A while back, I posted about fashion in 2032 in connection with my work-in-progress, South. One aspect I didn’t think much about is passive surveillance countermeasures.
Discovery News wrote on 18 January about Adam Harvey, a New York artist and activist who has debuted a line of outerwear using a material that defeats thermal imaging, a common feature of drone-based surveillance video. The line includes a hoodie, shorts, a mini-burqa, scarf, and tee shirt. The IR shots show the covered parts of the models turning black.
As Discovery notes, “The materials the clothes are made are specialized and expensive,” so they won’t show up at The Gap anytime soon. However, I could expect that by 2032 these materials would be in common use in the military and law enforcement, and would be within the reach of people who seriously don’t want to show up on the Candid Camera in the Sky. One form they could take: specialty underwear. Imagine UnderArmor that not only keeps you dry, but makes you disappear in the infrared spectrum.
I suspect Our Hero Luis may need a set of this stuff.
Adam Harvey’s website includes several of his other innovations, including dazzle makeup to defeat facial recognition and a camouflaged strobe to blind paparazzi cameras. Fringe stuff? Just wait a few years.