Technology for Undercover Journalists? 50
Undercover Journalist asks: "I need to take pictures and video in an area where soldiers/police will try to stop me if they saw what I am doing or/and confiscate my equipment. I need a rig that will allow unobtrusive taking of video/pictures and a way to transmit these images out as soon as I take them. I am thinking on a very small digital camera that can link to a notebook/pda that will spool the stream and use wireless to send the stream to a back-office for emailing it. Preferably, I should be able to script things, e.g. automatic, hand free operation and self-delete of files after transmission. The equipment should be at consumer level pricing. I don't have CIA budgets. I would appreciate thoughts about the kind of rig that would work best."
I have an idea (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I have an idea (Score:2)
Re:I have an idea (Score:1)
hobbyist stuff (Score:3, Informative)
[wirelessvideocameras.com]
http://www.wirelessvideocameras.com/hobbyequip.
The quality may not be so hot but they're small, lightweight and don't need a lot of battery power. The idea being you could have some sort of 'base station' a mile or so away that receives and records the images and/or video.
Sorry (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Sorry (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Sorry (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sorry (Score:1)
Sure you do.... (Score:1)
Hi, I'm a thirteen year old video game fanatic with an overburdened imagination. I thought I'd make up this really exotic sounding question and get on the front page of Slashdot!
Re:Sure you do.... (Score:1)
Re:Sure you do.... (Score:1)
Wireless Mini-Cameras (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wireless Mini-Cameras (Score:2, Informative)
Probably not. That thing only has about a 100 foot range. I'm thinking he'll need something a bit more powerful.
This Just In.... (Score:5, Funny)
Senator Fritz Hollings (D - Disney) called for an immediate retaliatory air strike against the website, for "giving aid and comfort to the enemy". At press time, DoD officials were looking into how exactly to launch an air strike against a website, but had no further comment.
Undercover Terrorist asks (Score:2)
Ooo! Ooo! John Ashcroft asked me to be aware of these people!
Well, everyone knows that Slashdot is the place to ask if you want to remain unobtrusive.
Re:Undercover Terrorist asks (Score:2)
Milhouse: "Let's post it on the Internet!"
Bart: "No, we have to tell people who actually matter."
Re:Peeping Tom/Pedophile seeks video help (Score:1)
Hostile Territory, shyeah right (Score:1)
Sounds like to me that this hostile territory is probaly the dressing room at Macy's.
uh, I'm heading to a strip bar.... (Score:1)
I'm a photojournalist, and I don't want the police to know I'm taking pictures - yeah, that's the ticket!
two sides to every coin (Score:2, Insightful)
every one of you assuming this user is a terrorist, or is involved in some sort of corporate espionage, or something otherwise evil, is as bad as the riaa assuming users downloading mp3s are doing so just to take money out of their pockets.
there could be VALID reasons for the writer to need to do what they do. just because youre assuming the worst doesnt mean it should be illegal.
this is poorly written because im a piss poor writer, so maybe someone with half a brain write proper post. thanks.
Re:two sides to every coin (Score:1)
Re:two sides to every coin (Score:1)
Re:two sides to every coin (Score:2)
Two words: freelance journalism
Re:two sides to every coin (Score:2, Informative)
I think that I heard an argument like this recently... what was it? Oh yes, if DeCSS was legitimate, it would have a corporation behind it.
As we all know, the good guys always have bank books.
Last I checked, terrorists and industrial spies were the ones who had money. My university newspaper did some undercover work in local restaurants... think that they had money?
I don't understand how someone can say "financial backing == valid" and not get laughed out of the place.
fishy
Re:two sides to every coin (Score:1)
Not flamebait, but not close reading, either. The original poster says that "soldiers/police will try to stop me". Sorry, but that doesn't sound like investigative journalism to me. Maybe if "Undercover Journalist" said corporate security wouldn't like what he was doing I'd be more inclined to believe him. Journalists are supposed to be precise in conveying information in written form...
As it is, Undercover Journalist comes off as an Al Qaeda wannabe, or maybe some Earth Liberation Front nut. I hope that Undercover Journalist seriously reconsiders his/her plan. The paperwork you need to fill out after you shoot a domestic terrorist is a real PITA. :-)
Fiberoptic Lenses... (Score:4, Informative)
Its unfortunate that nobody is taking you seriously.
I was interested in this kind of setup back around 1990 when I wanted to do a documentary about the drug trade...but I never did do anything with it.
Anyway, what I was planning at that time was to use one of those really thin fiber-optic lenses with an exchangeable lense video camera. The thinking is the camera goes in a pocket, and the lense goes in the cuff of your shirt or coat sleave under your wrist. You life your wrist and aim, the fiber optics conveys the image to the camera...
They didn' thave exhcangeable lense video cameras then, but they do now. While the XL1 is too bulky to conceal, there is a sony camera with an exchangeable lense-- I think its the PD100. Its pretty small, rugged and designed for documentary work.
Doctors use these things a lot so prices must have come down. You could probably get set up for around $4,000.
That's one idea. I hadn't thought about the webcam type stuff. You might go looking around on the wearhard wearables list for clues. Those guys know small computers.
Re:Fiberoptic Lenses... (Score:2)
We have a series over here in the UK called Macyntyre Undercover. Some interesting stuff in it... all done on a big budget, but stuff you could learn from.
One cfact is that their radio links are not as reliable as they are in the movies. They get the video by local recording, but had in a recent program voice links so they could follow and protect him. He went off the designated route and behind a building and they lost voice contact...
Another thing that stuck in my mind was when he went after the Nigerian "borrow your bank account" fraudsters and got advice from a very experienced retired undercover cop. The cop kept telling him "don't wear a camera, they'll spot it". In the end they did and the program didn't go anywhere (most of his don't, revealing howw hard undercover stuff is).
P.S. for those worrying that we are furthering the aim of international terrorism, let us repeat the "Ask Slashdot" mantra: "if you have to ask slashdot how to do something as important as X, don't do it"
i *really* hate to say this.... (Score:1, Interesting)
wrong way to ask the question (Score:1)
The way it's stated right now, you come across as someone (not a journalist) trying to do something unethical, and probably illegal.
cell phone with built in camera ? (Score:4, Informative)
The cell phone option has the advantage that it's a piece of equipment that's fairly standard, giving you potential diability if caught -- they may not be immediately sure what you are doing.
On the other hand, if you have some cobbled together rats nest of radio and batteries strung through your underwear, it'll be hard to say "where did that come from ?"
There are "stick cameras" about the size of a small twinky bar. This connected to your laptop/pda, and the device dialing over a cell phone connection, may be the way to go. Are you willing to drop up to $1,500 to get it all working ? None of that crap is cheap. And don't expect the pictures to go flying out there as fast you take them, they are really slow connections. It's probably better (in a crowded environment anyway) to have another unsuspicious lookind drop guy in the crowd with his own 802.11 device, picking up the pictures for storage. That way if they grab you and take your shit, all that has to happen is the other guy has to make it out.
If you aren't going for the plausible deniability thing, here are some issues to consider:
-- Is the situation time-constrained ? Do you want pictures from that event in particular, or just random pictures of the area ?
-- How good a resolution do you need ? You can get cameras in the 480x640 pixel range at disposable prices (I mean $30 or so).
-- Is the place typical military tight-ship style, or is it "trashy" and disorganized civilian-style with a lot of people wandering in and out and no one person in charge of the general area ? In other words, can you leave a piece of equipment there for a while and depend on everyone thinking it is someone else's for long enough ?
-- Suppose you only have a short range radio, but a lot of storage -- like a zaurus (or cheap old laptop) with a camera in it. Can you abandon it there and depend on it being "exported" from the location by staff which doesn't check everything ? I.e., disguise it as trash and park accross the street from the dumpster every night for a week or so until you can connect and download everything (the device might not be worth the risk of actually getting out of your car; on the other hand, it can be non-wireless, and you have to depend on getting it.) Or, depending on how sloppy the place is, it may be transported to lost-and-found at the guard shack, helpfully close to the perimeter of the facility, so that you can connect to the device and get want you want without even approaching the security cameras.
-- If it has a lot of memory (hard disk sized) and you have it taking pictures every minute, have it take pictures for several days (or however long is necessary to almost fill it) before hand; it makes it easier to say you wrote the picture script and accidently turned it on and forgot about it.
-- Get your equipment in fairly untraceable way. Buy a laptop used for cash at a store, and if it already has the previous owner's files and etc on it, just leave them. (If you're in Houston check to see if the previous owner worked for Enron or Anderson; some people have made some finds and sold them to Chronicle reporters.)
-- You can make a boot-from-floppy OS (linux or dos, try modifying tomsrtbt) which will capture the pictures and put them on the disk or out on the cell phone modem encrypted, but on boot up after starting the ram disk dd's zeros to the floppy or otherwise munges it, so that when the people find it all they see is a dead floppy in the drive and an innocent win95 installation full of viruses and porn (no kiddie stuff though !)
-- Are the hosts taking there own pictures of the place through their security cameras, or their own designated photographers ? Security shacks are often close to the perimeter of smaller facilities (like an expanded guard shack at the main entreance) and if you can simply look through the window from far away with a telescope at the bank of monitors, sometimes that's cool enough. Then there's those van eck kits, though that might be harder than people say it is (never tried it myself).
-- Here's one that has worked in the past: shoot a several rolls of film (or disposable camera) at an event where you have turn your stuff in to the checked and mailed to you if it's ok. Turn in a couple of rolls to the PR guy to keep 'em happy, and the rest you just put in a FedEx packet addressed to you, and leave it there for some helpful flunky to put in the mail for you.
-- If one part of the event is filmable and one not, just carry your videocamera rolling with another tape in the other hand, flipping it over and over to attract attention to it magician style, so people will presume your camera is empty.
-- Is it the type of place where they check you going in, and then afterwards everybody just walks out with no security ? If so, can you plant your equipment there ahead of time, hidden somewhere, or even just left in plain sight ?
-- if you don't get the stuff out in a wireless fasion, can you burn it to CD or flash memory on the spot, and pass it off to another person, pickpocket style ?
-- Another thing people talk about but doesn't seem to work is getting inside a place, putting your pictures/recordings on a CD that has a program that autoruns to upload it, and just leaving the CD there marked "My XXX collection, vol. 16" and let some looser who works there stick it in his computer and get it out for you.
And one final suggestion -- are you ABSOLUTELY SURE they won't just let you take the pictures ? In plenty of instances, they may refuse at first, but if you present credentials and promise them that some of the pictures will be published then they turn around and let you (ironic that, but everyone wants there 15 minutes). I mean, if it was really secret, they wouldn't let you in at all, right ?
The only exceptions I can think to that would be places were the pictures were being controlled by a publicity monopoly (like a sporting event); maybe a court room or an execution. Executions are surprisingly tough to spy on. Look up on the web one of the most famous spy camera pictures of all time -- an early NY execution of a female in the chair, and some reporter strapped an old box-and-plate type camera to the ankle, and got a double exposure.
PDA + CDC + Modem (Score:2)
A [Zaurus] PDA (http://www.sharp.co.uk/pda/)
A [Zaurus] Digital Camera card (http://www.myzaurus.com/acc_Comm.asp)
A Cellular/Wireless Modem (http://www.sharpmobile.com/technical_specs.asp?s
The Zaurus PDA has the advantage over many alternatives of being hacker/developer friendly, it supports Java, is Linux based and even supports a bash shell.
Total cost is less than £1000 (or USD/EURO).
How paranoid are they? (Score:2)
You really need to access there level a paranoia before you start. High security military instalations just might happen to have radio locators to look for someone transmiting pictures.
If you have a right to be there, find out what you have a right to use. Normally cell phones are allowed. I'd get one of the super small cell phones you can buy, and one of the largest ones avaiable. Hack the guts from the small one into the big one along with a small computer and camera. But I have the electronic ablilty to do this.
If your budget is really that small, perhaps you should give up until they increase it. If you can't make enough selling those picture to someone else to cover your equipment needs, then perhaps you should find a different job. (Depending on why you want the pictures this may or may not apply, but you should consider it, if they won't pay for it, they might be looking for a decoy to attrack security's attention while their budgeted spy gets the scoup)
If it was me, I'd get a girl to put a corn flakes 110 camera in her purse, and take pictures that way. Girls have an advantage there, everyone expects femails to carry a purse everywhere, while guys cannot. (At least not in my country, other cultures may be different). Can you team up with a girl to secert this stuff in. A fairly large purse stuffed full is easy to hide things in, more so with seceret comparments. (if you can sew).
Can you get some decoy's? someone willing to get caught with a camera at critical times? Done right this can distract secruity allowing you to get away with it. however it can also backfire in that security will be looking for cameras.
Re:How paranoid are they? (Score:1, Informative)
In _any_ military environment, the answer to that is no, because it contains an over-the-air transmitter. Two way radios, Furbys, Laptops w/ IR's (some allow the use of masking tape as a cover), 802.11 devices, they're all banned. Likewise to anything that can make a recording -- tape recorders, Furbys, cameras, etc. The exception to these rules are certified devices purchased by the government (ie, gov't laptops, gov't cell phones, gov't purchased cameras, etc)
Lets hope our undercover friend isnt doing undercover work in the military.
G.Men with guns are trigger happy lately (Score:1, Insightful)
Weither or not what you want to do has any relation to terrorism, or even anything illegal is beside the point at the moment. You don't have to be a terrorist to be treated like on lately. I'm suffering from racial treatment from my boss at work cause I'm part egyptien. My advice to you is
Re:G.Men with guns are trigger happy lately (Score:1, Insightful)
The real sick thing is
My Thoughts (Score:2)
1) You need some kind of computer. Smaller is better. PC/104 is small enough to keep in a jacket pocket, if you clip off unused pins, and can be powered off of a power supply the size of a zippo... although if you're really going to go for wireless relaying, think of a camcorder battery as a more realistic size. For a more 'accessible' computer, look at http://www.embsd.org/order/sbc.html.
2) Memory. PC/104 often has disk on chip (http://www.m-sys.com) slots. The emBSD board has a compact flash slot. If you base of a more typical board, or even just a very small laptop, you may want to look at something like http://www.pcconnection.com/scripts/productdetail
3) Wireless / storage. If you're in the US, you can't beat CDPD. Well, you can. In fact, you can beat it with anything. It's slow, it's cranky, it's traceable, and more. On the other hand, it's ubiquitous. See http://www.novatelwireless.com/pcproducts/merlin.
4) A camera. There are wireless cameras. I know nothing about them, so I won't say any more. I figure you're going to be doing hip-style shots anyway; if the camera's mostly up your sleeve, a little wire doesn't matter. And of course, almost all cameras have some internal storage, so it doesn't need to be a continuous connection. Is low resolution okay? Get http://www.dynamism.com/eyeplate/index.shtml or http://www.dynamism.com/cubik/index.shtml and, at that price, if you get scared, just drop it and stomp on it. They may find computer stuff on you, but you have no camera.
5) Software. You really really want to be streaming those pictures as fast as you can, so they don't stick on your storage device. You probably want a little beep in your ear -- or your beeper? -- when your disk is clear, so you can relax, and no it's time to shoot another shot or too. You may want a panic switch to fry your storage, and hell with streaming; it depends on the device, of course, but put 48V over your signal lines in the usbkey (while it still has 5V bus power!) and you can be pretty damn sure they won't be reading that data. (Note: If you're going up against a superpower, don't be quite so sure. But there are ways to destroy devices. You don't need to destroy the computer, you just need a good local lawyer or equivalent to say "yes, he had a computer. he's a suspicious SOB.
Those are just my first thoughts. Obviously, you want to play around. I think that if I were going into a place with industrial-level security (say a tech company, since I've seen the equivalent of 'high security' at several of those, and while significant, it's not insurmountable), with correct authorization to be there (I'm allowed, it's the photos that aren't), in whether that would make a light jacket permittable, I'd feel 90% confident that I could get away with this. In other words, I wouldn't risk my life, but if the consequence of failure was just a fine or a firing, the carrot may be worth it. Also, I would seriously lean towards having a nice, physical device to sneak off with me, rather than praying that wireless works, unless you're going to be body searched. Remember: a mini-CD won't set off a metal detector, and fits in a standard pocket organizer. A usb keychain is cheap, and even staring right at it they may not know enough to be suspicious; heck, build a bottle opener onto the thing. And a single DIP disk-on-chip chip is suspicious as all hell, but (with a little bit of conductive padding for the pins, don't do something stupid) would fit nicely inside your cheek, for the true super-espionage-(ignoring-metal-detectors) type scheme. This is doable, of course, and I'd be glad to give more advice off the top of my head, but as we don't know what you're trying 90% of what any of us suggest will sound like a joke in your particular situation.
(Note: My comment has now ended. Please stop reading. I don't normally karma whore, but I really would like to brag that every single link on here was off my bookmarks... and I only have 18 links in my bookmarks.)