Artist Creates Computer Program to Stop Google Glassholes From Filming You

Julian Oliver is one of many who's trying to stop the potentially dangerous repercussions of Google Glass.

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Artist Julian Oliver is one of many who are banding together, in groups like Stop The Cyborgs, to protect people's privacy rights from the intrusiveness of products like Google Glass. One such Google Glass feature that has many worried is its ability to invisibly film and record at any time.

In apparently less than an hour, Oliver created a program called Glasshole.sh that stops Google Glass from connecting to a Wi-Fi network by sending a "deauthorization" command from a mini-computer. Oliver was inspired to create the program after hearing about a friend's discomfort over visitors wearing Google Glass at his art show; the friend had no way of knowing if it was being filmed or live-streamed (and also had no way of giving permission in the first place).

Others have created similar programs, such as Anti-Glass, which blocks Google Glass from performing facial recognition. Next, Oliver says he will create a more advanced version of Glasshole.sh that can disconnect Google Glass wearers from all network connections, including their own phones. As he says, “That moves it from a territorial statement to ‘you can all go to hell.’"

Oliver tells Wired, “To say ‘I don’t want to be filmed’ at a restaurant, at a party, or playing with your kids is perfectly OK. But how do you do that when you don’t even know if a device is recording? This steps up the game. It’s taking a jammer-like approach.”

[via Wired]

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