The creator of Nearby Glasses made the app after reading 404 Media’s coverage of how people are using Meta’s Ray-Bans smartglasses to film people without their knowledge or consent. “I consider it to be a tiny part of resistance against surveillance tech.”
more at: @feed@404media.co
Following for the iOS port
Wasnt there a ton of outrage and such incl people not being allowed on planes, back when google glass was released?
Why is it all OK now?
There’s a window of attention for public discourse and there’s fatigue. We, as a group, can only be upset about so much. It’s a tried tactic to just try to distract us with some crazy shit, like Trump did with the alien files. If one crazy thing comes up in the news, other stuff will drop from our radar. And that’s why people try shit again and again and again. Always in the hope that this time people are distracted by other stuff or are finally worn down enough.
Windows Recall has re-entered the chat.
Years of privacy violations going deeper and deeper under pretend of “progress” and “pRoTeCt the cHiLdReN”. I am glad that people started rebelling against Flock, and some removed their Amazon cameras following the Superbowl’s ads, but that’s not even close to how much we should be mad at these mass surveillance actors.
Years of privacy violations going deeper and deeper under pretend of “progress” and “pRoTeCt the cHiLdReN”.
Many years of indoctrination. When Google glass was introduced, it was just ‘a neat idea’. Now it’s a product, and therefore it’s clearly more trustworthy because someone is profiting from it. (/s)
Same reason our governments suck ass. Something unpopular tries to get passed again, and again, and again, and again, and eventually people get desensitized and worn out from trying to fight against it. That or it hits on the right time when people are distracted by something else bigger or more important.
It still isn’t OK.
It is just that the technology became so small, you can’t differentiate with regular sunglasses anymore.
I mean you kind of still can. Wire frame sunglasses are still too small to have recording hardware.
They should be only with transparent plastic a flashing LED that signals CREEP in morse.
I remember Google Glass itself receiving a ton of outrage actually: People hated it and anyone wearing one was made fun of (“glassholes” was a popular insult at the time).
I’ll still use it for the meta garbage, but I think the reason is that the glasses are just inconspicuous enough for most normies to not notice they are being recorded. Till the moron wearing them starts staring off into space while reading tweets at least.
If you prefer to avoid Google: https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses
Now you need a powerful laser pointer to ruin the glasses camera. Careful not to blind the wearer.
https://xkcd.com/1251/ (there is always an xkcd about it)
That was way more on point than I expected.
Apparently the lidar in some cars can damage cameras and are safe for eyes.
Apparently the front of a car can damage cameras and their users.
why did mods remove this
how is mentioning that cars are dangerous a “call for violence”
Lemmy mods
Lemmy.world mods. They are kinda like feddit.org mods. Whiny cocksuckers who are just so happy to vent their frustrations (or pretend ones) on their userbase.
The removed post is implying people with these cameras should be run over by cars. Whether that breaks any ToS or not idk but it’s pretty clear what the post is saying
Doesn’t work 😮💨 push “start scanning” and nothing happens.
Ditto
It worked for me after I looked at the settings screen. I’m not sure why. If it is working, though, the debug box will fill up with a ton of text.
Turn off “debug” in the app settings to stop that & have it only report suspect devices instead of everything it sees.
None of those buttons at the top work either. Possibly because they’re behind my notifications bar.
For me it worked to rotate the screen, then the buttons worked.
Same here.
Go to Android Developer Settings > Display Cutout, set it to one of the other options and it should shift the app down a bit so you can access the buttons. (change it back after ofc)
I used “waterfall cutout” but others might work depending on your phone model. Afaik no other fix is possible without the app’s code itself being modified.
It’s supposed to ask for Bluetooth access at that point, did it?
Also from the GitHub page:
if you don’t see the scan starting, you might need to enable Foreground Service on your particular phone in the Settings menu
Yes I did. I don’t know what a foreground service is or how to enable it…
Sorry - edited my comment as you were replying. It’s in the app’s settings menu.
Oh I couldn’t access the settings menu previously…
Working now, thanks
I think you need to give it a sec or hold. The button down. The same thing happened to me. But it was scanning within a min of downloading
No such luck
I know next to nothing about the glasses, but would they be vulnerable to anything the Flipper Zero is capable of doing?
How hard can you throw it?
Pretty hard. Unfortunately my aim is shit.
Just throw hard enough to trigger fusion reaction then.
XKCD-it. Got it.
depends on what you know about flipper zero.
The app scans for smart glasses’ distinctive Bluetooth signatures and sends a push alert if it detects a potential pair of glasses in the local area.
I mean, the Flipper Zero is just a computer with a few radios built-in.
I think the only one they share with most smart glasses is Bluetooth which might potentially have some vulnerabilities which could be exploited, but there are also expansion cards for the Flipper Zero that add everything from wifi and ethernet ports to high-powered IR blasters, so the real question is how vulnerable smart glasses are.
And the truth is, they’re vulnerable by default because they rely on corpo servers to operate like any other “smart” device. Any flaw in the security of the glasses themselves barely holds a candle to the fact that they forward everything to Facebook or some other big tech brand name with a financial interest in monetizing your data.
What do you mean “vulnerable”? Are you trying to blow them up?
Ok, but how hilarious would it be if a series of vulnerabilities (software & hardware) would be discovered that wound allow just that (set fire to the battery), lol.
Hmm, wonder if Bluetooth (D)DoS attacks are a thing.
https://github.com/crypt0b0y/BLUETOOTH-DOS-ATTACK-SCRIPT
Requires Linux. But a raspberry pi should do the trick.
how does this work? I thought bluetooth is practically invulnerable to DDOS because of its endless frequency hopping
Haven’t tested it against meta glasses. Essentially it requires the MAC address of the device and pings the shit out of it. May or may not work against the glasses.
Now we just need to combine them both so it only targets Meta devices.
That’d be a great TV show plot…but I’m not really a fan of violence. I’d be more interested in rendering them unusable, or spoofing them into making loud fart noises or letting out a loud wolf whistle everytime someone else walks by. Like I said, I don’t know, nor do I much care, what kinds of things the glasses do…but I imagine theres some kind of screen the user can watch, so maybe forcing them to view something annoying could be another viable spoof.
Admittedly, this is cyberpunk as fuck.
Should not be needed… but it’s a fucking cool solution.
Should be expanded for IP cams
Install this on kali nethunter and make glassholes pay for their crimes.
Next step is for someone makes a version that hijacks the Bluetooth headphones and makes them play a loud shrill noise that makes the glasses too uncomfortable to wear in your pressence.
Would love to know when the iOS app is coming out.
Github (APK) link, if you’re on a privacy phone: https://github.com/yjeanrenaud/yj_nearbyglasses
I’d fork this just to name it more appropriately: “Glasshole radar”
You know what sucks?
In that AR glasses, in theory, are such an interesting technology with lots of potential, and certainly a piece of tech I would love to have and work with and on. Not to secretly record people, but to, well… augment my field of view with whatever digital tools or displays I would like. It would be so useful
It’s honestly kinda saddening to me that it most likely will get completely ruined by our current toxic relationship to technology. A step towards our ever increasing cyberdystopia, and not towards enchanting our limited lives
Obviously either way I don’t trust Meta, but an open-hardware device running a FOSS AR system? It would be nice…
I still hold out hope that this somehow could be resolved, and I would love to contribute to open software for these devices. Maybe one day soon-ish I will. My expertise should be well applicable, after all
It would be incredibly useful in construction. Having a digital overlay telling you exactly where to put up the framing for a separating wall, or an overlay showing the correct distance between screws, or where wires and pipes are inside a wall? There are so incredibly many awesome possible uses for AR in construction.
It’s already used in construction as a documentation device. Photos are big as a documentation tool and some inspectors already use wearable cameras as a tool.
ok, but they don’t try and hide them do they?
Unneeded. We already have a tool for that it’s called blueprints, they haven’t failed in over 3000 years.
Blueprints don’t fail, people really really often do though. People measure wrong, or build on the wrong side of the line they’ve drawn. It’s not a question about “Is it essential”, it’s a question about “Will it make it easier, faster and less errorprone”.
I always wanted to build an AR app for inside data centers. Imagine looking at a server and being able to open a terminal or desktop that you can immediately interact with on the floor. or have it display resource information like hardware utilization, temps, network throughput and configuration, etc.
it would make a difficult job just bit more manageable.
I really like the special tagged tape that could bring up AR tags and details about it. Organization and directions are so more useful.
It would be so cool to have something like this integrated into your monitoring platform. Imagine being able to “tap” on a switch in a rack and be able to view it’s mac table or port assignments
Pretty sure that already exists.
But it is mainly used for solving hardware problems where a technician can film whatever they are working on with their phone, and a remote technician can “draw” in AR on the image in real time to point towards the things that need manual interventions.
Or playing Pokémon GO
They are used for that kind of applications already. You put one of those on, and some technician remotely guides you in doing some maintenance while looking through your eyes. They can mark things in your fov, show you diagrams, whatever. Pretty neat actually.
I’m in the AEC industry. Almost any implementation of on site augmentation sucks ass most especially because the tech nerds making them have a really hard time truly understanding the needs OF tradespeople and installers.
Almost all of them are top down implementations meant to assess tooling and field quality rather than actually acting as an overlay aid in construction (which, like, 90% of tradespeople worth their salt don’t actually need FYI).
Also, I’ve found, most of these tech nerds making this shit don’t know how to actually put a building together and are constantly flummoxed by the methodology.
Using an AR display on those glasses with frames that thick is such a horrible idea. Google was on the right track with the HUD displayed on a frame-less prism that doesn’t block half your vision.
Last thing I’d want is to be in the middle of something with my hands full and the display bugs out, blocking the one eye, making me screw something up.
Last thing I’d want is to be in the middle of something with my hands full and the display bugs out, blocking the one eye, making me screw something up.
Maybe don’t cause your own problems.
I mean, that was sorta the point of the comment…
I don’t like them and therefore, I won’t be using them, ever. I’d get a less obstructing headset instead. And, I wouldn’t get a headset just to play around with it, I’d actually want to use it and try to get to it help me doing things.
Drop the cameras and microphones and replace them with a couple accelerometers and gyros. Paired with your phone’s GPS tracking, the glasses can tell where you’re looking without actually seeing anything. You can get handy features like a floating ‘turn here’ sign over your exit while driving with GPS navigation without recording anyone or anything at any time. Better battery life, too.
I don’t think that would work particularly well with AR: People get sick if movement isn’t synced up properly, not having any sort of cameras or sensors at all would exacerbate that problem.
If you are talking about a simple HUD, then that might be a lot more viable, but for AR and the tech we currently have, some sort of camera or sensor array is kind of a requirement practically speaking.
See, I don’t really want full AR. I want a HUD, a very small number of rudimentary AR features, like floating windows for text documents or videos, physical buttons on the arms of the glasses, small drivers by the ears for audio, and battery life that will last most of the day. I already have to wear glasses and if I’m paying more for extra features I want ones that will last the whole time I might want them, not just the six or so hours a day that the current offerings have.
GNSS isn’t really accurate enough for this, especially in urban environments where there is poor line of sight to most of the satellites.
Tbh I don’t even mind cameras that much if they were entirely controlled by the individuals themselves. I have a much bigger issue with it when you’re streaming my facial recognition data to Evil Megacorp 2™ servers that also feed directly to the “Not Spying… Again” agency, though.
Is that what you’re referring to? https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-facial-recognition-glasses These people have no ethics and no moral code. They know we’ll hate it, so they want to sneak it!
What about a camera that is covered by a cap that can only be lifted if they press the mechanical button on the side of the glasses?
You could still film things like posters to get more information about the event, while not filming everyone all the time.
Except that one cool thing with AR is being able to have it tell what you’re looking at is. Not just positioning things in space. A lot of cool shit that could be done with AR, like real time text translation, object identification, etc needs some kind of camera, even if it just sees IR light. Lotta cool shit needs a microphone, too.
The truth is that we already are living in the surveillance state and people are just going to have to “get over” being recorded in public by anyone that walks by.
I don’t like it either. But that’s the reality we’re entering into, where privacy isn’t a right but a privilege and that privilege does not exist save for some very select (if any at this point) places like your home … Maybe.
No, people do not have to get over that. People need to stand up for their rights. Being in a public space isn’t justification to have your movements recorded and logged 24/7. Stop being the fucking knee you coward.
What does this even mean? You gonna punch every other person you see?
Fuck off with your disingenuous comment
So it doesn’t mean anything. Got it.
I’m just being realistic about the future. You already are carrying around a machine that’s listening and watching. You’re walking into and out of stores where you’re on camera. Hell you’re driving past however many cameras in your car or walking past them on the street, every business, every office, every space has cameras now.
Thus, I think eventually more and more augmented reality devices will be seen because people will come to appreciate their uses outside of just being recording devices once that concern is overcome. In other words, wearing AR glasses won’t get you default labeled as some perverted weirdo.
You don’t need to bend the knee but we’re past the point where there should be any expectation of privacy in public spaces. I’m not saying I like it, I’m saying I expect our society to continue to move towards a surveillance model where privacy simply cannot be expected in any public space.
Do I think it’s dystopian and bad, yes, yes I do. I also think we need strong privacy protections for our private domiciles. That doesn’t mean my opinion is aligned with what actually is going to happen in our world.
I don’t want it but it’s what is going to happen and has been happening.
“Here’s a list of reasons why all hope is lost and you too should bend the knee.”
That’s all I read. C.O.W.A.R.D.
You’re a silly person, aren’t ya.
Yeah fuck me for acknowledging AR glasses or other AR tech could be very useful but it’s being limited by our privacy concerns that are basically theater at this point.
Truly I am so cowardly Mr big internet man.
While I agree that AR glasses will become widespread, there’s still time to advocate for and implement privacy focused regulations. Especially early on as people are upset about the technology
While not perfect solutions, enforcing stuff such as recording LEDs and such are steps in the right direction
If you want to bend and spread, you do you. You don’t have to tell us to “get over” it and share your fetish. That’s a not-nice thing to do.
I’m just being realistic about the future. You already are carrying around a machine that’s listening and watching. You’re walking into and out of stores where you’re on camera. Hell you’re driving past however many cameras in your car or walking past them on the street, every business, every office, every space has cameras now.
Thus, I think eventually more and more augmented reality devices will be seen because people will come to appreciate their uses outside of just being recording devices once that concern is overcome. In other words, wearing AR glasses won’t get you default labeled as some perverted weirdo.
You don’t need to bend over and spread but we’re past the point where there should be any expectation of privacy in public spaces. I’m not saying I like it, I’m saying I expect our society to continue to move towards a surveillance model where privacy simply cannot be expected in any public space.
Do I think it’s dystopian and bad, yes, yes I do. I also think we need strong privacy protections for our private domiciles. That doesn’t mean my opinion is aligned with what actually is going to happen in our world.
I don’t want it but it’s what is going to happen and has been happening.
but an open-hardware device running a FOSS AR system? Until these display my health, ammo and the direction to my next objective, I’ll pass.
I mean, eventually there are going to be people with camera’s stealthily integrated directly into their eyeballs recording non-stop.
Like that black mirror episode letting people relive any moment from their past.
The wireless communication protocol will still be able to be intercepted. A physical port for data transfer will probably be too dangerous to the subject and prone to contamination (and infection).
Perfect response. Record someone without consent, it should be the last time those glasses are wearable.
I can’t speak to the laws in other nations but in the US it depends a lot on where they’re recording. If you’re just out on the street, it’s not only not a crime to record in public, it’s a protected right. So if you punch them they’d be solidly in their rights to mace you or break your legs, maybe even shoot you in many states. And then have you arrested and force you to pay for a new pair of glasses.
But if they were doing that shit on private property or somewhere worse like a restroom, give them the ol western bouncer treatment and send them flying out the door with a broken pair of glasses. I mean you could assault them out bin public too, but there could be some unpleasant consequences.
Breaking someone’s legs requires excessive force, so no, you would not be within your rights to break someone’s legs for punching you in the face. That would absolutely be an escalation of force and not legally defendable.
In order to shoot someone in self defense, you have to prove that you feared for your life. Its not a get out of jail free card.
It really depends on the state. Quite a few people have been killed by being sucker punched. So if you punch someone out of the blue they can say they feared for their life.
And breaking legs, the amount of force depends on the person. My daughter broke her own legs twice just by slipping on a stair a little. What if they’re carrying a retractable baton and when you punch them they hit you in the knee with it? Not unreasonable in a lot of the US.
Again though, its not a get out of jail free card. There needs to be a clear threat to life and limb. Just being punched is not an invitation to shoot somebody. Stop spreading false and dangerous information.
It apparently works with the bluetooth signals which I found really smart.
Couldn’t people who specifically want to stealthily record people just turn off the bluetooth?
I believe Bluetooth is always on with the Meta glasses, at least the last gen. They offload everything to the phone. I got a pair as a work gift and only use them as sunglasses with headphones built-in so I can listen to podcasts on walks.
My partner got a pair for work when they first came out (her job involves creating social media content). I was impressed by the speakers and it’s the same style of sunglasses that I normally wear daily, so I got a pair for myself. It was so nice to be able to listen to stuff and take calls without carry around headphones or putting them in when the phone rang. I was already uncomfortable with the association with meta, but was able to isolate that aspect at first. As they continued to add features, I’ve started being less comfortable with them. I accidentally left them somewhere a couple months ago and decided not to replace them. It’s such a bummer that all the cool tech is now not just spying on you, but on everyone around you. Fuckin capitalism ruins everything.
now if i could get that app without a phone, and with a warning of nearby phones too…
Prolly use a Flipper Zero
Warning: there is probably a bunch of phones near you right now.
