Deveillance founder Aida Baradari built a jammer to protect private conversations from recording devices

Congrats on the progress. Talk to you soon.

Thanks, guys.

Have a good one.

Let me tell you about Figma agents. Meet the canvas. Your AI agents can now create and modify your Figma files with design system context. It's in beta starting today. Uh and our next guest is Ida Bardari from Devillance, the anti-serveillance company. I'm very excited to talk to you. Congrats on on the uh the the viral sensation, but since it is your first time on the show, please introduce yourself and the company.

Definitely. Um thanks so much for having me. Um hello everyone. I'm Ida. Um I graduated with degree in physics from Harvard and now I'm building the Veilance uh a company that's protecting your freedom.

How does it work?

Great question. So basically we're building on top of existing ultrasonic jammer technology but what we're integrating here is that we're making it a smart device which takes in information from nearby environment and then targets or distortion signals into the direction of where we detect smart devices.

Interesting.

Um and then simultaneously we also have an AI algorithm that makes sure that the distortion signals that we send out um use artificial tones and voices that make it hard to decode.

Oh,

okay. Uh let's take it one one more step back like what is the actual problem that people are experiencing today and may not even be aware of it.

Yeah. No, I love the question. Um so in at the beginning of 2024 we saw a huge rise in AI variables. I mean I think everyone in the valley probably knows about friend but only um all those um you know promising technologies. The problem there becomes well when you have a conversation and for example you just forget to turn it off. Um a lot of confidential information and private information can be um used to train AI models that you might not necessarily want to be trained on it. And people already have this problem who deal with a lot of confidential information in their everyday professional lives. So that can be people working in you know um in jobs that deal with IP with other sensitive info. Um and there's issues way broader than just you know audio recordings. We also see this with um meta raybands happening like there's a lot of unwanted recording happening there. A lot of freedom for people to just you know go out and do whatever they want. Um and simultaneously of course digital data collection has been a thing for a long time. Um and the way that it's used in recommend recommendation algorithms for example is another thing. So cognitive security is also a big part of this. Um, how do you not disable someone else's device if you're okay with them using it? I was I was skiing and a friend had met Ray-B bands and he was talking to them and it didn't I was sort of eavesdropping on the questions he was asking. Uh, he was sending texts to friends and whatnot and he was fine with me hearing it. Uh, if I was wearing this device, wouldn't he just not be able to use his device? In this particular case, I mean, if you don't mind, then you can just turn it off.

Okay, that makes sense.

So, it's very easy. It's like an onoff thing for you to like genuinely be in full autonomy over it.

Okay. And then what's uh Yeah, obviously it sounds like you launched pre-orders. Uh who has been buying? Is this corporations that want to make sure that they're because you could imagine uh you know, cell phone jammers exist and and Faraday cages exist? like there are ways to secure a property. Uh is this just privacy conscious individuals? Is this a direct to consumer product mostly?

So for the pre-orders, it's been mainly confu uh consumerf facing which means that a lot of people who have pre-ordered it are in the range that you know the price point allows but we are working to like make it accessible and affordable to everyone because we really believe in the mission that everyone who wants uh autonomy really and agency over the day they should have it. But we also are working on a version that is for more like organization based because they usually have different requirements. Um so we're also working on that.

Why is we got to get TJ one of these gifted one. T our friend TJ Parker absolutely hates all meeting meeting recording and all these things that are just

Can you make it into a watch? That would be the killer app. He's watching. No, there's there's a lot of cool stuff with the form factor that we're experimenting with.

But what um are you going to be in a little bit of like an economic war here because uh $1,000 product to counteract something that costs a hundred bucks. There's just a there's a there's an economy here that's sort of misaligned. I I'm also interested to hear about how on earth can it can a recording device cost $100 while an anti-recording device cost $1,000. I imagine that you you you think the price will drop over time, but what is in the device that is expensive?

Yeah, there's a lot of processing that's going on because we have certain algorithms that require a lot of power in order for it to, you know, work. Um, so that is honestly a big component

um of the cost that's driving it.

That's maybe even a more powerful chip than what would just be in a passive audio recorder. Yeah, I mean passive audio recorders, they are usually not as complicated to build, right? You basically just need a mic and then you you can just detect the stuff, right? But in this case, you want to for you want to like find nearby devices, then you also want to make sure that they're blocked.

And then you also want to make sure that the way that you're blocking them is not just uh reconstructible in post-processing. So there's like three different tasks here um that make it way more expensive unfortunately, but we're working on it. What are the what are the laws around this right now? I remember the backlash to Google Glass and then everyone had a phone and it just seemed like if you're out in public, people can just take pictures of you and record you. Uh

yeah,

is it legal to block someone from recording me? I I don't know anything about this.

Yeah, that's a that's a good question. Um in terms of recording, there's one party and two party consent states. Sure. So, um, in but nobody really follows that I feel. Um,

yeah. What's the two party? Is California two party?

I believe it's two party. Yes.

Certainly doesn't feel like it when you walk around.

No, definitely does not feel like it. Exactly. That's why I'm saying nobody really follows it or it's not really enforced by folks.

Um, and then regarding the blocking, so certain blocking is not allowed. So for example, blocking from RF jamming um is not allowed because you can get in the way with emergency services, but unless

you don't do that, there's certain areas in which we can work in.

Okay. Yeah. Very interesting. Well, where can people find it? Where can people pre-order if they're interested?

Uh go on our website. It's Steve.com. Um that's where you can find it. Otherwise, I mean, in general, we're going to be posting a bit more also about the development process and the general vision and mission behind the company on our social media platform. So, on X, um, we're on B and Audible. Um, and then my personal X account is just my name. Um,

I need a I need a little jammer for John's mic. Sometimes he he'll just keep talking, you know, and and uh No, I'm kidding.

Well, thank you so much for coming on.

Yeah, great to meet you. Very very cool that the chat is in a positive way uh saying that it feels very Harry Potter coded to have this sort of magic device that

I like. That's a good one. High praise. Yeah, become invisible.