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Wearable Microphone Jamming

sandlab.cs.uchicago.edu

71–80 of 129 posts

Re: Wearable Microphone Jamming

#71
post #41

It's harmful to constantly hear sound, I wonder if it's our perception that makes it harmful even if we don't realize that we hear something? Is it harmful to hear sound threats outside of our range? Is it harmful to constantly use active noise cancelling?

> It's harmful to constantly hear sound, [...] Hmm I'm not so sure about that; do you have any source for that? My intuition says that it's nigh impossible to find completely quiet places in daily life; there's always some noise, though it could be imperceptably quiet. If constant sound is harmful, I'd imagine we'd all have lost our hearing by now. I reckon any harm woulc come from volume, not just simple presence.

> If constant sound is harmful, I'd imagine we'd all have lost our hearing by now. I reckon any harm woulc come from volume, not just simple presence.

That's assuming it's physically harmful (to the ears). If it were instead mentally harmful, what you would expect is for the incidence of mental illness to increase as life got noisier and noisier (with a lag, of course, assuming this effect takes an appreciable amount of time).

Re: Wearable Microphone Jamming

#73
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if you're recording a cop in the next few years, make sure to use a waterproof phone.

You may find a small bit of capstan tape over the mic will, whilst reduce the mic's sensitivity a little - equally achieve the same results against this.

*Kapton tape, presumably. A capstan is an interesting thing though: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capstan_(nautical)

Re: Wearable Microphone Jamming

#75
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cops are not trying to post their footage to the socials. They want you to not be able to do it. If they need their footage, it's to prove you were being an asshat and deserved whatever happened to you. If you need their footage, it'll mysteriously not be available for some technical or clerical error.

Its to provide a PoV from the police officer, yes. Because the PoV of the other side (whatever it might be) may omit details, or could've been tampered with. You're right that it is in the interest of the police (in general, not necessarily the police officer), but if details like sound are not available that only hurts their case.

> if details like sound are not available that only hurts their case.

Unless the cop is saying things they shouldn't be saying. I think you are missing the point of the comment you are replying to. They are saying that cops only use that footage when it benefits them (that's assuming the footage exists and they didn't "forget to turn on their camera") and when it doesn't benefit them then they won't release it or the footage might get "lost". Also the police have been known to edit or post misleading footage to their own gain.

Re: Wearable Microphone Jamming

#76
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find ironic, is the police are doing a copyright infringement (unauthorized public performance of these songs) in order to infringe on citizens' rights. Why are record companies not more pissed about this?

Because they don't lose money over it the way they do over other types of unauthorized public performances.

I think I'd phrase that a bit differently.

Extracting cash by threatening mom and pop restaurants for playing the radio is old hat, nobody cares.

Threatening cops over it is going to attract attention.

Re: Wearable Microphone Jamming

#77
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends of what real life scenario is. A cafe, maybe not. A meeting room, likely yes. There at least you can declare that a hearing aid is used. The very point of the device is to jam other microphones. Not going to last very long, though; ultrasound filters will soon appear on all relevant gear, including mobile phones.

The microphone's worst enemy is the pencil. ((Just wait until some scrappy thesis describes how to determine character being written by pencil based on the vibrations of sound being made from the friction between a carbon based utensil and a paper pulp based medium such that the intended letters can be derived based on the length, count and direction of the audio signals derived from the sounds of the writing utensil…

You know, that sounds like language from a patent application.

I actually AM licensed as a patent agent, but I'm not practicing so I can't get you that patent.

Re: Wearable Microphone Jamming

#79
post #46

Are they not able to just use phase shifts and beamforming on the transducer array instead of the odd keep-moving-your-bracelet design?

The case would be if someone is recording you with a microphone placed somewhere unknown in the room. With the bracelet, and humans' tendency to move their arms while speaking, microphones around the room will be jammed at least part of the time.

But you could surely just randomly vary the beamforming to get the same effect, right?

Re: Wearable Microphone Jamming

#80
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Police officers in Beverly Hills have been playing music while being filmed, seemingly in an effort to trigger Instagram’s copyright filters." https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvxb94/is-this-beverly-hills...

What I find ironic, is the police are doing a copyright infringement (unauthorized public performance of these songs) in order to infringe on citizens' rights. Why are record companies not more pissed about this?

It's not performance as there's the lack of intent to have others hear it and few will. You can play music for yourself in public even if others overhear.
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