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If the camera has its own co-located IR source, you can just use a normal retro-reflective hoodie like this one https://www.amazon.com/TR-Super-Bright-Reflectiv

If the camera has its own co-located IR source, you can just use a normal retro-reflective hoodie like this one https://www.amazon.com/TR-Super-Bright-Reflective-Jacket/dp/B01N1G1PSR https://www.amazon.com/TR-Super-Bright-Reflective-Jacket/dp/... (also great for walking/biking at night). In a dark area it completely obscures your face (https://twitter.com/frankus/status/1499257277894705155 https://twitter.com/frankus/status/1499257277894705155), and you have plausible deniability in terms of wearing it specifically for defeating cameras.

dmix 4y ago
> It's nice and subdued in a sort of futuristic way until you shine a light on it, at which point it's almost painfully reflective. Is there any downside to these? Such as distracting cars or blinding other cyclists?
- frankus 4y ago
  Just doing the physics in my head, I think it’s slightly less bright than the light source shining on it viewed from the same distance. So probably no more distracting to the person with the light than the light is to the person wearing the hoodie. In any case it’s a similar material as road signs that are a similar size.
  - knodi123 4y ago
    > In any case it’s a similar material as road signs that are a similar size. Exactly. If anything, for this scenario, it would increase your visibility in a good way!
  - petters 4y ago
    Significantly less bright.
- natebc 4y ago
  The reflections from these jackets are not dazzling so much as ... broad spectrum? Basically they just look like a bright white sheet. Very hard to miss, hopefully.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  Isn't that the point? To distract cars - to draw attention to you - so they don't not see you riding / running / walking on the side of the road and run you over?
  - thaumaturgy 4y ago
    Drivers may develop target fixation and inadvertently steer towards something they want to avoid. It's thought to be one of the reasons that so many cars manage to nail light poles and trees dead-center.
    - sacrosancty 4y ago
      When they've already lost most control and are panicking, yes. But it's completely normal for cyclists to wear reflective clothing to make themselves visible. Even cars have retroflectors on their taillights for this purpose. No road user is trying to hide in the dark in the hopes that drivers won't get fixated on them!
  - dmix 4y ago
    I'd rather have the car well aware of me as a cyclist than interfere with their vision. But as others have pointed out it doesn't seem to be an issue.
    - jcul 4y ago
      Yeah, there's a line you don't want to cross. When I used to ride a motorcycle, I remember lots of riders used to advise having your full lights on when driving during the day, so you were more noticeable to motorists. However, I noticed a driver holding up their hand to shield their eyes while I was riding during the day. Needless to say I didn't do that any longer after that. You want to be noticed but not cause an accident!
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        Yes, as a driver and cyclist agree this is a bad idea.
- NotACop182 4y ago
  My guess Tesla will run you over. No for real what effects will this have on automated systems
  - technofiend 4y ago
    The idea of a Tesla self-driving system getting target fixation and driving towards the thing it should avoid is hilarious to me. And it also makes me wonder how likely that is to actually happen. Is the model weight of "shiny, bright reflective thing in IR spectrum" for "probably a road reflector, avoid" higher than "probably some water in the road, so that must be where the road is"? (Obviously totally made up examples).
    - cj 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - swatcoder 4y ago
        Someone can wish no ill to others, yet still find irony or absurdity in things that already happened. It's something that both victims and witnesses often do as a way of processing life's darker realities. Please don't tell other people how they should experience tragedy or speak on behalf of victims. You're no better situated to do that the person you responded to.
      - PebblesRox 4y ago
        I was curious about the result of the investigation since the article you linked said it was not yet known whether the self-driving features of the Tesla were active during the accident. The outcome of the investigation was that the Autopilot was not engaged and the cause of this particular crash was human error: "Per the investigation, the car data showed that the driver hit the gas pedal rather than the brake. The Model S then entered the rest stop, going 60 mph, hitting a curb and then the trailer." https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/deadly-tesla-model-s-crash-in-florida-ruled-as-human-error/ https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/deadly-tesla-model-s-crash-... And another source that's not a Tesla-focused website: https://www.mainstreetdailynews.com/featured/fhp-human-error-fatal-tesla-crash https://www.mainstreetdailynews.com/featured/fhp-human-error... I'm not saying Tesla's self-driving tech is safe or trustworthy, but this is not a relevant example.
- xoa 4y ago
  >Is there any downside to these? Such as distracting cars or blinding other cyclists? One speculative possible downside: others have answered the human aspect, but in the context of security/privacy OP is being perhaps a little blase with "plausible deniability", or at least it may vary by region? I can see why such a jacket could be useful and why a cyclist or jogger or the like would wear one, same as other visibility enhancing gear. But at the same time I've never ever seen such a thing anywhere in our state. And on camera it apparently looks like a neon sign. Sure, that obscures your face, but at the same time it will instantly draw the attention of any human security watching or potentially of AI if it's been tasked to look for such outliers. If it caught on and a quarter or half or whatever people were wearing such things at night then that wouldn't matter again, but anything that makes one "unique" in a crowd, regardless of what it is, represents signal. If someone is the only one (or one of only a couple) wearing something like that then even without their face they could still be tracked uniquely just by that. And with advances in later generation biometrics like gait analysis wearing such a thing might not only fail to stop individualized identification, but also leak information in terms of "this person is trying to hide their identity" which might correlate to groups in ways hard to predict. Of course again, that could be taken as an argument to try to make all this sort of thing more of a trend, but there is a first-mover calculation to make maybe depending on what someone is trying to accomplish. If one just wants to help hide others or mess around with camera tracking for the fun of it though that'd be no problem. It's the same kind of dilemma as all sorts of other "blend with the crowd" stuff, like Tor say. If everyone ran an onion router (ignoring current gen scaling issues) then there'd be zero signal from doing so, the protection offered would be strongest, and also the vast majority of traffic would be completely boring and legitimate because so would almost all the users. It'd be much harder to crack down on as well. If only a few people run it and specifically do so to conduct covert activity, well the mere act of doing so then potentially leaks a bit. And both sides are subject to reinforcing effects, if "everyone does it" and "it's normal" and "almost entirely legit" then that makes it easy for anyone new to join, constantly reinforcing the network. Conversely if it's something strange with whiffs of criminality, then many won't which in turn reinforces it being strange and those using it maybe having something suspicious going on. Bootstrapping that can be a tough nut. Anyway just sort of thinking out loud so to speak. For cameras I'm leaning towards ultimately some sort of legal response being needed, and that individuals trying to evade it is probably a losing battle.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  I see a bunch of people wearing these, and when driving at night, they become really really visible, in a good way. They're less bright than lights from oncoming traffic, so not an issue of being 'too bright', but you can still see the pedestrian from far away, realize it's a human (a lot easier than with reflective strips or dots), and drive accordingly. 10/10, would recommend to pedestrians walking on the steet at night!
  - mzerod 4y ago
    I had one of these type of jackets and quickly found that they set off IR-controlled hand wash taps in the toilet facilities at a certain airport. 10/10, would recommend for very clean hands.
- hoseja 4y ago
  Like... normal reflective strips? You will not blind anybody, this is great for safety IMO.
chrononaut 4y ago
Wow, for a minute I thought someone did a low effort superimposition of a logo of the jacket or something into the image. Took me a moment to work out that scene.
tempestn 4y ago
Would depend why one doesn't want to be seen by cameras I suppose. I imagine in many activities where one would want to avoid being recorded, one would also want to avoid wearing the most visible and noticeable garment possible.
inasio 4y ago
I helped put up trail markers on backcountry ski trails, we used orange 3M ones with the micro cube corners that reflected an insane amount of light, life savers when in the middle of a storm. I always wondered what a jacket out of that material would be like, thanks for the link!

dmix 4y ago

> It's nice and subdued in a sort of futuristic way until you shine a light on it, at which point it's almost painfully reflective. Is there any downside to these? Such as distracting cars or blinding other cyclists?

frankus 4y ago
Just doing the physics in my head, I think it’s slightly less bright than the light source shining on it viewed from the same distance. So probably no more distracting to the person with the light than the light is to the person wearing the hoodie. In any case it’s a similar material as road signs that are a similar size.
- knodi123 4y ago
  > In any case it’s a similar material as road signs that are a similar size. Exactly. If anything, for this scenario, it would increase your visibility in a good way!
- petters 4y ago
  Significantly less bright.
natebc 4y ago
The reflections from these jackets are not dazzling so much as ... broad spectrum? Basically they just look like a bright white sheet. Very hard to miss, hopefully.
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
Isn't that the point? To distract cars - to draw attention to you - so they don't not see you riding / running / walking on the side of the road and run you over?
- thaumaturgy 4y ago
  Drivers may develop target fixation and inadvertently steer towards something they want to avoid. It's thought to be one of the reasons that so many cars manage to nail light poles and trees dead-center.
  - sacrosancty 4y ago
    When they've already lost most control and are panicking, yes. But it's completely normal for cyclists to wear reflective clothing to make themselves visible. Even cars have retroflectors on their taillights for this purpose. No road user is trying to hide in the dark in the hopes that drivers won't get fixated on them!
- dmix 4y ago
  I'd rather have the car well aware of me as a cyclist than interfere with their vision. But as others have pointed out it doesn't seem to be an issue.
  - jcul 4y ago
    Yeah, there's a line you don't want to cross. When I used to ride a motorcycle, I remember lots of riders used to advise having your full lights on when driving during the day, so you were more noticeable to motorists. However, I noticed a driver holding up their hand to shield their eyes while I was riding during the day. Needless to say I didn't do that any longer after that. You want to be noticed but not cause an accident!
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      Yes, as a driver and cyclist agree this is a bad idea.
NotACop182 4y ago
My guess Tesla will run you over. No for real what effects will this have on automated systems
- technofiend 4y ago
  The idea of a Tesla self-driving system getting target fixation and driving towards the thing it should avoid is hilarious to me. And it also makes me wonder how likely that is to actually happen. Is the model weight of "shiny, bright reflective thing in IR spectrum" for "probably a road reflector, avoid" higher than "probably some water in the road, so that must be where the road is"? (Obviously totally made up examples).
  - cj 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - swatcoder 4y ago
      Someone can wish no ill to others, yet still find irony or absurdity in things that already happened. It's something that both victims and witnesses often do as a way of processing life's darker realities. Please don't tell other people how they should experience tragedy or speak on behalf of victims. You're no better situated to do that the person you responded to.
    - PebblesRox 4y ago
      I was curious about the result of the investigation since the article you linked said it was not yet known whether the self-driving features of the Tesla were active during the accident. The outcome of the investigation was that the Autopilot was not engaged and the cause of this particular crash was human error: "Per the investigation, the car data showed that the driver hit the gas pedal rather than the brake. The Model S then entered the rest stop, going 60 mph, hitting a curb and then the trailer." https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/deadly-tesla-model-s-crash-in-florida-ruled-as-human-error/ https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/deadly-tesla-model-s-crash-... And another source that's not a Tesla-focused website: https://www.mainstreetdailynews.com/featured/fhp-human-error-fatal-tesla-crash https://www.mainstreetdailynews.com/featured/fhp-human-error... I'm not saying Tesla's self-driving tech is safe or trustworthy, but this is not a relevant example.
xoa 4y ago
>Is there any downside to these? Such as distracting cars or blinding other cyclists? One speculative possible downside: others have answered the human aspect, but in the context of security/privacy OP is being perhaps a little blase with "plausible deniability", or at least it may vary by region? I can see why such a jacket could be useful and why a cyclist or jogger or the like would wear one, same as other visibility enhancing gear. But at the same time I've never ever seen such a thing anywhere in our state. And on camera it apparently looks like a neon sign. Sure, that obscures your face, but at the same time it will instantly draw the attention of any human security watching or potentially of AI if it's been tasked to look for such outliers. If it caught on and a quarter or half or whatever people were wearing such things at night then that wouldn't matter again, but anything that makes one "unique" in a crowd, regardless of what it is, represents signal. If someone is the only one (or one of only a couple) wearing something like that then even without their face they could still be tracked uniquely just by that. And with advances in later generation biometrics like gait analysis wearing such a thing might not only fail to stop individualized identification, but also leak information in terms of "this person is trying to hide their identity" which might correlate to groups in ways hard to predict. Of course again, that could be taken as an argument to try to make all this sort of thing more of a trend, but there is a first-mover calculation to make maybe depending on what someone is trying to accomplish. If one just wants to help hide others or mess around with camera tracking for the fun of it though that'd be no problem. It's the same kind of dilemma as all sorts of other "blend with the crowd" stuff, like Tor say. If everyone ran an onion router (ignoring current gen scaling issues) then there'd be zero signal from doing so, the protection offered would be strongest, and also the vast majority of traffic would be completely boring and legitimate because so would almost all the users. It'd be much harder to crack down on as well. If only a few people run it and specifically do so to conduct covert activity, well the mere act of doing so then potentially leaks a bit. And both sides are subject to reinforcing effects, if "everyone does it" and "it's normal" and "almost entirely legit" then that makes it easy for anyone new to join, constantly reinforcing the network. Conversely if it's something strange with whiffs of criminality, then many won't which in turn reinforces it being strange and those using it maybe having something suspicious going on. Bootstrapping that can be a tough nut. Anyway just sort of thinking out loud so to speak. For cameras I'm leaning towards ultimately some sort of legal response being needed, and that individuals trying to evade it is probably a losing battle.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
I see a bunch of people wearing these, and when driving at night, they become really really visible, in a good way. They're less bright than lights from oncoming traffic, so not an issue of being 'too bright', but you can still see the pedestrian from far away, realize it's a human (a lot easier than with reflective strips or dots), and drive accordingly. 10/10, would recommend to pedestrians walking on the steet at night!
- mzerod 4y ago
  I had one of these type of jackets and quickly found that they set off IR-controlled hand wash taps in the toilet facilities at a certain airport. 10/10, would recommend for very clean hands.
hoseja 4y ago
Like... normal reflective strips? You will not blind anybody, this is great for safety IMO.

chrononaut 4y ago

Wow, for a minute I thought someone did a low effort superimposition of a logo of the jacket or something into the image. Took me a moment to work out that scene.

tempestn 4y ago

Would depend why one doesn't want to be seen by cameras I suppose. I imagine in many activities where one would want to avoid being recorded, one would also want to avoid wearing the most visible and noticeable garment possible.

inasio 4y ago

I helped put up trail markers on backcountry ski trails, we used orange 3M ones with the micro cube corners that reflected an insane amount of light, life savers when in the middle of a storm. I always wondered what a jacket out of that material would be like, thanks for the link!