In reading through the latest John Rain book that I managed to obtain (a superb series for thriller readers, especially shadowrun-playing thriller readers - the author is Barry Eisler) I came across an interesting piece of gear.

The main character, John Rain, gets his hands on a camera detector. I thought this sounds a little far-fetched, but I had a look online and there seems to be some basis for it, not that I am advocating believing everything I read online.

Apparently it is possible to have a detector that detects the horizontal oscillator frequency used in cameras, which is, according to the link, 15.75KHz.

The link is this:
http://spyville.com/video-camera-detector.html

And, I quote from the closest there seems to be on tech specs:
"The sensitive external antenna is specially designed to pick up the horizontal oscillator frequency 15.75 KHz radiated by video cameras. Once the video camera is detected, its location can be quickly determined by vibration and then the five-step LED meter and Sensitivity control. Tests with various cameras show a detection range of 2 to 15 feet, depending on the type of camera"

My questions for those who have more knowledge with these things than I do (which is pretty much all of you) are these:

1. It seems it is possible to have such a device, and am I right in thinking that it would detect everything that has a lens (everything from movie cameras to tiny pinhole cameras)?
2. Working on this principal, would it not be also possible to have something that detects contact-point alarms and electrically-based pressure pads?

I would guess that the cameras give of the same low frequency signal because of the video output standards (15.75 KHz horizontal scan frequency). Because the electronics of the camera oscilate at this frequency they give of some small amount of emf radiation at the same frequency.

The detection range is going to be quite crappy, and I'd guess that there are relatively simple ways of altering the camera so that it oscilates at a different frequency range.

In addition, the system will only find standard video cameras. It won't find stuff like triggered still cameras or other similar devices. (It may also detect certain other tpye of A/V equipment, like computer monitors and TVs).

that's one problem with having a game that includes modern or future tech--you can do some really arcane, cool stuff, in real life, and trying to reflect that in a game just leads to headaches.

Isn't that what SOTA books are for?

not really. i first read about this specific trick in Cryptonomicon, which was published almost a decade ago. the actual trick--an application of the principles behind van Eck phreaking--is fourteen years older than that. it's a very, very basic idea that requires nothing more than clever use of common technology. including it in a SOTA book would be like including rule for pulleys and levers in SOTA. yes, it's useful stuff, and no, there aren't any existing rules for it--but that doesn't really make it SOTA.

to explain why these don't exist in SR, i'd probably just say that cameras are shielded such that the RF output of their electronics can't be detected with any reliability. alternatively, you can have them exist and base them off the rules for RF detectors in SOTA64.

The SotA books are regularly abused for this sort of purpose. For example, IIRC the first heavier mortars in Shadowrun were introduced in SotA:63--I'm pretty sure the technology for larger mortars wasn't lost in the crash.

~J

Well I was aluding to the fact that the SOTA books have been used to add in todays 'new' technology, for example Gecko Tape. In fact Matrix also did a lot of that with the wireless stuff. Neither are particularly new ideas, they've just been recently developed as being feasable.