Apple admits it could also be used in covert police or government operations that may need complete “blackout” conditions.
Anyway, the fact is that Apple has patented the means to transmit an encoded signal to all wireless gadgets, commanding them to disable recording functions. The developers reveal that the policies would be activated by GPS, and Wi-Fi or mobile base-stations that would ring-fence around a building or a sensitive area in order to prevent mobile cameras from taking pictures or recording video.
If someone wanted to, it's very easily defeated. Simply build a Faraday cage around your phone. Or, to put it another way, make a phone case that functions as a faraday cage. Hey, I just did! Dibs! Patent pending. I thought of it first, and like Tesla motors, I'd like to share that idea with humanity. Everyone, feel free to use that idea.
Anyway, look at the door of your microwave. You'll see that what you see through is actually a series of "holes" in metal. Oversimplification, but sufficient: Because the microwave radiation has a wavelength on the order of 10^-2 meters (1 centimeter), it doesn't go through those holes. Radio waves are even bigger than microwaves. So, a very crude device would be to make a mesh case out of window screen, and bend the wires a little bit around where the camera is.
I'm seeing a slight flaw in your plan to encase a device that relies on wireless communication as it's major reason for existing, in a Faraday cage.
Well..Wifi should still work. That's in the GhZ range. But I'm not totally sure how phone calls and other things that use wavelengths very similar to the one that would disable the camera would work.
Wouldn't putting your phone in airplane mode defeat this?
Unless they used a wifi signal to kill the camera.
..How? Install little wifi devices all over the place? Or give cops and the like little wifi emitting devices? The range for wifi is not far.. due to the wavelength of wifi being very very small.
Al I'd have to do to film a cop is walk 30ft in any direction and keep filming...
My device transforms that device into a thin cameraI'm seeing a slight flaw in your plan to encase a device that relies on wireless communication as it's major reason for existing, in a Faraday cage.
Who says that the cops won't have a special high powered wi-fi unit (allowed for their use by FCC)?
Reminds me, the FCC has approved of higher 5GHz power levels lately anyway (for higher power 802.11AC).
Yeah i think I'll be going with the android.
but srsly if gov't pulls this shit on us, somebody needs to revolt.
Well, Samsung has been known to infringe upon Apple patents. Get a Blackberry.
Yeah, there's no way they could get away with this in the internet age. The first occurrence of police using this would result in a shitstorm.
Apple introduced the kill switch – or “Activation Lock” as it’s known – to iOS 7 in September last year and, according the report, iPhone thefts have radically dropped as a result. “In the first five months of 2014, robberies and grand larcenies involving Apple products dropped 19% and 29%, respectively, compared to the same time period from 2013. The decrease in Apple thefts far surpassed the citywide decrease in all robberies (-10%) and all grand larcenies (-18%).”
Guess the OP will have to go back to using a Motorola Brick PhoneWith Android and Microsofts now on-board, practically all smartphones will have the feature embedded in them.
Yeah, there's no way they could get away with this in the internet age. The first occurrence of police using this would result in a shitstorm.