Apple Patents a Way To Keep People From Filming At Concerts and Movie Theaters (qz.com) 266
An anonymous reader writes: Apple has patented a system that prohibits smartphone users from taking photos and videos at concerts, movie theaters and other events where people tend to ignore such restrictions. The patent has been award to Apple today and was first spotted by Patently Apple. QZ reports: "It outlines a system which would allow venues to use an infrared emitter to remotely disable the camera function on smartphones. According to the patent, infrared beams could be picked up by the camera, and interpreted by the smartphone as a command to block the user from taking any photos or videos of whatever they're seeing. The patent also outlines ways that infrared blasters could actually improve someone's experience at a venue. For example, the beams could be used to send information to museum-goers by pointing a smartphone camera at a blaster placed next to a piece of art." The report also mentions that the patent could in theory be used to help police limit smartphone filming of acts of brutality, or help a government shut off filming in certain locations. Last week, SlashGear reported that Alicia Keys is the latest musician to ban cellphones at her events.
Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the cops can abuse people and you can't film them doing it!
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Exactly. The entire premise of this is control of people. Time to block the IR port, kids.
I don't envy younger people; the world is turning into a liberties hellhole on them.
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How does blocking the IR port help me use the device and software I paid for?
Re:Great! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the person receiving the abuse who films it.
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It's not the person receiving the abuse who films it.
Rather than those filming being able to capture the officer telling them to turn it off, trying to block it, etc... they'll just flash their IR thingy, then they can abuse and smash all they want without a record (theoretically).
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It helps authorities disable your camera so you can't record them kicking your arse onto an encrypted device and/or up to the iCloud....
Maybe. But it is pretty clear that all cell phone (and maybe camera) manufacturers will be forced by the government to license this technology from Apple, and I expect the final version will not work with a separate IR sensor, it will just use the camera lens to capture the "DO NOT FILM" command and act on it. Of course you could cover up the lens, but that defeats the d
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
It helps authorities disable your camera so you can't record them kicking your arse onto an encrypted device and/or up to the iCloud....
Maybe. But it is pretty clear that all cell phone (and maybe camera) manufacturers will be forced by the government to license this technology from Apple, and I expect the final version will not work with a separate IR sensor, it will just use the camera lens to capture the "DO NOT FILM" command and act on it. Of course you could cover up the lens, but that defeats the device too. I doubt if you can effectively block the signal that disables the camera and still have enough light to film the cops beating you or your family.
Hmmm. The IR thingy will be, um, IR. That is to say, outside of the visible light spectrum (or at least very close to the edge of visibility).
Howabout a little IR filter that blocks the IR and lets visible light through. Many surveillance cams already have such a thing to cut down on daylight "washout" from extraneous IR from sunlight.
By the way, there was some noise on Slashdot a couple of years ago about a very similar Apple patent. That one never went anywhere, either.
Sometimes I think Apple patents things they DON'T want to see developed, with absolutely no intention of actually developing the ideas themselves, either.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Informative)
Blinding Society (Score:4)
You must be talking about the Stazi, if I am picking up on your inference correctly? The tools of oppression are many and varied, the people you are talking about are too insular and afraid to look at such things. Worse that there is no hope for cowards, that they destroy hope for all.
I can't say if the majority of /.rs believe that, but I do know that there are some people here that are very aware of the things that you speak of. The inference of this technology is very clear - 'we can film you - but you can't film us'. The state wants the power to allow law enforcement to be thugs to keep people in a state of fear as it is a tool of oppression. We were all blind for a long time, however now that we all have cameras, we can all see the activities of the state and confront its representatives with the evidence.
You are right about there being no refuge and the only thing that I have seen in recent time to balance that is that everyone and anyone can be a random witness at any time and the kind of thuggery you are speaking of can be recorded as evidence and used to challenge that states version of events. This kind of important advancement is not merely a 'power to the people' kind of thing, it's an evolution of society as a whole to force the state to live up to the professional standards they profess to be maintaining.
It also show how poisonous the music industry is and that the consequences of their 'Digital Restrictions Management' has had a much broader effect in the general community than any of us could have imagined and as such, inevitable that such technology would be invented. Whilst I have no doubt that there will be some sort of hack to overcome any implementation of it, that means nothing to the general population. The new (superior) model of witnessing state violence is being challenged with the premise of blinding a society who eyes have just been opened. We will have to watch how this development unfolds very carefully indeed.
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What if the camera is the IR port? Mission accomplished for them either way you go.
Even if we accept the premise that this is a problem that could use solving (which I'm actually open to), there's no good way to do so that I can see.
If we allow our devices to be susceptible to "camera jammers" (which is what these really are), we would, of course, want to make sure that the camera jammers were regulated. We might require that each be registered, program the camera to ignore any unregistered ones, and log an
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The "don't taze me bro" got exactly what he was looking for: attention. He made damn sure someone was there to record it.
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Good luck regulating IR camera jammers, when any idiot with an Arduino or similar can make an appropriate signal modulator for whatever IR lamps you have on hand. $1M says the necessary source code and hardware plans will be available online within months, maybe days, of whatever legislative or back room deal mandates such jam-ability. Not to mention the worst abusers would likely be police, factory farms, etc. Anyone who wants to make it more difficult to capture a video record of their crimes.
The record
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There's a group of them who are partly responsible for it. Look at these university safe-space failure cases who are literally begging the government to restrict their rights. Of course they're demanding for OTHER people's rights to be restricted, not realizing how it will turn out for them in reality.
Re:Great! (Score:4, Interesting)
B does not solve the problem. Analyzing the video stream for the do-not-film IR signal is non-trivial; it will require CPU cycles (thus, energy) to do this, and that means that this "feature" will make your battery last not as long as it otherwise would when you are using your camera.
This is a real shame, because the actual solution to the problem is people not taking their cameras into the movie theater, or those Yonder things...
This is part of the camera itself, so likely won't use any more battery than the focus, whitebalance, brightness, face detection and other features your camera is already doing with the camera feed.
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Analyzing the video stream for the do-not-film IR signal is non-trivial
What analysis? He's talking about an IR filter over the lens, which is a hardware solution requiring no CPU cycles at all.
While the sensor can, apparently, detect IR, perhaps even record it, you don't see it in the playback so it really doesn't matter if that spectrum is blocked entirely from the camera.
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I take my smart phone into every cinema I enter. Don't like it, want the phone, fuck off, refund the ticket, see you latter, plenty of other things to do, I mean there is a shit ton of other things to do. Same for concerts, what to be dicks, fine, perform to empty venues, who gives a crap. Want to be a drone, forced to jump when commanded, forced to bend over when demanded or are you just comfortable with telling corporate arse holes to fuck off and simple walk away with your freedom and independence and j
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An IR filter would defeat the (possibly) legitimate use of this, ie. preventing filming of concerts.
OTOH is probably won't help with the scary part about Police/Government preventing you from recording them. Most people don't plan ahead for that.
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, assuming you're using an Apple iPhone(tm) with IR technology that responds to random outside commands, and the police are using an Apple iPhone Deactivator(tm) to remotely control your phone, then yes you won't be able to record them doing that. But, don't worry Apple fan, people with other phones who didn't want to pay royalties to Apple for the privilege of having their phones remotely controlled by random outside commands will still be able to film your beatdown.
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So what. It's a market opportunity. Make a plain motion/still camera/microphone in the same convenient form factor as a smartphone, but without this horseshit built into it. And definitely no cell receiver. Actually, they already have tons of them, just not in the same form factor.
You can't stop people recording you, nazis. Give it up. Any ordinary citizen nowadays can equip himself with technology far beyond what the CIA, KGB, Gestapo, and Stasi had in their heyday. This always makes me think of the derang
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The "deactivator" (kill switch) will be mandated on all phones sold in the US. And rather than use infrared the signal will come from the cell tower.
No, it won't. The mere fact that it could be used to stop filming of police brutality means it would never fly. At best what would happen is some group like members of the MPAA could apply industry pressure by requiring that all apps that play their content must support such a device, but that would hurt their sales more than anything, because I guarantee you that the Chinese smartphone companies wouldn't give a shit, and Samsung likely wouldn't either.
Besides, as mentioned earlier, a simple IR lens filter
Fascinating... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a really interesting idea from Apple.
Because last I checked, the iPhone camera since the iPhone 4 has an IR filter on it and can't see IR light. Found this out at the Science Museum when there was a display of the visible spectrum and it told you to take out your phone and look at it via the camera.
Surprise! iPhones can't see the IR lights, but other phone cameras could.
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You are focusing to narrowly.
Stop focusing on the FEATURE, start focusing on the INTENT.
The INTENT is to let third parties disable your phone when desired.
Mandatory Upgrades (Score:2)
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So in order to implement this "anti-recording" feature, the phone will need programming updates in order to detect the particular prevention signal, and then prevent the user from activating the camera. Of course, this won't work on older phones that no longer have updates, or dedicated cameras, or an
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Point your television remote at your iPhone camera and press a button. See that little blinking Led?
No. Tried it with 3 remotes on my iPhone 6, nothing. Naturally having a camera that picks up light that you can't see results in less true-to-life photos which is why it is filtered.
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Anyway, this reminds me of the pattern of circles [wikipedia.org] used on bank notes to prevent you from counterfeiting by simply putting currency on a color photocopier. Difference being thi
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That's a really interesting idea from Apple.
And yet, they completely missed the opportunity to shut off the phone ringer while they were at it.
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Because last I checked, the iPhone camera since the iPhone 4 has an IR filter on it and can't see IR light.
The iPhone camera is not really good [consumerreports.org] at taking pictures in low light conditions, so it may not be the device they're trying to block.
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Maybe they are planing on adding an IR sensor for other reasons, like auto-focus. A lot of Android phones are using IR laser diodes for extremely fast focusing now.
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And wouldn't this mean that Apple would vigorously prevent Android phones from having this 'feature'?
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No, it means Apple lobbyists will ensure that the law will be changed to make this technology mandatory, forcing other vendors to license the patent.
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It's filtered, with a very strong filter compared to the majority of cameras. You can see IR if you look closely enough, but if you compare it to an unfiltered camera, the amount of IR that comes through is absolutely minuscule.
To the point where in the brightly lit Museum of Science display, the IR LEDs in their "this is the visible spectrum" display were invisible on the iPhone.
"Some Guys Give You a Wicked Beating" (tm) system (Score:2)
It's called the "Some Guys Give You a Wicked Beating" (tm) reactionary system.
Didn't we do this once? (Score:2)
Didn't we do this with stoplights at some point?
Didn't they have to pass laws banning normal people from having the devices that changed the lights?
I mean, how hard would it be to modify one of these to send out the camera-disabling signal?
https://www.adafruit.com/produ... [adafruit.com]
That's nothing... (Score:2)
How hard would it be to put on each police car?
Re:Didn't we do this once? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, infrared cut filters for SLRs are $20 on Amazon. I suspect it won't take long for someone to make one that fits discretely over a phone camera lens (perhaps as part of a phone case) that blocks the relevant wavelengths.
iStop? AppleBlock? (Score:2)
AppleSafe?
Apple's new motto: We own what we sell you. (Score:2)
I buy it, I own, I do what I want with it unless that breaks a law.
Making a device that lets other, non-governmental people stop me from using it is not a service, it's a theft.
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Making a device that lets other, non-governmental people stop me from using it is not a service, it's a theft.
Not if you agree to those terms. If the terms of attending a concert are "no recording, filming or photography" then you agree to be stopped by attending the concert. Don't like those terms? Don't go.
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Let's try that bit of stupidity you presented in the worst case scenarios:
If you don't like the arsenic and mercury in your water, don't buy it. And if you don't like slavery, don't buy a human being.
Sorry, but your understanding of how capitalism works fails. It has to obey laws, and that includes no deception. Claiming you are 'selling' something means you got no power over. You can't stop me from opening it up, and you can't give anyone else control over it.
This is at heart an evil product, designed
Let me be the first (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me be the first to say, "FUCK YOU!" to any artist that does this.
I'll never attend your concert or buy your music. I'll go out of my way to pirate it if I like it, but you'll never get a fucking dime from me.
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Good, you're annoying.
Other cameras? (Score:2)
Would this work with standalone digital cameras?
How about analog film cameras? I know airport scanners can affect high-ISO film, but I don't if those scanners user IR or some other wavelength.
The feature consumers have been waiting for (Score:2, Insightful)
Its good to know that Apple is spending their R&D effort toward making enhancements that the customers want; as opposed to the features the products wants.
And yes I said exactly what I meant.
That's funny (Score:2)
This is a "just stick, no carrot" kind of deal. Thanks but no thanks.
Will wonders never cease.. (Score:2)
Apple Patents a Way To Keep People From Filming At Concerts and Movie Theaters
I'm not sure but this may be the first time I've ever seen Slashdot properly headline a story about patents. Usually the headline would be something like this:
"Apple Patents Keeping People From Filming At Concerts and Movie Theaters" ... which would then result in two hundred comments of people bringing up irrelevant examples of other approaches to dealing with the problem citing 'prior art' along with heaps of moaning about how broadly general the patent they didn't read is.
So was this an accident? I mean
Use the same tech to rob banks and other places (Score:4, Interesting)
Use the same tech to rob banks and other places maybe even tolls and red light cams.
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I'm not a security professional or anything, but I'm pretty sure that banks don't have a bunch of iPhones on the walls taking security footage.
Are we ALL children? (Score:2)
This tech works both ways. (Score:4, Interesting)
I could make a device that discreetly clips onto my jacket or on a cap that sends out the IR signal continuously to stop cameras that are pointed at me.
Or maybe similar devices on my car that sends the signal to stop cameras from recording pictures or video of my car.
I'll become invisible!
Re: (Score:3)
The path to 'invisible' remains 'tequila'.
What's to stop people from buying non-Apple phones (Score:2)
Why Stop Now? (Score:2)
How about no? (Score:2)
Hey why not use this same system to allow the screen and/or sounds to be disabled in movie theaters. How about infrared for police to unlock your phone or decrypt items. Why stop there the device has WiFi and Bluetooth let's use that too. How about I don't buy something designed where someone else can control it with infrared or any other method in contradiction of my wishes.
Apple need a patent... (Score:2)
How about No! (Score:5, Insightful)
MY PHONE should obey MY instructions. If I say take of picture of something it should do so, not ask some third party not me if its alright.
What I do with the phone is my responsibility.
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MY PHONE should obey MY instructions.
So you don't have an iPhone then. Why worry?
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And how does this square with that. Are we to assume that an i{hone will become the judge and jury for every 'bad' decision we make? Next it will start slowing down your car if you exceed the speed limit while driving a car that employs Carplay? Or writes you a ticket if you roll through a stop sign.
This is crappy thing to patent. Apple--The new marshal is in town.
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I don't disagree with that at all. Its my responsibility to follow the rules though, and its their responsibility to have security watching to make sure people do it. It IS NOT MY RESPONSIBILITY TO PROVIDE A SECURITY SOLUTION FOR THEM.
Five years ago (Score:5, Insightful)
Classroom Mode (Score:2)
This is the greatest iPhone innovation since... (Score:5, Funny)
A lower tech solution.. (Score:2)
Dupe (Score:2)
Nice to see they're still working on it, but not exactly new...
https://apple.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org]
They need to do one more thing (Score:2)
So can it stop people from reporting old news? (Score:2)
Evil bit was supposed to be a joke (Score:2)
Apple has sold out humanity to lizard like aliens who lack appreciation for wasting power on cloaking fields 24x7 just to avoid being documented by every Dick, Jane, and with a camera phone in their pocket.
and defeated with less than $0.20... (Score:2)
IR cut filter over the lens.... BOOM defeated 100%.
Dear apple, you are really losing your edge...
No company is going to implement this (Score:2)
Companies patent features that will encourage use of their products. Implementing this would cause users to avoid upgrading their iPhones, or to go Android, so no.
To bypass this "security" feature. (Score:2)
Put black electrical tape over the sensor.
Pfff (Score:2)
Apple has patents for all kinds of things, many of them purely defensive, many of them for products and features that never get implemented. I myself remember floating this idea around a dinner table with a few friends at least eight years ago, but our version of it was generalized: Bluetooth beacons that broadcast a "usage policy" around themselves.
Not just useful for concerts. Imagine a beacon in a movie theater that automatically shuts off the screen and ringer of any cellphone inside it. No more dic
First it's Apple, then it's Android (Score:2)
As we all know, the moment they roll out something like this, people will first have an alternative phone or recording device that simply does not have the camera-inhibiting code in it. The next step will be wide-spread jail-breaking of devices that have been "infected" with this stuff.
Sure, the performers want it, the galleries would like it and Law Enforcement (and other clandestine operatives) might feel it necessary for the protection of it's collective members, but the fact remains: People will record
lip-sync (Score:2)
Prior art (Score:2)
Here is prior art from 2008 [hackaday.com].
Shachar
IR filters for phones, also Do-not-film-me hats (Score:2)
As soon as this becomes integrated in iPhones, I'm starting a company selling do-not-film-me hats, pins, ski-masks and other accessories for anyone who doesn't want to be filmed. Also for sale, IR filters for iphones - both stick-on and cases with IR filters that block the "do not film" IR signals.
Should not be controlled by Apple (Score:2)
A tech that would prevent people from using cell phones in movie theatres is sorely needed. ... if used at all: Apple has tonnes of patents that they don't use.
But it would not do any good if it would only prevent filming, and knowing Apple: it would be restricted to Apple devices only
It should have been a part of the cell phone radio protocols from the start and mandatory.
Re:Black electricians tape (Score:5, Insightful)
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How are you going to film the concert through a piece of black tape?
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Perfect for black metal shows!
(As if anyone would want to record one, anyway)
Re: Black electricians tape (Score:2)
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The camera is the sensor since cameras typically see near infra-red just fine. A near infra-red filter in front of the camera, however, would work.
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... and wait for the idiotic DRM take-downs / lawsuits for a selling an IR lens since it "facilities copyright infringement".
You know it will happen.
Almost as bad as the Keurig Freedom ring [google.com]
-- ...
I'll be extremely glad when these 2 people are dead
* [x] Gary Kildall for his retarded 8.3 filenames in CP/M, which MS-DOS blinding copied without thinking, and
* [ ] Brendan Eich for inflicting his fucked up Javashit language on the rest of the (HTML) world
1 down, 1 more to go!
Re:Of course, nothing prevents the owner from (Score:5, Interesting)
Naturally this would be leveraged and abused by law enforcement all over the world. This is an example of technology that needs to be outlawed. Apple is crossing a line if they actually incorporate this technology into their products, especially if they do not provide an immutable way for the owner of the phone to disable the function.
If concert promoters want to prevent filming or photographing of concerts then they just need to tell people to leave their phones in their cars or at home and confiscate them if they're smuggled in, returning them after the concert.
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Yes. It's like a QR code that you can't see
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Actually I'm confused, because most cameras already filter UV and IR frequencies.
No, they don't.
Open up your camera app on your phone, point any remote at it, and hold down a button.
Re:Of course, nothing prevents the owner from (Score:5, Informative)
No, they don't.
Technically they do, otherwise synthetic fabrics would come out purple [dpreview.com] (see "Infrared / Ultraviolet pollution" half way down the page). They're just not 100% effective so a little IR gets through, and depends on the camera as some are worse than others.
Software running in the *camera* not the phone (Score:2)
(I dismiss wifi and bluetooth outright, since users needs it deactivated for battery and security reasons)
Let's imagine the camera is a USB peripheral and thus runs its own CPU and software (firmware).
For the sake of the argument there are enough milliwatts of processing to detect the kill pulse. Maybe it could even be rather simplistic.
You're toast, then.
It's as if someone tricked you with a keyboard whose CPU acts as a keylogger (even a PS/2 keyboard is not immune and has a small computer that runs the le
Not always realistic (Score:2)
If concert promoters want to prevent filming or photographing of concerts then they just need to tell people to leave their phones in their cars or at home and confiscate them if they're smuggled in, returning them after the concert.
As I pointed out recently, it's one thing for Alica Keys to be a jerk about this when she's playing a place that seats about 700-800 people and something else to do so in a much bigger venue. Can you imagine confiscating phones in a venue that holds 14,000 or more people? Last year I went to a Rolling Stones concert at a stadium and while I'm too lazy to look up the exact number, I bet that around 50,000 people attended it with me. How can you possibly confiscate so many phones and then get them back to
Re:Of course, nothing prevents the owner from (Score:5, Informative)
Put up a sign stating that cellphones observed during the concert will be confiscated
That does not make it legal to confiscate anything that I legally own.
The only thing that a venue can do is ask me to leave. If I refuse, they can call the cops for trespassing, but that's about it.
observers violating those terms deserve some kind of negative reinforcement
Which will be limited to being thrown out.
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You can't get into the venue in the first place without putting a $500 authorization (or "hold") on your credit card. If you're thrown out, they capture the authorization [cybersource.com].
And if the reasons for getting thrown out are fraudulent, you can file a credit card chargeback. At that point, they could sue you, assuming they would actually want to bring the issue to court.
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And what if you dont have a credit card because your application was declined for some reason?
The same way you bought the ticket to the show or reserved the hotel room: use a debit card with at least $500 of available balance.
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I don't know of any filter that blocks out the entire infrared spectrum (which does include a portion of nearly visible light - you can see a dim flicker in some remote controls in the dark). Most filters reduce it greatly but still allow some to pass through. You can test this by pointing an IR emitter at a CCD sensor and then placing the filter in front - reduced but still visible.
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I'm not advocating this technology... but if you read up on what Alicia Keys is doing at her concerts they are putting phones in little bags that can only be opened after the concert by the staff. That means you can't use your phone _at all_ during a concert.
Technology like this would allow you to use your phone during the concert... just without being able to take pictures.
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