something very valuable to people. Our browsing activity doesn't seem like a big deal, but when companies are taking away our privacy and using it to create ads, a lot of people care! The big problem is that people have their privacy and personal space bubble, and if you reach into it they will be very angry.

It's not just nudity but the fine details of body-shaming; entire magazines exist of clothed photos of celebrity women where details are circled and labelled as horrible.

This is the only viable long-term solution.

Cameras that can see through walls and drones the size of a fly are coming.

Sounds like a naturist point of view, also known as nudism.

"Just"

This is not a sustainable solution.

What will happen when cameras become as small as a grain of rice, and drones become as small as a fly?

This is the end of privacy. We should embrace it, rather than fight it.

I guess better copyright enforcement may help. They should also read about deepfakes and stop thinking that filming once body itself is already a serious crime. It matters how that info is used. Homosapien personality is not his body but his brain.

PS: Ironically another news on that page says “Women stage topless protest over Facebook ‘discrimination’ Did police arrest everyone who filmed this? Did police arrest these women for five years in prison for using their body as a weapon? Is it ok for the same woman to appear in both these news?

"stop thinking that filming once body is serious crime."

Firstly, the article is not talking about taking pictures of women on the street but rather in changing rooms and locker rooms, which is a crime. Second, even if you would be comfortable if someone took a picture of you naked without your knowledge and posted it online doesn't mean that other women and men are.

"Is it ok for the same woman to appear in both these news?"

Yes. It was her decision to pose topless in public, and it doesn't give anyone the right to spy on her in privacy and take pictures of her.

> changing rooms and locker rooms

But it is kind of public place too. What if you open it by mistake with google glass on? 5 years in prison? What if another woman there receives video call? 5 years in prison? What if some stupid child does it? What if hackers or sneaky woman intentionally put such shots on your phone and call police?

>if someone took a picture of you

I’m not comfortable with it too. But I don’t think it is more criminal than piracy. I don’t want that police restrict cameras anyway because of it. I want the police to protect copyright better

>It was her decision to pose topless in public

So the subject for protection is not her body itself but her power to define how to “sell” it? Isn’t it prostitution? They should make prostitution legal first then.

Let's say that you work for the government and accidentally read top secret documents with your Google Glass on and accidentally upload the recording to Youtube. Would it be a good excuse? And of course other people's privacy is much more important than those documents that are boring and uninteresting to 99% of people.

So of course the use of cameras should be regulated.

I can’t accidentally read top secret because it is secured much better than public places. I can’t disclose it by mistake. Its guards don’t expose it when they want to protest. People privacy can’t be more important than government documents, because protecting each citizen is much more complex/pricy task than protecting those documents. Disclosing those documents is a problem for all citizens. Disclosing citizen privacy is a problem for him. You can’t restrict good willing citizen rights because of bad guys.

There's a difference between a public display and a private display that seems pretty clear so these aren't the same thing.

But it is “virtual” projection of the same info (body). There is a difference in the history of the picture shooting but the picture is the same and may falsely say was it shot in public or in private with the help of photoshop. So the same picture may be the serious crime or profitable shot for newspaper depending on unclear history or how good you can fake it or what body owner says. You can’t make something a serious crime if it could be faked.

The justice system is designed to handle these ambiguities, it's literally the job of the system to gather the facts and experts and make a decision. If it gets to the point where you can't tell at all out seems like you would just need a new law that requires you to prove it was in public or get consent (which you should get anyway, even in public). Proving it was in public would be trivial for the case of something like a protest (lots of eye witnesses and security cameras). I guess I'm not seeing the scenario where it will ever be that unsolvable of a problem in society.

You may find surprising how the system may demand 9 years of prison for a father who made shots of his weakly child here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yury_A._Dmitriev BTW He is in prison for about 2 years now. You shouldn’t demand the system to protect your privacy because you will pay for it with your money and freedom. You can protect privacy yourself if you will. I gave some examples above when it can happen by accident/stupidity.

The important issue is consent.

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