Researchers Develop Mobile App to Discover Hidden Cameras (Real Sound)-Yahoo! News

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Researchers at the National University of Singapore and Yonsei University in South Korea have devised an app that detects hidden cameras using a ToF (Time of Flight) sensor mounted on a smartphone. The app is said to be more accurate than the CC308 + camera detector and the K18, as well as the naked eye. [Image] What is "LAPD"? Diagram explaining the system In recent years, hidden cameras have been found one after another in hotels and Airbnb rooms. Cameras are becoming smaller and more difficult for non-experts to find with the naked eye. In response to this problem, researchers have developed a detection application "LAPD (Laser Assisted Photography Detection)" that uses a ToF sensor. In the paper they published, the mechanism of the app is explained as follows. "In the process of recognizing a camera, the ToF sensor emits a pulsed laser and receives the reflected light from an object such as a pet bottle and its surroundings. Specifically, the hidden camera embedded in the object is a lens sensor. Due to an effect called retroreflection, the incoming pulsed laser is reflected at a higher intensity than the surroundings, which occurs when almost all the light energy that collides with an object is directly reflected by the light source. Hidden When a particular area of ​​the ToF sensor is "saturated" due to high intensity reflections from the camera, it appears as a black pixel. LAPD processes this saturated area to automatically identify the camera and its location and the user. Display on the smartphone screen of "(partial excerpt). Researchers say the app will be open sourced, and eventually anyone with a smartphone with a ToF sensor will be able to use it. As the tricks of voyeurists become more sophisticated, I hope this app will help prevent voyeurism. National University of Singapore / Paper on "LAPD" at Yonsei University https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3485730.3485941

Sachi Horiguchi