For This Article, They Sent an AI Robot to Observe Pornographic Websites for 3 Days.
This article is authorized to be reproduced from the public account "Network Sharp Knife" ID:mabang_com, and the content has been slightly adjusted.
Secret photography has formed a gray industry chain. A team used AI to analyze secret videos and found the most common locations of secret cameras, reminding everyone to pay attention to privacy protection.
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine named Y came to me in a panic and told me that the story in the joke really happened to him.
Not long ago, when he and his girlfriend were traveling abroad, they were affectionate and cuddly in a hotel for two days. Afterwards, they were secretly photographed and posted online, and a friend saw it on an adult forum!
The voyeuristic incidents that we used to see in the news actually happened to us. Not only was it extremely sensational, it also made us start to think: In today's complex society, how can we protect our privacy from threats in our daily lives?
Out of curiosity about the world, and a spirit of being serious and not doing evil, my friends and I developed an interesting plan. We want to take an in-depth look at hotel candid photos and try to use AI technology to find those cameras hidden in the dark.
The gray industry chain of candid photography
The industries with the largest traffic in the market are pornography, gambling, and drugs, and the pornography industry is the first to bear the brunt. There is a very tacky saying on the Internet that traffic is king. As long as you have traffic, you can definitely turn it into money. Therefore, in order to consolidate the position of traffic, it is natural to continuously create content.
There are two sources of such content: selfies and candid photos. However, the creativity of selfies is limited, and the cost is relatively high. It is impossible to make them into an assembly line project, so the abominable candid photos appeared.
By secretly filming and installing cameras in private places, content can be created in batches, which has gradually become a particularly mature gray industrial chain in recent years.
The birth of a secretly filmed video has a clear division of labor and production process, as well as accurate contact persons and distributors.
Moreover, as the threshold for candid photography technology is lowered, the problem is becoming more and more serious. In addition to the huge profits that lure more lawless people into this industry, as the concealment performance of the filming equipment improves, people are unaware of the existence of candid photography equipment, and more and more seemingly safe environments can be exploited by lawbreakers.
Hidden cameras that are "invisible but everywhere"
Most of the most popular candid videos on the market are taken in private spaces such as hotels. And they are basically recorded by pinhole cameras. With the advancement of technology, candid cameras are also more advanced. Take the latest candid camera solution we searched on Taobao as an example:
A standard hidden camera device is roughly composed of four parts: a pinhole camera at the front end, a control line in the middle, a power supply at the back end, and a boundary signal antenna.
The smallest pinhole camera is only about 0.5*0.5 cm in size, which is less than 5 mm in length and width. This includes the entire camera and the outer shell. To use it for shooting, only a hole less than 3 mm in size is needed!
In addition, the mainstream candid cameras are equipped with WiFi modules, which means that a small SIM card can be stored locally and then uploaded to the cloud platform asynchronously via WiFi. Many devices do not even require a SIM card. If the hotel WiFi speed is good, the data can be stored on the cloud platform. High-end candid cameras are also equipped with a microphone wake-up function, which will start recording only when there is sound.
The picture I used as an example is a normal version of the power supply method, which is powered directly by batteries. I have previously dismantled a higher-end one in a hotel, which was directly connected to a 220V power supply, with a small transformer installed in the middle and the battery connected below.
After the DC power is transformed, it charges the battery, and the battery then powers the device. That is to say, even if there is a power outage, the battery can be on standby for a certain period of time. With this power supply design, it is not surprising that it can be called uninterrupted recording.
Using AI to find hidden cameras
So where are these secretly photographed "devil's eyes" hidden?
Out of curiosity, we extracted more than 500 effectively reported pornographic websites from the AiDeep anti-fraud backend reporting data, took the overall "candid photography" channel content, and built a simple NLP vocabulary around the words "hotel", "love hotel", "candid photography", "young college students", "young couples", etc.
Then, through certain specific image identification (such as hotel white sheets, bathroom shower heads, fisheye cameras), some auxiliary markings were made, and finally multiple checks were performed on each video ≥1 and ≤ 5 minutes. 50 image scenes were randomly captured, and one image scene was extracted every 10 seconds for each video ≥5 and ≤ 1 hour or more. Position comparison was performed, and then the images with no displacement were included in the hotel candid sample library.
Then analyze the hotel candid sample library, the main steps are as follows:
Step 1: Bed target task construction: Manually mark the beds at different azimuths to facilitate training and optimization, while improving detection speed.
Step 2: Build the SSD network model (Single Shot MultiBox Detector): Then train the real-time target detection algorithm (SSD) based on the convolutional neural network to obtain the bed detection model.
Step 3: Calculate the pitch angle and azimuth angle through the image algorithm for classification: Finally, use "artificial" intelligence (that is, the old driver manually looks at each one) to deduce the possible location of the camera, and finally verify with industry leaders and friends to finally get the direction of the camera shooting:
From these three perspectives, we infer the physical space equipment and refer to the principle of convenient power supply. We roughly get the locations where the equipment is often placed. The list is as follows:
Vertical angle shooting
Smoke alarm
The hotel's smoke alarm is an excellent hiding place. Because of the requirements of fire protection installation, it is directly installed at the top of the ceiling and has an uninterruptible power supply for a long time, so it will become the first choice for criminals to modify it. Under normal circumstances, there should be an indicator light, and it is normal to have a hole, so you have to look carefully to know whether it has been modified.
chandelier
Because ceiling lights and spotlights are relatively bright, the effect after modification is not particularly good and will be affected to a certain extent. However, chandeliers are different. There are more lamp heads and they are hidden close to each other. Many criminals will target the lamps. The main method of investigation is to study whether there are any extra wires exposed outside, and to look vertically at the darker parts of the lamp head to see if there are any extra gaps.
Directly mounted on the ceiling
Of course there are hardcore voyeurists in the world of voyeurism. The simplest and crudest way of taking voyeuristic photos is to drill a hole directly on the ceiling to install it. All you need to do is modify the power supply to power it, so even if it is connected to a lamp, it will not affect the shooting effect too much.
Shooting at an oblique angle
Air conditioner indoor unit
A hotel was previously exposed for having someone directly modified the air conditioner inside and took secret photos from a bird's eye view. This is really difficult to check because people usually don't take the air conditioner apart to take a look. The most they can do is check to see if there are any extra holes on it.
Sockets and switches
Within the visible range of the drawn picture, any sockets and switches facing the bed may become the target of modification by criminals. The modification rules are also very simple, and the most brutal one is to drill holes on the switches.
Of course, there are even scarier ways to modify the switch. Instead of drilling holes, you can use the switch holes directly, such as this picture:
Clothes drying rack
You may have checked a lot, but you would never imagine that a clothes rack can betray you. Although not many people use such a solution, many such products have indeed been sold on Taobao.
Shooting at eye level
Set-top boxes and TVs
In order to meet the needs of enjoying audio and video while lying in bed, the set-top box and TV must be positioned at an excellent level angle facing the bed. While it is convenient to watch TV, the hidden cameras installed on the TV and set-top box naturally become the best positions for hidden shots.
Power adapter
The reason why magic modification is called magic is that many things are magical in many cases. You have checked the TV and set-top box, but have you thought about the power adapter?
These contents only talk about the common secret photography methods in a hotel bedroom. In fact, it is not only the bedroom area in the hotel that will be secretly photographed. Many perverts will even target the bathroom.
Modified hair dryer
After taking a shower, you usually use a hair dryer to dry your hair, but have you ever thought that the hair dryer stand may be watching you?
In addition to hair dryers, there will also be modified mirror lights in the bathroom, and even some lights connected to the ceiling. It is even more difficult to check for bathrooms with large mirrors, because a large space can be obtained through reflection just by facing the mirror.
Why is voyeurism still rampant despite repeated bans?
From our analysis, the installation principle of hidden cameras is to place them within the best viewing angle so that the entire target can be seen. Therefore, the area that can be directly facing the bed is within the field of vision. At the same time, the power supply problem is solved and the place will not be blocked by physical strong light (such as spotlights). There will be some suspicion.
If you are really unlucky and find a camera while staying in a hotel, it is recommended that you call the police directly and let the police investigate before negotiating with the merchant. Do not directly conflict with the merchant and be wary of the merchant destroying evidence and refusing to admit their mistakes.
So why would some people knowingly break the law when they know it is illegal?
This has to be discussed from the perspective of the comparison between benefits and punishments. According to the revelations of old drivers in the circle, the current common modified hidden cameras cost about 300 yuan, and the hidden videos in the industry do not need to be too high-definition. As long as they are passionate scenes facing the bed and are more than three minutes long, the starting price is 10 yuan. If the women in the video have good figures or are younger female students, the price of the video will increase to 150-300 yuan. If you are lucky and take pictures of internet celebrities on Douyin or Weibo, or small artists outside the 18th line, the selling price may be several thousand or even over 10,000 yuan.
Moreover, secretly photographing does not constitute a criminal offense, but only a violation of public security management. According to Article 42 of the "Public Security Administration Punishment Law of the People's Republic of my country":
This means that if caught, they may only be detained for less than 5 days or fined less than 500 yuan, and the maximum detention is 10 days.
I have to complain here that if this happened in South Korea, the criminals might face detention of less than five years or a fine of 10 million won (about 59,300 yuan). I hope the relevant departments will consider imposing severe penalties on such shameless people?
Even if AI analyzes it, but...
Whether it is secretly photographing women's skirts on the street or in shopping malls, or secretly photographing couples' private lives in hotels, the secret photography industry has become a mature gray industry chain. I hope that in terms of law, the sentencing of those involved in the case will be strengthened, and at the same time, more attention will be paid to the source, and reasonable compulsory control will be carried out on these unscrupulous merchants who sell tools in a borderline manner.
To put it another way, apart from journalists and police investigations, most of the applications of pinhole cameras are to infringe on other people's privacy. So the very existence of this thing is a question worth thinking about.
In addition, although it is possible to find the location of hidden cameras based on the content in the video, the equipment and technology for preventing hidden cameras on the market are not very mature. In addition to gaining more experience, you still need to be more careful!
Secret photography is abominable! Everyone should protect themselves!