Glassholes beware: This guy's got your number An artist/engineer working in Germany is sure to have sparked the next Google Glass debate: is it okay to simply block them from a network you control? There's plenty of stories about “Glassholes” taking the devices where they're not wanted or aren't legal (for example, driving), with outcomes ranging from being charged to …
...apply a dummynet delay of 4 seconds to traffic combined with whatever horrid jitter curve you can think of (Linux still does not have that feature 10 years past it appearing in BSD).
I think you'll find it does, via iptables/iproute. e.g.
http://www.linuxpoweruser.com/?p=41
The imei plays no part in it. Jammers, well, jam. They dont differentiate between imei of one device or another, they just flood the local area with RF.
http://www.globalgadgetuk.com/rx90.html
For example, has selectable bands to block 2g but not 3g, or wifi but not bluetooth etc.
So you could blanket jam everything within a 20 metre radius. Of course, the legailty is a different issue altogether but thats about the most advanced jammer out there that Joe Bloogs can own short of military based stuff.
We block incoming through the firewall, so why not block that going out? Many companies will probably block them just due to the bandwidth they use. Plus there are privacy issues, IMO.
Disclaimer: I have no idea what the bandwidth requirements are for glass but companies tend to block things that eat bandwidth like sporting events.
Why are they so inherently evil?
Why is it assumed that as soon as someone owns one of these devices they are going to be using it to film you and invade your privacy?
If I had google glass I would be using it to experience augmented reality overlays of my every day world. Something reminiscent of the AR specs that everyone uses in David Brin's novel Existence. I certainly wouldn't be using them to spy on the activities of a bitter sysadmin with nothing better to do than try to block my glasses from accessing the internet. I'd be using them to post virtual sticky notes pointing people to good bars and reading restaurant reviews that pop out and hover in front of the restaurant as you walk down the street (above head height so you can see where your going, duh). To me, that sounds exciting and fun. Maybe I'm just a techno facist bastard though. Or a glasshole.
In summation. Grow up. If you want to spend all your time blocking these things from your corporate/home/starbucks wifi then more fool you. You will make a laughably small impact. The rest of the world will have moved on.
I had (after huge amounts (=none) of research) vaguely assumed that storage on the glassthing was local, and now I discover it must be connected to the borg?
This makes my antipathy to it even more, I think. Were I in such a position, yes, I think I'd block it.
That's what I was thinking - don't they have local storage? In which case you take as many pictures as you want, and download when you get home. Like a camera.
So I'm really not sure what this effort is trying to achieve, because as far as I can tell, it achieves...nothing.
If it's the 'spying' angle that concerns you, may I point out that many people might be surprised how many cheap covert cameras can be bought online these days. Anyone with a watch, pen, lighter, keyfob, sunglasses, could be filming you without you knowing. The cameras really are that small, recording HD video onto tiny SD cards, and only needing a pin-hole to see from. The days of privacy are over, alas. At least with Glass you do actually have a chance to watch what you're doing and turn your back :)
I think society will get used to people wearing glasses-based displays before long, and we'll end up wondering what the fuss was about, even if you strongly disagree right now; argue against me only if you're certain that I'll be proven wrong in the fullness of time!
"I think society will get used to people wearing glasses-based displays before long, and we'll end up wondering what the fuss was about, even if you strongly disagree right now; argue against me only if you're certain that I'll be proven wrong in the fullness of time!"
No it really wont. If you think that people will be happy to wear this on their face then you are very much mistaken. The problem is that people just wont be willing to look like a twat all the time and getting over that initial hurdle will be the stumbling point for this technology. The general public spend billions of pounds a year on various things so that they don't have to wear glasses at all (contacts, laser treatments) they will not be willing to go back to wearing glasses especially when they don't do much more than their current mobile phone does.
It's different in a working environment where they may take off a bit, especially for stock control in warehouses, but for the general public, no, not going to happen (please bookmark this comment so that you can review in 10 years time to see that I was correct, and therefore it was okay to argue against you. As an aside the fact that you stated this at all means that you probably aren't the sort of person who is in touch with what the general public think so I don't expect you to understand why people wont want to wear these).
"The general public spend billions of pounds a year on various things so that they don't have to wear glasses at all (contacts, laser treatments) they will not be willing to go back to wearing glasses especially when they don't do much more than their current mobile phone does."
Except people do wear sunglasses so why not sunglasses that mean you don't have to pull your phone out of your pocket?
I have to wonder if Google had decided to not include a camera would there be so much anti-glass?
"I have to wonder if Google had decided to not include a camera would there be so much anti-glass?"
From me, yes. While I admit I find the camera creepy, it is not the most dangerous part of GG. I have seen way too many idiot drivers* using lap tops on the passenger seat, texting, web browsing on their cell phones. These idiots represent one significant advantage to me over GG. I can see that they are not paying attention driving and give them plenty of room. That way when these accidents looking for a place to happen finally find it, I don't get injured. With GG, you can't tell.
* Not sure I can really call them drivers because they certainly didn't pay much (if any) attention to driving.
>> people just wont be willing to look like a twat all the time
> You mean like those people who wear sunglasses inside?
Some people suffer horrendously from photo-sensitivity and are hugely susceptible to glare. Oddly enough, a seemingly harmless point source of light in a dim environment can be as bad as snow glare.
I'm not as bad as my Aunt (who is albino and wears shades pretty much whenever vertical) but I do get glare migraines if bright light comes in the side of my eyes, and when the sun is low I won't take a chance that I cannot drive home (and will have to spend the next few hours in pain, throwing up) because I took my shades off at the wrong moment.
That said, I'll never be accused of being fashionable - I need polarised wrap around to cover my full field of view: pretty they are not! If I can avoid the migraine, I'll take looking like a twat...
As others have pointed out, what about sunglasses?
You're missing the Show-Off aspect of human nature. Make it look expensive, and it becomes a status symbol. Don't forget how pathetic and ostentatious cellphones used to look, now we all use them with no qualms. I hope I can come back here in 10 years and see :)
"If it's the 'spying' angle that concerns you, may I point out that many people might be surprised how many cheap covert cameras can be bought online these days."
Ah, but how many of said cheap covert cameras <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/24/google_glass_spyware/>can report everything they see back to Google HQ</a>?
I was wondering the same thing. If you know the MAC prefix, just reserve a special pool for them in DHCP and give out leases with bogus gateways and/or DNS. Problem solved.
Although I do like an earlier commentard's suggestion of traffic-shaping them down to 1kbs. Sweet...treat them like we used to treat P2P file sharers...
"with outcomes ranging from being charged to regrettable cases of assault"
Link to "assault" article, girl claims her glasses being snatched and being abused was a "Hate Crime".
Which begs the question, is reacting violently to someone so abhorrent such as Adolf Hitler, serial pedophile, child murderer, Google Glass wearer an actual hate crime? If it "right" to hate Adolf Hitler?
And yes, I am lumping Glass wearers in with Adolf and the kiddie fiddlers. Vile entities.
The policy of 'Sorry mate, you're not coming in.' is well known, so I'm on the side of the gate-keepers. But one can't always predict the behaviour of those allowed access. As an aside, how do I block apple things from my home wi-fi, just to annoy the cousin of my soon-to-be ex-wife?
... Google were slurping for unprotected wifi networks with their streetview cars? So that they knew what networks their glasses would be able to hook up to on the quiet in order to phone home with yet more data for the great Google spying network?
I find the whole idea of Glass to be a little odd. Constantly invading other people’s privacy so you can watch cat videos on the internet instead of looking where you’re going. That said, at 40, I’m not exactly the core target market.
The celebrity obsessed, fame hungry, me me me generation of post millennials will lap this up once it drops in price, as they’re used to having significant chunks of their life posted online.
If the borg marketing department are reading this, what you need to do is pay a celebutard (the more vacuous the better) to wear these so Heat magazine readers can experience life through the eyes of Paris Hilton/Jordan/Peter Andrex/whoever. Then they’ll want to emulate them like literally every other aspect of their lives, and they’ll fly off the shelves. This idea is yours on licence for the princely sum of 0.25% of revenue in the 12 months following the celebutard Glassing.
This is what's known as an "attention grab". Usually (lately, it seems anyway) done by taking an odd or extreme measure with relation to a controversial topic that otherwise nobody would give two shakes about. Since we're techies here, obviously it found some audience/success.
Google Glass specs are here: https://support.google.com/glass/answer/3064128?hl=en
Hmm. 12GB storage, Bluetooth, wifi. Okay, so the guy may be able to do such, on his network. One I will never see, and never want to see if it's unsecured like it would need to be in order for some passing Tom, Dick, or Harry to link in. Given the out-and-about nature of most users, Glass will be tethered to their phone or a hotspot for data connection. They should have such a setup readily at hand, so if kicked off the network they will shrug and use their default method. Or, more likely, they won't have it on the network in the first place if it's not an approved device at work.
If they are allowed to use it at work as an approved device and bother to find out why it's being dropped, they will rightly conclude that he's a tit, and HR may get involved. Regardless (such as if the rules are his to make), their use of Glass via their normal roaming means will be unimpeded.
Storm in a teacup, sound and fury amounting to nothing, etc. If Glass users are behaving so badly as to warrant such measures and ire, they need reminding of common courtesy. You don't see people using their camera phone to take video of you during a casual chat, should be the same with this.
I'd say this was fear and paranoia, does anyone know if there's a "camera on" indicator seen from the outside (and positioned to not have prism imperfection mistaken for it)? Seems that would resolve the issue quite simply.
Turn the question around.
If you are the admin of a network covering an area that covers copyright material (say a gallery or the like) or in which people have an expectation of privacy (say a gym which has a change room in it) which may be legally enforceable can you afford *not* to make the effort - whether it is ultimately effective or not - to block a glasshole's network access?
What happens if pictures of copyright material end up on the Internet or some creep streams a little video from a change room and then someone sees it and throws a sue ball at you (and the glasshole one would hope)? Ask a lawyer, but I'm thinking that a glasshole block in place would probably make it much easier to dodge the sue ball (and maybe lob one at the glass hole).
I'm afraid I'm firmly of the opinion that when Google decided to put a camera in the Glass they were doing evil; by not recalling all Glasses and physically removing the camera they continue to do evil. I say to Google: Don't be evil.
Psst. Psst.
Hint: It's the same as if they did it with a cell phone camera. They can store all the data on the device, cutting them off the net does nothing, and they should have their own connectivity with them anyway.
Your line of thinking has met innumerable technological advances in the 21st century. You may want to check your perspective.
The problem is Google/Facebook/etc.
I don't care if people privately photograph me without my knowledge. As long as they don't publish the pictures or hand it over to someone who can influence me in a bad way, that's perfectly al right. Should some secret service or the police get access to it it's no longer acceptable.
The problem is when they upload it to some "cloud service" where those images will be processed and made available to people I don't want them to have. Since Google is trying to get "backups" to your devices which they will have to hand over on request, this is not acceptable.
In general we really must work on more democratic computing. We must find ways to increase code and computing literacy.
Google Glasses is one of the worst inventions ever conceived. It provides no useful images, scrapes away our last best hope for privacy from security cameras, traffic cameras, cell phone cameras, street view cameras, ATM cameras, nanny cameras, and dash cameras. Now let's all just record everything we see all the time. Why?
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