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Comment by aqme28 | Hacker News Reader

I was trying to brainstorm ways to make these palatable to general society. Because I think this kind of thing is going to happen, but a lot of people (myself included) have a legitimate problem with surreptitious recordings.

It needs a "recording" light when it is recording. But creeps will just disable the recording light with e.g. a sticker.

Idea: What if the recording light embeds a little IR signal, and if the camera recording doesn't pick up that signal, it stops working

Edit: I see they tried that already.

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I think the only way will be the tech getting too useful for the complaints to matter. Currently it's only marginally useful. Otherwise this irrational reaction will continue. Would help for the tech to come from companies with less awful reputations.

Alternatively, maybe the solution will be some sort of device signature embedded into the video data at the hardware level so that videos are traceable to the person that recorded them.

To me the main annoyance is that XR glasses partially rely on cameras to enable things like 6DOF tracking and hand tracking. Having that use conflated with people trying to secretly record others is pretty annoying.

To be clear, I don’t think this reaction is irrational at all. I’m curious though why you do.

This kind of discrete recording capability already is so widespread and accessible. Amazon is full of these kinds of devices, tiny "AI" audio recorders, pens with hidden cameras etc. They don't even require much technical competency.

People also walk around with their phones out so often. There's no way for you to know that they aren't recording. E.g. someone could easily be pretending to use their phone when climbing stairs while actually taking upskirt shots with the front camera.

Social media is also already full of people shamelessly recording others in situations where they would not want to be recorded.

Actual perverts have little reason to use these glasses specifically, and as mentioned in my previous post, the cameras have utility other than recording others.

Yeah that was my reaction too

If you're a pervert, you wouldn't want the victim to know you're recording them

If you don't want someone to know you're recording them, you wouldn't wear the famous Recording Glasses

But I don't know, maybe I'm overestimating the average pervert

I think it’s rational to say “I don’t want this bad thing that exists to be more ubiquitous.”

The smartphone camera supply chain already made possible easy purchase of miniature spy camera devices of various types, they're all on Amazon. Sometimes they're pretending to be nanny cams or something but others are hidden body cameras or glasses. So pervert glasses already existed and were pretty cheap.

The downside with the Meta glasses really is this gives "cover" for wearing these kinds of things. If you caught some one with a pocket button camera or the cheap pervert glasses before, well you knew what they were up too. Now they can hide behind being a tech enthusiast or a trend follower or even some kind of fashion thing and wear them right out in the open, allowing nefarious use to be hidden in plain sight.

> Now they can hide behind being a tech enthusiast or a trend follower or even some kind of fashion thing and wear them right out in the open, allowing nefarious use to be hidden in plain sight.

They can try to 'hide' behind that, but if I see you wearing them, I 100% am assuming the worst case intent. I suspect I am not the only one.

I think they tried that, and people hacked around it:

https://www.engadget.com/2227710/a-dollar2-sticker-let-me-by...

If you want to secretly record someone in public, aren't there already plenty of much subtler ways? Pinhole camera in your shirt pocket, normal glasses with a hidden camera, camera integrated into a hat, etc? "Disable the recording light in your smart glasses" would just be one more entry in that list.

Subtler yes, but you can't point them or get good feedback for interactions, except I guess the hat

Then you can filter only the visible part of the signal, plus if they become common you risk interference, contamination or long term exposure (Your face regularly points to other people faces/eyes)

It is something that must be treated as crime. And punished actually harshly say 1 year mandatory minimum for first offence, 5 for second and then life in prison for third strike. No parole.

Life in prison is a bit harsh but I otherwise agree.

People already disable the recording light and the problem is so pervasive Amazon has "banned" the blocking stickers.

Create your own set of glasses with powerful IR LEDs. Then just stare at the glasshole.

It already stops working if you block the light.

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