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Comment by 01100011 | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if it would be effective at hiding you beyond the next few years when more comprehensive systems are in place, but I think a simple circuit that randomly blinks an IR LED would be handy. Something like an an LED throwie, but with random cycling. Put a bunch of them around and you'll probably screw up most cheap CCDs by forcing them to constantly adjust their exposure. Sure, a cheap filter can defeat them... But eventually we'll be in a world where there is no escape from integrated surveillance and jamming/hiding just raises flags.

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a) Having a large blinking marker draw attention to your area would already be highly noticeable.

b) that IR LED would have to be extremely powerful to overwhelm a camera that is looking at a larger area

You could send something like the macrovision signal that hinders the automatic exposure correction.

The Macrovision signal was an out-of-image voltage change during the blanking interval. AGC circuits in VCRs that used the blanking interval to set the gain would be thrown off by it. So unfortunately it is not something that can be displayed meaningfully in visible light.

But, maybe you could find a different flaw in the exposure control. If not, you'll just have to be really bright.

I'm thinking more along the lines of covering yourself or your immediate area in a collection of randomly flashing IR LEDs. It's not about blending in, it's about defeating current CCD cameras. Obviously it is just going to attract attention to you when 'sensor fusion' becomes more prevalent. It's for when you want to appear as a glowing ball of light on a surveillance feed and not have your face or gait captured.

I also thought of this and how do military hide from satellites. Do they use powerful lasers to saturate photon sensors. Since military satellites have existed for so long now military probably implemented a way to hide from them.

Ceilings, and (knowing when satellites are passing overhead) when things need to be under ceilings.

I assume that most militaries have satellites with radars that can penetrate most ceilings to see planes in hangars etc.

Most militaries also have access to some high orbit satellites that have 24x7 coverage of an area, and then some low orbit satellites which fly overhead every few hours and can grab high res shots. The combination makes it very hard to sneak a secret plane from one building to another between orbits, since the 24/7 coverage will see it (albeit at lower res).

There are materials and building techniques that do not allow radar signals to reflect cleanly which severely weakens the radar image. It just so happens the military is pretty aware of this. If the military wanted to hide from a radar scan, they would have the know how, the means, and the desire to do it.

You're going to have to define "most"

I'm pretty sure "no" militaries have 24/7 coverage of any area on the planet.

Geostationary weather satellites have 24/7 coverage with low resolution. It's inconceivable that there isn't a single military with higher resolution 24/7 coverage.

For now...

Thermal IR doesn’t pick those up.

That just makes you a more interesting target, putting a glowing marker around you.

This is the insanely stupid top voted comment I've come to expect from this site.

> How to hide from a drone?

"Shine bright IR flashlights at it in a 100m radius around your position"

Get the feeling if someone was dropping 100yr old mortars on you this still isn't a viable option.

I try my best not to get personal but this is so fucking dumb that it almost feels like malicious advice for the current hot warzones that exist right now.

TFA is not about warzones but police surveillance.

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