We don’t have to wait for a dystopian future in which our faces are scanned as we walk down the sidewalk and our every movement is logged – we willingly carry personally identifiable tracking devices in our pockets everywhere we go, and cameras are everywhere. What’s the average law-abiding citizen concerned with privacy to do, let alone activists and protesters seeking to exercise their constitutional rights? These wearable counter-surveillance designs, including drone-evading cloaks, signal-blocking phone cases and fingerprint spoofers aim to provide us with privacy-preserving tools in the age of Big Brother.

Edward Snowden’s ‘Snitch’ iPhone Case & The Tunnel Case

Designed by the infamous whistleblower Edward Snowden himself, who knows a thing or two about the NSA, this modified iPhone 6 case features a screen that monitors when an iPhone is transmitting, covers the rear camera and triggers alerts when the phone is transiting data via radio signals that can make a user detectable.

“If you have a phone in your pocket that’s turned on, a long-lived record of your movements has been created,” Snowden explained while presenting the case at MIT’s Media Lab via video connection from Russia. “As a result of the way the cell network functions your device is constantly shouting into the air by means of radio signals a unique identity that validates you to the phone company. And this unique identity is not only saved by that phone company, but it can also be observed as it travels over the air by independent, even more dangerous third parties.”

A lower tech option with similar albeit less robust features, called the Tunnel case, provides similar benefits and is available now, unlike Snowden’s concept. It’s a signal-jamming copper-lined sleeve that blocks all electromagnetic frequencies within ten seconds, making you untraceable.

URME Anti-Surveillance Prosthetic Mask

There’s no denying that this 3D-printed resin prosthetic mask is creepy looking – especially the way the wearer’s eyes tend not to line up correctly with the eye holes. But wearing another man’s face can help you slip past biometric scanners without revealing your true identity. Artist Leo Selvaggio has lent us all the use of his visage so facial detection software identifies the wearer as him. The mask is also available in a budget-friendly, printable paper version.

“Our world is becoming increasingly surveilled,” reads the URME website offering the mask. “For example, Chicago has over 25,000 cameras networked to a single facial recognition hub. We don’t believe you should be tracked just because you want to walk outside and you shouldn’t have to hide either. Instead, use one of our products to present an alternative identity when in public.”

Fingerprint-Spoofing Strips

The IDENTITY kit by Mian Wei is a ‘fingerprint substitute’ you apply to the tips of your fingers like band-aids. Since fingerprints are biological identifiers that we can’t change, they can be used against us, and the rise of consumer devices requiring a fingerprint passcode can put this crucial piece of identity verification at risk. The black prosthetics are made of a mixture of conductive silicone and fibers so you can assign ‘false fingerprints’ to your iPhone and other devices, and so your ‘fingerprint’ can’t be molded and used as a key to your life.

Makeup That Thwarts Facial Detection

For now, facial detection software still isn’t quite advanced enough to recognize human faces that significantly depart from the usual symmetric arrangement of features. That’s where the ‘anti-face’ comes in, a way of altering your appearance via hairstyles and cosmetics to fool computers into thinking they’re looking at something other than a face. The CVDazzle project explores this idea with a series of six style tips for reclaiming privacy, explaining how to foil detection via makeup, obscuring the nose bridge and eyes as well as the elliptical shape of your face, modifying contrast and avoiding symmetry.

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How To Be Invisible 15 Anti Surveillance Designs Installations

This modular twist-and-lock prosthetic arm for kids is designed specifically for integration with LEGO parts, turning it into a fun toy that makes it easier to engage with other children. A standard gripper makes the ‘Iko’ by Carlos Arturo Torres Tovar practical and functional for everyday use, but it can easily be popped off and replaced with designs of the kids’ own making.

This creative prosthetic system lets children with disabilities use their imaginations to build tools that fit their own needs. The basic system includes a custom-fit prosthetic socket and forearm with a motorized adapter, a removable gripper and an easy-to-use charging station. Kids can swap out the gripper for backhoes and other LEGO creations. The arm can be programmed for various purposes and functions using myoelectric sensors.

Tovar came up with the idea while working at LEGO Future Lab, realizing that play is such an essential part of childhood and that a fun prosthetic could make it easier for children to engage with each other without discomfort.

“Currently I consider that prosthesis are not really designed for kids, yes they are functional in a traditional way, but kids in disability need more than a traditional tool, the physical aspect is just one of the big challenges of growing up, the psychological and the social aspect are as equally important and I wanted to do something about it.”

Those of us who aren’t visually impaired take for granted simple everyday actions like navigating unfamiliar places, reading bus schedules, telling the time or distinguishing between spices when cooking. These innovative gadget concepts use a combination of tactile displays, sensors, Bluetooth technology and apps to make the world a more accessible place for people who are unable to see, ranging from simple braille adaptations to cutting-edge neuroscience.

Invisual Tactile iPhone Case

This stretchy silicone casing for the iPhone covers the entire phone, front and back, replacing the glass screen with a tactile pad. Used along with an accompanying app, the phone offers special accessibility functions like text-to-speech as well as all the usual apps and programs you find on an iPhone.

Munivo: Wearable Silicone Guide

Distance sensors on this wearable gadget that wraps around the palm like jewelry guide the visually impaired toward a particular destination using actuators in the silicone film that’s in contact with the skin. The sensations include pressure, temperature and vibration, alerting the wearer whether to stop, turn right or left, or to be aware of the road widening or narrowing.

Section Cooking Surface

Braille-like raised textures on this cooking mat let you know where the cooking surfaces are, and then keep track of how hot they’re getting with sounds. The designer converted the typical stove eye dial from circular to linear for easier use.

Touch and Go Navigation

Another ultrasonic navigation device fits onto the top of the hand and pairs with a Bluetooth headset, sensing obstacles and letting the wearer know their location via sound and as a relief map on the face of the gadget, both telling them where to go and showing their position on the map in respect to their destination.

Braille Spice Jars

Differences in shape and texture, as well as braille letters, identify salt, pepper and various spices in this set of jars for the visually impaired. The designer split spices into ‘mediterranean’ and ‘oriental’ groups, giving each one a unique shape. The teardrop-shaped salt and pepper shakers are distinguishable from each other using matte or smooth surfaces. Each little pod fits ergonomically into the palm of the hand and is easy to refill.

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Visionary Inventions 13 Bold Designs For The Blind

While an ordinary pair of headphones might consist of 50-something energy-intensive components from various manufacturing processes, this ultra-thin design uses printable electronics to cut that number down to an incredible 8. The ‘roll to roll’ process uses technology as the main material for the design, simplifying its composition and cutting out all unnecessary parts.

Designer Maxime Loiseau explores the adaptability and flexibility of printed electronic circuits in place of wires, used in conjunction with a plastic welding process that joins together larger, simpler pieces rather than a bunch of small injection-molded components. That means the whole product can be made on a single production line.

The wireless Bluetooth version is only a single millimeter thick, including the speakers, which rely on the vibration of a piezoelectric cell to produce sound that’s comparable to more conventional headphones. On the wired version, a single paper-thin cable hangs from one side, leaving the other free. The junction of the cable and the speaker is highlighted in a bright color to spotlight just how flat it is.

“The project doesn’t change the way we will use headphones,” says Loiseau. “The purpose here is to offer a reflection about producing electronic devices in a smarter way. The more materials are advanced, the more they are paradoxically easy to work. Through one production process, we can then using less process, less material, energy and pieces. At the same time, I tried to use the possibilities of the process to create an aesthetic result from it, a more fair product, with no superfluous parts.”

While other gadgets have gotten smaller and more streamlined, printers have generally remained space-hogging behemoths. Seemingly ignored in the quest to make computers and their accessories compact and ultra-efficient, most modern-day printers look like relics of the circa-2000, oversized beige PC era. One new concept aims to challenge that with a tiny mobile design that moves across paper of any size like a Roomba.

The Mini Mobile Robotic Printer makes it possible to take printing capabilities on the go with you along with your laptop, cell phone and other mobile devices. It prints from any device, including phones, and isn’t constrained by the paper size accepted by a conventional printer. It consists of a printhead on a set of small wheels that travels across a sheet of paper to print. An omni-wheel system enables the printer to turn in any direction.

Powered by a battery that can be recharged via USB, the Mini Mobile Robotic Printer has a small inkjet that lasts over 1,000 printed pages. Once charged, the battery gets an hour of printing time. While the first version will be grayscale only, Jerusalem-based ZUtA Labs aims to create a color version in the future.

Measuring just over 4.5 inches in length, the printer connects to gadgets wirelessly via Bluetooth. A Kickstarter campaign is currently raising production funds, and the first printers will go out to backers of the project in January 2015.