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I still wonder if it would be possible for a rogue concert goer to hijack a side of the stadium to display something. All sorts of trouble you could cause.
by eastdakota 2y ago
I still wonder if it would be possible for a rogue concert goer to hijack a side of the stadium to display something. All sorts of trouble you could cause.
- stavros 2y agoWell, it would, if you had a 30W infrared spotlight with you.
- eastdakota 2y agoWhich begs the question: how hard is it to build a 30W, portable IR spotlight that you could get through a concert’s metal detector unnoticed?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mcpherrinm 2y ago> Taking photos/videos on small hand-held cameras and smartphones is permitted. I suspect you could fit that into the form factor for a "small hand-held camera" that is apparently permitted into the tour.
- amluto 2y agoIt would be a fantastic form factor. After all, such a device wants a decently large battery, focusing optics, and an emitting surface at the focal plane big enough to dissipate the waste heat. This sounds a lot like a small digital camera with the sensor removed and an IR LED array put in its place. Anyone aiming such a device across the venue would be extremely obvious, as everyone else’s inadequately filtered camera would see it :)
- risenshinetech 2y agoRight, because people looking through their cameras at all of the chaos, flashing lights and pulsating wristbands would _definitely_ notice one human being standing there with an IR transmitter and be able to understand what they were looking at.
- themoonisachees 2y agoI think at least a few photography nerds would notice the 30W white blob coming from where you're standing. Now whether that would get you in trouble...
- TeMPOraL 2y agoThey already have an even more powerful IR spotlight sweeping over the stadium; if that isn't ruining the photos, then I doubt the attacker's 30W source would even register.
- CydeWeys 2y agoCan confirm that everyone there is taking shitloads of photos and videos with their phones and I've never seen the stadium IR emitter appear in any of them.
- stavros 2y agoThe battery to run a 30W thing and the cooling required to dissipate it would look much closer to a large hand flashlight (the 3kg ones, with the handle) than a camera.
- jvanderbot 2y agoYou'd need a whole row of conspirators to bring in camera-sized components that could be fit together ...
- fmj 2y agoA single 18650 can do much more than 30W. My Emisar D4v2 can pull ~17A from a single 18650 on turbo mode, and it's not much bigger than the battery itself. I carry it on my belt everyday. It starts to get a little uncomfortable to hold and eventually triggers the thermal protection after about a minute of continuous turbo use, but that's more than enough for a quick prank. It runs an open source firmware too, so I could theoretically swap in some IR LEDs and program it with the appropriate modulation.
- amne 2y agodrones? that's a whole 'nother can of worms but it could work if you really .. really .. really want to be part of the light show.
- eastdakota 2y agoOh… drones are a really devious idea. You can imagine all sorts of political messages that someone may want to leverage an event like this to broadcast.
- tracerbulletx 2y agoFlying a drone over a major concert is liable to get you charged with terrorism somehow even if you're just trying to do a prank.
- bigiain 2y agoDoesn't need to be big enough to scare people that badly. You could sneak a heap of something like this into any big concert venue pretty easily: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004496779816.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004496779816.html open them up and switch out the visible light LEDs for modulated IR ones, add a tiny microcontroller to send pre programmed data. Get you and a dozen friends to launch them all at the same time...
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoI wouldn't be surprised if concerts have anti-drone countermeasures in place already, given safety concerns.
- throwup238 2y agoLike what? This isn’t a battlefield, the FCC isn’t going to let them do any jamming and they sure as hell aren’t putting up CIWS cannons all over the place.
- 2y ago
- rahkiin 2y agoGo to a country where they do not use metal detectors in concerts
- lupire 2y agoIs 30W enough for a stadium audience?
- alecco 2y agoThere are a few at great locations in the stadium already.
- K0balt 2y agoIt transmits a code, so you’d have to clone the signal but I’m pretty sure it’s not cryptographic or anything.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoWhat about those super bright handheld LED flashlights that have the power of the sun? I mean one of their products is a big flashlight sized control rod, so they already exist.
- Liftyee 2y ago> a big flashlight sized control rod "Disclaimer: Use in nuclear reactors not recommended." ;)
- eastdakota 2y agoAlso wonder if there’s a buffer overflow attack or some command that could cause them to get stuck flashing rapidly or something that would be really annoying. Surprised by the lack of encryption or any security on devices like these. For a long time there was no encryption on the Shure wireless mics most big shows use. Hopefully that’s been corrected as that seems like a real way you could cause (dangerous) problems at an event like a stadium concert.
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago> Surprised by the lack of encryption or any security on devices like these. Note how the worst scenario you could think of was "get stuck flashing rapidly". That's why there's no encryption. I suppose you could (partially) ruin a concert if you infected all (or most) of the wristbands with your random blinking virus. But hitting so many would be hard, and for what gain?
- yardstick 2y agoSeems more like the sort of thing someone at 4chan or similar would do, just because they could. For shits and giggles.
- Wowfunhappy 2y agoBut how is a random 4chaner getting a bluetooth signal close enough to all parts of the stadium without being noticed?
- iceburgcrm 2y agoInside person or from above or from below
- Wowfunhappy 2y agoThis is a really lame James Bond movie! I recognize that it is technically possible to cause mischief with these things, but they require access to substantial resources and are likely to get you arrested, all in the pursuit of basically nothing.
- celso 2y agoThis reminds me of TV-B-Gone https://www.tvbgone.com/ https://www.tvbgone.com/
- jgrahamc 2y agoI owned one of those.