Wrong warning
FIFY: “Don’t stop at merely harassing glassholes.”
Hide from Meta's spyglasses with this new Android app
Worried that someone wearing Meta's snooping spyware goggles could be creeping up on you? Android users now have access to an app that can warn them if someone is wearing such smart glasses in their vicinity by using Bluetooth. Last week, Yves Jeanrenaud, a deputy professor at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences in …
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Thursday 26th February 2026 01:41 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wrong warning
I live in Massachusetts, a 2-party consent State, (G.L. c. 272, § 99). Violating Massachusetts' two-party consent law (G.L. c. 272, § 99) is a felony that carries severe penalties, including up to 5 years in state prison or 2.5 years in a house of correction, and fines of up to $10,000. The law requires all parties to consent to the recording of private, in-person, or electronic conversations.
Filming/recording of private, in-person, or electronic conversations without getting your consent ahead of time? Call the cops and have their asses thrown in jail.
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Thursday 26th February 2026 06:45 GMT Jou (Mxyzptlk)
Re: Wrong warning
AFAIK this only applies if the AREA they are in is regarded as private, 'cause in public no one can expect a private conversation. Train, streets, plazas, casinos, bars, shopping mall etc etc are regarded as "public". Though the latter three can have "house rules" with clear visible sign that no cameras are wanted. And then you better follow the rule, at least when someone reminds you, 'cause you might lose on court if the jury says so even though the latter three are regarded as public.
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Friday 6th March 2026 06:45 GMT MachDiamond
Re: Wrong warning
"Though the latter three can have "house rules" with clear visible sign that no cameras are wanted."
Casinos, bars and shopping malls are private property, not public, so they can institute reasonable rules on people while on their property. I think at most you could be trespassed from the property if you violate the rules. If you leave, it's all over. If you don't leave or return, that's when it becomes a crime and you wind up in court (US).
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Thursday 26th February 2026 15:42 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Wrong warning
I suspect you'll also get into trouble in Switzerland. It's not widely known, but things like for instance dashcams are technically illegal in Switzerland and should be switched off.
That is, it was like that a few years ago. Not certain what it's like now because the Swiss seem to be teetering on the brink of giving in so much to US demands that Proton is threatening to up sticks and go elsewhere.
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Friday 27th February 2026 10:27 GMT An_Old_Dog
Good Luck "Calling the Police"
1. The glassholes can and will simply walk or run away; they won't wait for the police to arrive.
2. There are also ordinances against littering and jaywalking. Note the (lack of) effect they have. Despite the "ooh, it's a felony with big scary potential penalties!" factor, it's not going to be on the police's list-of-things-they-care-about. They've got murders to solve.
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Friday 27th February 2026 10:47 GMT that one in the corner
Re: I wouldn't want to "warn" about it
Absolutely.
Display specs would be very useful to have; as I've commented before, I'd've loved to have a pair for use at work, ever since seeing 'em on Tomorrow's World.
The addition of cameras to all the "well known" brands is a PITA, even bringing up the subject nowadays veers towards privacy and "I'd punch you". Plus any without cameras are rubbish displays or "specialist" and up goes the price, even for something with no processing of its own.
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Friday 27th February 2026 23:03 GMT DS999
Re: I wouldn't want to "warn" about it
Glasses (or rather frames) that have video recording capability onto a microSD card have been available for years. You wouldn't even know they were capable of it, the camera is extremely well disguised and other than the frame being on the bulkier side you could never guess it. And there are plenty of bulky frames for sale purely as a fashion choice (or for people who have thick lenses) so that's not a way to identify them either.
I'm more concerned with the privacy violation and potential for abuse if you had glasses that were constantly grabbing faces and trying to match them off pictures on Facebook/Instagram. Many to many face matching (especially at that scale) is pretty poor, but imagine the consequences if there was a "wanted" armed and dangerous criminal in an area and some Rambo ICE wannabe who is carrying (this part is US only) is notified about a match when they're walking down the street and decide to perform a citizen's arrest. Or worse, decide to take on who their glasses report to be that person but aren't.
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Thursday 26th February 2026 08:45 GMT Bebu sa Ware
Re: I wouldn't want to "warn" about it
I'd want my phone to start spitting out bluetooth garbage at a higher than legal power level to make their spyglasses useless.
Search "jamming BLE" to get plenty of results
eg
https://circuitdigest.com/news/rf-clown-an-opensource-bluetooth-jamming-tool
https://github.com/sammwyy/BLEeding
Filming or photographing people even overtly, without their permission has always been considered rude and the height of bad manners. Seemingly less so now because that's the world we live in. The poorest excuse for even poorer behaviour.
I am wondering with enough power whether software defined radio with beam forming, could fry this Meta·tat. The spectacle of Zucker·prat having sparks flying from the sides of his… spectacles, would be worth paying for.
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Thursday 26th February 2026 08:01 GMT that one in the corner
Did it remind you to switch on "location"?
Irony? Because Android has tied using Bluetooth to the location & GNSS function, there are so many accusations of innocent developers snooping on users' (because the app is trying to talk BT to a toy car or whatever) but will the privacy minded users also refuse apps like this one?
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Friday 27th February 2026 11:11 GMT that one in the corner
Not (specifically) tied to hardware; it started to happen after an Android update, so a device that was well-behaved became a PITA.
A PITA because GNSS helps run the battery down; which is why (many) radio modules provide control over which submodules are powered. And then Android...
AFAIK the use of location and BT tied together all comes from the proliferation of BLE and the continual advertising from "tags", the "fine location" using nearby ids to tie you down; whether Google tied the two together the other way around in order to use your phone to build their map of tags is another matter...
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Thursday 26th February 2026 11:17 GMT BebopWeBop
"Our terms of service clearly state that users are responsible for complying with all applicable laws and for using Ray-Ban Meta glasses in a safe, respectful manner. And as with any recording device, people shouldn't use them for engaging in harmful activities like harassment, infringing on privacy rights, or capturing sensitive information"
Good luck with that.
I would suggest they issue instructions about use
1. Don't
2. If not 1 be prepared to be thumped when people notice
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Thursday 26th February 2026 13:10 GMT kmorwath
"It's generally legal to record video in public"
Just like to take photos - now, publishing them requires permissions from the people involved, in most jurisdiction, for few exceptions like news reporting.
Anyway since they can't make such devices useful to display informations to the wearer, they switch to the low-hanging fruit of taking photos and video of other people, so at least peepers buy them.
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Friday 27th February 2026 03:33 GMT MachDiamond
Re: "It's generally legal to record video in public"
"Just like to take photos - now, publishing them requires permissions from the people involved, in most jurisdiction,"
No. Using an image of somebody in advertising would require a release in some instances, but you can publish all the photos you like otherwise that have been taken in public.
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Friday 27th February 2026 11:54 GMT kmorwath
Re: "It's generally legal to record video in public"
No, you can't, in many jurisdiction. You can use them privately, you can't publish them. While you "social" page may be regarded still as a private space, even if publicly available, you can't use photos of people, and even many objects, when they are protected by copyright, at will.
And if there are minors involved, it's even worse. Or when biometric data are gathered because they are specifically protected by laws like GDPR.
The fact that many violations are not persecutted because the people in the images are unware of it doesn't matter. And that's why "social media" needed a law to not be responsible of what is published on their systems by people....
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Saturday 28th February 2026 20:38 GMT MachDiamond
Re: "It's generally legal to record video in public"
"No, you can't, in many jurisdiction."
Yes!
One of my gigs is working as a professional photographer and have gone through loads of training on releases, copyright and the like. There's been cases such as a "fine art" photographer that was sued for taking and selling prints of undressed people in neighboring high rise buildings that he could see from his. The judge found that those people were "in public" since they could be seen by somebody looking out of their own window and the photographer wasn't employing any tactics to get around visual barriers such as using a pole to peek over a fence into a yard that wasn't overlooked by a neighboring property.
While you may not agree, the law isn't always what we want it to be. If I take a photo of you and sell it to an advertiser without a signed release, you could sue. Even if you signed a release, there are restrictions if it isn't specific about things such as drug use, religion, medical issues or sexual deviancy to name a few. If you are under 18, there are no allowances for those special releases.
Copyright is protection for creative works. You can't copyright a building or a person. A creative work also has to meet certain criteria to be covered. Some iconic buildings have a Trademark but that doesn't mean they'd have to be edited out of a skyline photo for the photo to be licensed. What it applies to is if I took a photo featuring the Empire State Building and it was used by an advertising without permission from the building owner. I, as the photographer, can certainly license a photo I made of the Empire State, it's the use case that could be an issue. If my customer was creating a coffee table book of famous buildings around the world, no permission would need to be sought. BTW, I don't have a photo of the building but a publisher I worked for did have an office there.
The exemption you mention for "social media" is the "Safe Harbor Act" that agrees with those portals that they can't review everything that user's submit and are shielded from most lawsuits provided they address complaints in a timely manner (very quickly) to be covered.
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Friday 27th February 2026 03:36 GMT MachDiamond
Re: IR LED flare hat
"ISTR someone developed an IR LED jamming device for all cameras. "
Most cameras have an IR filter or they'd be hopeless. "IR cameras" are often ones that have not had the filter installed. I know my phone is more sensitive to IR than some which makes it handy to see if a remote is working. It's faster to do that than to dig out the interface I built but if I need to see what the codes are, I need the interface plugged into my DSO.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
