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Comment by phrotoma | Hacker News Reader

I went to a show at Fabric in London during Kubecon last spring and they did the same thing. I still saw the odd person who peeled it off taking selfies or pics of friends inside but that was definitely the exception.

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Perhaps it can be enforced with a type of laser that doesn’t damage the human eye but completely obliterates a phone camera. As long as you keep the sticker on nothing happens to your phone.

I've seen this in Asia, there's an employee who basically is standing at a raised spot in the corner and if you take out your phone they shoot a small laser pointer right into the camera, it messes with the video. They can't get it on there all the time but a video where half of it (or more they are surprisingly accurate) is a strobing laser becomes pretty garbage anyways. While they are doing that another employee/bouncer comes over and warns them, have seen people get kicked out for pulling it out a second time.

This sounds like a job I would love.

> I've seen this in Asia

"I've seen this on planet earth"

Afghanistan? China? Tonga?

True, it wasn't very specific, but I think we can rule out Afghanistan where music and dancing are illegal.. I haven't been to Tonga, seems possible that there might a little nightlife in Nukuʻalofa but probably not laser-wielding security, so that narrows it down a little.

Do you actually think Tonga is in Asia?

> a type of laser that doesn’t damage the human eye but completely obliterates a phone camera

If we are asking for impossible things why make it so scifi coded? I would much prefer cute bunny unicorns who suddenly grow fangs and bite people who are taking pictures. They are both equaly realistic but the bunny unicorns are nicer to think of.

Certain kinds of lidar do damage phone cameras https://www.jalopnik.com/1866994/lidar-permanently-damage-ph...

Of course. There is no doubt that you can shoot cameras out. That's not the problem. The problem is if you try to scale that effect up to the size of a club what you have won't be eye safe. There is not enough margin between "safe for human eyes" and "destroys cameras" to construct a practical system. Especially not to the safety requirements of an entertainment venue.

I think Lidar on cars can damage cameras: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Autonomous-driving-Lidar-can-se...

But it's probably a nightmare from the liability perspective.

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