Hidden Messages In Plain Sight

Hiding messages in places that are heavily scrutinized is an old practice.

Japanese firm Fujitsu is pushing a technology that can encode data into a picture that is invisible to the human eye but can be decoded by a mobile phone with a camera.

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Fujitsu’s technique works by taking advantage of the sensitivities of the human eye, which struggles to see the colour yellow.

“The key is to take the yellow hue in the picture and we skew that ever so slightly to create a pattern,” said Mr Nelson.

“A camera is perfectly sensitive to that yellow hue but the human eye doesn’t see it very well.

“Any camera, even those in mobile phones, can decode it very easily.”

Pictures printed with the technique look perfectly normal but a camera can see the code printed into the image.

Distraction is an important aspect of security and one that is overlooked often.

I do wonder though if these messages are picked up by the subconscious? Imagine billboards of the future..