"Laser listener" bugging works on skin, clothing

Ooooo, superneatocool! These guys have discovered that a speckle-
pattern made by a laser spot hitting a distant surface ...is
modulated with audio! Let your laser hit the skin or clothing
(or cellphone) of a very distant person, and you can tap into their
conversation or listen to their heartbeat. The CIA doesn't have to
bounce lasers off windows anymore! They can shine the spot on your
head, and pick out just your voice (or use separate beams to record
a few voices in a distant crowd.)

On 2/5/2010 3:53 PM, Bill Beaty wrote:
Ooooo, superneatocool! These guys have discovered that a speckle-
pattern made by a laser spot hitting a distant surface ...is
modulated with audio! Let your laser hit the skin or clothing
(or cellphone) of a very distant person, and you can tap into their
conversation or listen to their heartbeat. The CIA doesn't have to
bounce lasers off windows anymore! They can shine the spot on your
head, and pick out just your voice (or use separate beams to record
a few voices in a distant crowd.)


This is an ancient technique. The speckle pattern moves at twice the
speed of the objects--it's been used to measure the motion of paper in
hand-held scanners such as the HP Capshare 920 (circa 1996), and is the
basis of electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI, more commonly
called TV interferometry).

You do have to be close enough to actually get a speckle pattern before
it will work, though. The speckles get larger as you go further away,
and that plus the inverse square law will make the technique less
sensitive pretty fast.

Of course, if you're wearing your aluminum foil beanie with the shiny
side out, it's a nice specular reflector and won't make a lot of speckle. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Ooooo, superneatocool! These guys have discovered that a speckle-
pattern made by a laser spot hitting a distant surface ...is
modulated with audio!

Let your laser hit the skin or clothing
(or cellphone) of a very distant person, and you can tap into their
conversation or listen to their heartbeat. The CIA doesn't have to
bounce lasers off windows anymore! They can shine the spot on your
head, and pick out just your voice (or use separate beams to record
a few voices in a distant crowd.)

Simple optical setup detects speech remotely
Laser Focus World, Jan 2010,
http://tinyurl.com/laserbugZalevsky

Their PDF paper has some example .WAV files

Simultaneous remote extraction of multiple speech sources and heart
beats from secondary speckles pattern
http://tinyurl.com/ydgc97f
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-17-24-21566

They used high-framerate video and a correlation algorithm to do
this. The speckle pattern supposedly vibrates side to side at
some angle. We could stick a pair of photodiodes (or a line-
array) behind a camera lens, shine the speckle on our diodes,
then take a difference signal from adjacent ones. (With some pairs
the signal would be inverted.) Rotate your camera to find the max
audio. Or ...is it possible to hack an opto-mouse chip so it
can give an audio output whenever vibrating laser-speckle shines
upon its sensor array? (And are those chip suppliers working on
one of these even as we speak? I would! )

Bill Beaty wrote:

Ooooo, superneatocool! These guys have discovered that a speckle-
pattern made by a laser spot hitting a distant surface ...is
modulated with audio!

Laser bounced off window pane is older than god, curtains came right
after. The Russkies did a pretty with a microwave resonater by Leon
Theremin in the Moscow US Embassy.

Let your laser hit the skin or clothing
(or cellphone) of a very distant person, and you can tap into their
conversation or listen to their heartbeat. The CIA doesn't have to
bounce lasers off windows anymore! They can shine the spot on your
head, and pick out just your voice (or use separate beams to record
a few voices in a distant crowd.)

And use it for aiming and distancing the sniper, too. Laser Ruby
Ridge for closure.

Simple optical setup detects speech remotely
Laser Focus World, Jan 2010,
http://tinyurl.com/laserbugZalevsky

Their PDF paper has some example .WAV files

Simultaneous remote extraction of multiple speech sources and heart
beats from secondary speckles pattern
http://tinyurl.com/ydgc97f
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-17-24-21566

They used high-framerate video and a correlation algorithm to do
this. The speckle pattern supposedly vibrates side to side at
some angle. We could stick a pair of photodiodes (or a line-
array) behind a camera lens, shine the speckle on our diodes,
then take a difference signal from adjacent ones. (With some pairs
the signal would be inverted.) Rotate your camera to find the max
audio. Or ...is it possible to hack an opto-mouse chip so it
can give an audio output whenever vibrating laser-speckle shines
upon its sensor array? (And are those chip suppliers working on
one of these even as we speak? I would! )

So how come were getting our asses kicked in Afghanistan? Hell,
everywhere.

Could it be the N $ A has all their eyes and ears focused inside the US

Bill Beaty wrote:
Ooooo, superneatocool! These guys have discovered that a speckle-
pattern made by a laser spot hitting a distant surface ...is
modulated with audio!

Laser bounced off window pane is older than god, curtains came right
after. The Russkies did a pretty with a microwave resonater by Leon
Theremin in the Moscow US Embassy.

Let your laser hit the skin or clothing
(or cellphone) of a very distant person, and you can tap into their
conversation or listen to their heartbeat. The CIA doesn't have to
bounce lasers off windows anymore! They can shine the spot on your
head, and pick out just your voice (or use separate beams to record
a few voices in a distant crowd.)

And use it for aiming and distancing the sniper, too. Laser Ruby
Ridge for closure.

Simple optical setup detects speech remotely
Laser Focus World, Jan 2010,
http://tinyurl.com/laserbugZalevsky

Their PDF paper has some example .WAV files

Simultaneous remote extraction of multiple speech sources and heart
beats from secondary speckles pattern
http://tinyurl.com/ydgc97f
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-17-24-21566

They used high-framerate video and a correlation algorithm to do
this. The speckle pattern supposedly vibrates side to side at
some angle. We could stick a pair of photodiodes (or a line-
array) behind a camera lens, shine the speckle on our diodes,
then take a difference signal from adjacent ones. (With some pairs
the signal would be inverted.) Rotate your camera to find the max
audio. Or ...is it possible to hack an opto-mouse chip so it
can give an audio output whenever vibrating laser-speckle shines
upon its sensor array? (And are those chip suppliers working on
one of these even as we speak? I would! )

So how come were getting our asses kicked in Afghanistan? Hell,
everywhere.

This is an ancient technique.

 The speckle pattern moves at twice the
speed of the objects--it's been used to measure the motion of paper in
hand-held scanners such as the HP Capshare 920 (circa 1996), and is the

Bill Beaty wrote:

Ooooo, superneatocool!    These guys have discovered that a speckle-
pattern made by a laser spot hitting a distant surface   ...is
modulated with audio!

Laser bounced off window pane is older than god, curtains came right
after.  The Russkies did a pretty with a microwave resonater by Leon
Theremin in the Moscow US Embassy.

  Let your laser hit the skin or clothing
(or cellphone) of a very distant person, and you can tap into their
conversation or listen to their heartbeat.  The CIA doesn't have to
bounce lasers off windows anymore!  They can shine the spot on your
head, and pick out just your voice (or use separate beams to record
a few voices in a distant crowd.)

And use it for aiming and distancing the sniper, too.  Laser Ruby
Ridge for closure.



  Simple optical setup detects speech remotely
  Laser Focus World, Jan 2010,
 http://tinyurl.com/laserbugZalevsky

Their PDF paper has some example .WAV files

  Simultaneous remote extraction of multiple speech sources and heart
beats from secondary speckles pattern
 http://tinyurl.com/ydgc97f
 http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?uri=oe-17-24-21566

They used high-framerate video and a correlation algorithm to do
this.  The speckle pattern supposedly vibrates side to side at
some angle.  We could stick a pair of photodiodes (or a line-
array) behind a camera lens, shine the speckle on our diodes,
then take a difference signal from adjacent ones.  (With some pairs
the signal would be inverted.)  Rotate your camera to find the max
audio.   Or  ...is it possible to hack an opto-mouse chip so it
can give an audio output whenever vibrating laser-speckle shines
upon its sensor array?  (And are those chip suppliers working on
one of these even as we speak?  I would! )

So how come were getting our asses kicked in Afghanistan?  Hell,
everywhere.

--
Uncle Alhttp://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
 (Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz4.htm

On Feb 5, 2:08 pm, Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net
wrote:

This is an ancient technique.

Hi Phil! Bugging devices using laser speckle are ancient?

You sure about that? Got a ref or two? (And someone should
tell the OSA that they're announcing embarrassingly old techniques.)

 The speckle pattern moves at twice the
speed of the objects--it's been used to measure the motion of paper in
hand-held scanners such as the HP Capshare 920 (circa 1996), and is the

So, then who first realized that we can use it for remote listening?

On Feb 5, 2:08 pm, Phil Hobbs<pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net
wrote:

This is an ancient technique.

Hi Phil! Bugging devices using laser speckle are ancient?

You sure about that? Got a ref or two? (And someone should
tell the OSA that they're announcing embarrassingly old techniques.)

The speckle pattern moves at twice the
speed of the objects--it's been used to measure the motion of paper in
hand-held scanners such as the HP Capshare 920 (circa 1996), and is the

So, then who first realized that we can use it for remote listening?

On 2/8/2010 12:51 AM, Bill Beaty wrote:

On Feb 5, 2:08 pm, Phil Hobbs<pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net
wrote:

This is an ancient technique.

Hi Phil!   Bugging devices using laser speckle are ancient?

You sure about that?   Got a ref or two?   (And someone should
tell the OSA that they're announcing embarrassingly old techniques.)

People publish old techniques all the time.  I've seen papers that
reproduced things I did 15 years before, e.g. the invention of solid
immersion microscopy.

I don't know about the bugging application, but the speckle business has
been done to death since about the 1970s.



  The speckle pattern moves at twice the
speed of the objects--it's been used to measure the motion of paper in
hand-held scanners such as the HP Capshare 920 (circa 1996), and is the

So, then who first realized that we can use it for remote listening?

No idea.  But speckle+TV as a sensitive measuring device is as old as
the hills.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

On Feb 8, 7:24 pm, Phil Hobbs<pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net
wrote:
On 2/8/2010 12:51 AM, Bill Beaty wrote:

On Feb 5, 2:08 pm, Phil Hobbs<pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net
wrote:

This is an ancient technique.

Hi Phil! Bugging devices using laser speckle are ancient?

You sure about that? Got a ref or two? (And someone should
tell the OSA that they're announcing embarrassingly old techniques.)

People publish old techniques all the time. I've seen papers that
reproduced things I did 15 years before, e.g. the invention of solid
immersion microscopy.

I don't know about the bugging application, but the speckle business has
been done to death since about the 1970s.



The speckle pattern moves at twice the
speed of the objects--it's been used to measure the motion of paper in
hand-held scanners such as the HP Capshare 920 (circa 1996), and is the

So, then who first realized that we can use it for remote listening?

No idea. But speckle+TV as a sensitive measuring device is as old as
the hills.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I've only read about it, but a moving speckle pattern makes a nice
noise source.

Say, is there any limit to the frequency that can be obtained with a
moving speckle pattern?

George H.

People publish old techniques all the time.  I've seen papers that
reproduced things I did 15 years before, e.g. the invention of solid
immersion microscopy.

I don't know about the bugging application, but the speckle business has
been done to death since about the 1970s.

So, then who first realized that we can use it for remote listening?

No idea.  But speckle+TV as a sensitive measuring device is as old as
the hills.

Laser bounced off window pane is older than god, curtains came right
after.  The Russkies did a pretty with a microwave resonater by Leon
Theremin in the Moscow US Embassy.

  Let your laser hit the skin or clothing
(or cellphone) of a very distant person, and you can tap into their
conversation or listen to their heartbeat.  The CIA doesn't have to
bounce lasers off windows anymore!  They can shine the spot on your
head, and pick out just your voice (or use separate beams to record
a few voices in a distant crowd.)