Disabling CCTV / Video Cameras

Disabling CCTV / Video Cameras

by JimBot

I've read some articles on disabling surveillance cameras. The method that intrigued me the most was that a laser pointer could blind a camera. Acting on curiosity, I decided to try this for myself. I was amazed by what happened. Even the cheapest of the laser pointers properly aimed, could completely blind the camera! Even though the laser is a single point of light on the lense, the picture that the camera transmits is just a huge blur of color. This is really interesting, since a laser pointer has a range of hundreds of feet.

Now, this may lead you to believe that you can start blinding cameras so they can't see you doing whatever you want to do in privacy... However, I've found that this only works on cameras that pickup infrared light. You can easily determine if a camera is made to pickup infrared light by simply looking at the camera sensor. If you can pick out small dots on either side of the camera sensor, it is made to pick up infraread light. These "dots" are infrared LEDs made to illuminate objects in low-light conditions. This is usually so on cheaper cameras. If you are up against more expensive, more complex cameras, chances are they won't have such LEDs.

On some of these cameras, I have luck with the lasers. But the only definite way to know that the camera will go blind with a laser aimed at them is either checking for the LEDs, or know ahead of time what the picture looks like with a laser aimed at the camera.