FRYING a camcorder

MojoLA said:

A picture is worth 2,000 words (inflation):

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You sir, simply rock.

I wish I had that much fun. :san:

It's amazing what a 5mw eBay greenie can do!

ROFL. Yeah gotta be careful with those ultra powerful 5mW 532s.

You sure annihilated those cameras XD

I'm certain this guy is on vacation or something. Haven't heard the dogs in two weeks, nor seen any activity in their back yard. One thing is certain, he hasn't checked the video log in a while!

What do you think? When he discovers that his cameras had an accident, is he going to shrug his shoulders and say "well, if someone aimed cameras at my house I would have done the same thing" or is he going to storm over to my apartment and try to do the same thing to my face?

What would YOU do if you were him?

I think his reaction is going to depend what, if anything, is on the video.
Proof or no proof of what happened.

That's a good point.

I think worst case scenario is the camera will show me using a super soaker against them, and then a few days later a lot of bright, white light, followed by a loud "pop" and then total blackness.

I have no doubt he'll "know" it was me, but his tape is not going to have an image of me shooting them. The only mistake on my part will be if my bright flashlight trained on the cameras wasn't enough to flare out the lens and prevent them from seeing me.

But the test I did shining the flashlight into MY camera from a long distance was a complete success - it was impossible to get a picture of anything. So without clear evidence that I was the shooter, the cops will tell him to take a hike.

I also am hoping that if he goes to the cops and says "hi, I was using video cameras to spy on my neighbor and he shot them out" the cops won't have much sympathy for him anyway!

I know he didn't pay much for the cameras, so I think he's going to have a tough choice deciding if it's just the price of war or risk telling the cops he was secretly filming me. It might not be illegal, but it's also not something that's going to want to make anyone want to be helpful to him.

And if it IS illegal, he ain't going anywhere!

If it were me I would probably want him to get angry and watch all the footage and try to go to the police. I couldn't imagine them giving a flying you-know-what about his cameras that were pointed at your property. He might even get more or better cameras so this might become a full on sport for you LOL

Please just remember to press "record" on your camera when you get that knock. My money is on it being the police wanting info on vandalism/destruction of private property.

Understand that anything you say can still be used against you... even though they did not give you your Miranda warning. You will not be read your Miranda warning unless they actually place you under arrest.

Good luck! and please let us know how this turns out for you.

Those would have to be some seriously bored cops to investigate a couple broken spy cameras. I also doubt the guy will call the cops over the cameras being broken that he clearly was hoping to spy with. I might not have hit them with pellets though as that's obvious physical damage. Hard to prove it was you without the police getting search warrants on you which I cannot see happening. That is unless you are seen shooting them with the pellet gun.

I just hope beyond all hope that someone tries that with me so I can test my laser array's power. Especially after my new Osram 450nm and 9mm 445nm lasers are done
If they turn out like I hope I'll be adding between four and five additional watts to my lineup.

I would have loved to have done the whole thing with just lasers, but there was no way to know if my 1W 445 Arcitc from 35' away was strong enough to do anything other than screw up the picture while it was shining into the lens.

My guess is, from that distance, frying the sensor just wasn't going to happen.

On the other hand, if I had maybe a 3W 445, it could have worked.

It would be cool to do a test with a cheap security camera and see what sort of laser power it takes to do the job...someone in this thread said they recognized the cameras and they were on eBay for $40 each. If I can find them, I might be tempted to pick one up to experiment with!

I've posted a question on a free legal site to find out of his taping me is illegal. Actually here is a "fun" story: my downstairs neighbor thinks one of those cameras was pointed at HER balcony (she's probably right, he didn't need 2 cameras on me and if you look at the "before" picture it does look like one of them is pointed in a different direction). She went to the cops last week and you know what they told her? They said "sorry, there is nothing we can do about it. Close your shades and, if it really bothers you, MOVE."

Can you believe that?? So even if I had tried to deal with this on the level, I would have gotten no where. On the other hand,I bet you anything that while spying on people with a hidden camera is totally legal, destroying that camera is not.

Still, he's not going to have proof that it was me, and since he has the other camera aimed at a different apartment it just shows he's not 100% sure I'm the one causing the problems for him, so he won't be 100% sure I'm the one who took them out!

That guy is such a moron - when he discovered that someone was throwing stuff in his yard, instead of thinking "wow, this time it was beer bottles, next time it could be a poison steak - I really should do something about my dogs" his reaction was "I'm gonna catch the person throwing stuff into my yard!"

It's just amazing what people who live in denial will do. He really needs to come to grips with the fact that this whole situation wouldn't exist if he would do the right thing and stop his dogs from annoying the entire neighborhood.

What a tool.

hahaha. what a true tool. send a picture of him and post his number so we can spam his phone.

With that whole situation I actually retract my "entirely laser" belief and fully back your shooting the cameras

Relying on a single 1W 445nm may not kill them so just shooting the damn things and getting it over with is more logical. Now to wait and see what the idiot does about it. If he puts more up, you might want to shoot them again but be aware that the cameras may have extremely wide angles of view so careful not to make yourself seen setting up the flashlight to blind it.

It appears to me,that in this photo...



the cameras are mounted on your side of the fence?

if so ,he was/is trespassing at minimum.(in which wiretapping laws come into play,especially if the cameras have sound capability)

you are just damaging junk he left in your yard.

And if that's the case,I think I would have just took a chainsaw and cut the limbs that overhang the fence,including the cameras.

Good observation, Rafiki, but what you're seeing is a bit of an optical illusion created by the zoom lens; when you go telephoto (also known as a "long lens") it compresses space, making it difficult to judge how far apart things are (a famous use of this is in scenes where someone is walking on train tracks and it looks like the train is right behind them, ready to turn the hero into dog food; in reality, the train is probably a quarter mile behind him, but the long lens compresses space and makes the train look like it's much closer than it is).

In my situation, the cameras are well clear of my side of the fence and are a good 10 feet into his side - it's just the zoom lens and flat lighting make it look like they could be closer.

Trust me, if he had been stupid enough to put those cameras on OUR side of the fence I would have used his cameras to make a little movie called "destruction of a security camera."

Oh and welcome to the forum!

As I see it the cameras are really close to the fence and not looking into his own back yard that says he was looking over the fence and not into his own yard, what peeping tom he is...

Rafiki said:

It appears to me,that in this photo...

the cameras are mounted on your side of the fence?

if so ,he was/is trespassing at minimum.(in which wiretapping laws come into play,especially if the cameras have sound capability)

you are just damaging junk he left in your yard.

And if that's the case,I think I would have just took a chainsaw and cut the limbs that overhang the fence,including the cameras.

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So I did a little research and it turns out - unsurprisingly - that his taping of my balcony is not illegal. I guess it makes sense; if I'm standing out on my outdoor balcony, I don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy, so while hidden cameras filming me isn't what you might call ethical, it's not illegal.

On the other hand, shooting through someone's window into their home is NOT allowed. Inside your home you DO have the expectation of privacy, so my neighbor has a better case against him than I do, because his cameras COULD see inside her house, even if he was only shooting her balcony (looking at his cameras you have no idea what he is filming).

What's interesting is the law is FAR more concerned with what you can hear rather than what you can see. I think it comes under the heading of "wire tapping," and there are already very strict laws about recording conversations without consent. So if his video cameras were also recording audio, that part would get him in more trouble than the video.

Of course, destruction of property is definitely not legal. But it's a long road between having a suspicion of who made spare parts out of your cameras and being able to prove it. I'm pretty sure his cameras will not show me shooting them. If he wasn't bothering with audio, it's even better since you won't hear the VVVRRRROOOOOOM of the 5mw greenie I used to fry them.



Ok, this saga is over... For now. Once he discovers what happened, we may have a sequel. Of course, there are a LOT or birds and squirrels all over the place. To me, it looks like a woodpecker got confused and pecked those cameras to death!