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The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam

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Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam

#41

Post by gregpilling »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #32
mwti wrote: post #26

All these little wires [0] emit electromagnetic radiation that be intercepted and turned back into whatever you see (and more). Despite what you read on Hacker News no amount of encryption or software trickery is going to stop this. [0]: http://imgur.com/IHXKlNw

I like to believe that converting those EM signals back into something useful is beyond the ability of current technology, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking

Have you heard of this?

Video demonstration https://youtu.be/ZZ5HS8GWIec?t=1m45s

Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam

#42

Post by Roritharr »

shurcooL wrote: post #35
rdl wrote: post #29

I care about audio so much more than video, and text/keys/etc captured from the machine even more. As long as my screen and keyboard are out of the frame of the camera, I don't really care about it getting RATed. At worst, you'll see me naked, or making angry/etc. faces at someone on irc or email. While embarrassing it would be less bad than most of what you could accomplish by stealing actual information. OTOH, carr…

Did I understand what you said at the end correctly, are you willing to commit to buy 8 million dollars worth of laptops?

Thats what happens if you take your privacy seriously. You buy one-off Laptops that you can use like paper tissues.

Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam

#43

Post by wildmusings »

comboy wrote: post #3

I don't really understand the webcam paranoia. If my computer is completely compromised, somebody watching my face is the least of my worries.

If someone hacks into my computer and steals my CC info, I can very easily remedy that situation by calling the bank. Hell, my bank will probably notice before I do. I'm not even liable for the fraudulent transactions. The same is true to varying degrees of inconvenience for most information.

If someone hacks into my computer and takes videos of me in the buff (or worse, in an intimate situation) and posts them online, I have no remedy. The Rubicon has been crossed. The ship has sailed. The cat is out of the bag. You get the point.

Spare me the lecture about nudity and sex being a stupid taboo. If the world was how I wanted it to be, a lot of things would be different. You have to deal with the reality you live in.

Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam

#44

Post by gregpilling »

rdl wrote: post #37
colejohnson66 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to believe that converting those EM signals back into something useful is beyond the ability of current technology, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong

This has been a known/practical attack for decades. OTOH, it does require physical proximity, although you could probably do it with a remotely controlled sensor at an intermediate location near the target. What would be terrifying would be if someone could figure out how to do this attack via software compromise of some hardware sensor system already present throughout the environment; say, a way to repurpose a wifi…

That was done a couple years ago

"IN THE AGE of surveillance paranoia, most smartphone users know better than to give a random app or website permission to use their device’s microphone. But researchers have found there’s another, little-considered sensor in modern phones that can also listen in on their conversations. And it doesn’t even need to ask."

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/gyroscope-listening-hack/

Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam

#45

Post by kobayashi »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #30
kobayashi wrote: post #6

>"I saw something in the news, so I copied it. I put a piece of tape — I have obviously a laptop, personal laptop — I put a piece of tape over the camera. Because I saw somebody smarter than I am had a piece of tape over their camera." Such a telling statement. It's my belief that this man does not adequately comprehend the magnitude of the issues at hand. General Hayden, on the other hand, is a man whom I believe to…

> "Because I saw somebody smarter than I am had a piece of tape over their camera." And there's (tens of) thousands of people smarter than you telling you how wrong you are about encryption, yet you're ignoring them.

Exactly

Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam

#46

Post by kobayashi »

jd3 wrote: post #11
kobayashi wrote: post #6

>"I saw something in the news, so I copied it. I put a piece of tape — I have obviously a laptop, personal laptop — I put a piece of tape over the camera. Because I saw somebody smarter than I am had a piece of tape over their camera." Such a telling statement. It's my belief that this man does not adequately comprehend the magnitude of the issues at hand. General Hayden, on the other hand, is a man whom I believe to…

Hayden understands technology like a politician understands rhetoric. He's a snake.

I have no reason to believe that he's a snake - quite the opposite. He seems to be a man with strongly held convictions and a keen eye for reason. I certainly don't always agree with him, but he's thoughtful and thorough, as can be observed from his many interviews and his recent book. I can respect a person without agreeing wholeheartedly with them, and such is the case for Hayden. Comey, on the other hand, seems to be a one-track-mind kind of guy; a personality that is associated with the worst kinds of cops.

Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam

#47

Post by white-flame »

jws wrote: post #15
comboy wrote: post #3

I don't really understand the webcam paranoia. If my computer is completely compromised, somebody watching my face is the least of my worries.

The first Apple iSight cameras, back in the days of Firewire, had this nifty mechanical iris that covered the lens. A twist of the bezel ring and it opened, another and it closed. Granted, just that feature was 6 times the volume of a modern webcam and probably three times the cost, but it did perfectly address people's discomfort with the eye staring at them. For some reason, the ear listening to them doesn't seem t…

The old Sparc pizza boxes had a physical switch on their external microphones as well.

Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam

#48

Post by blackbagboys »

white-flame wrote: post #2

To me, Comey is a man who has lost the goal in pursuit of his particular mission. Defense, intelligence, policing, all these things exist in order to uphold the constitution, protect the "American ideals", etc. Many of his statements pretty directly show that he doesn't care about the collateral damage to innocent people's privacy or any founding principles, he just wants his mission to be unhindered. It's the same m…

This is a pattern you see in a lot of high-performing people.

They aren't particularly interested in the 'big picture'. They may say they are, they may think they are, but on a practical, day-to-day basis, it's irrelevant. They know the mission of their organizational unit, they know the goals that need to be accomplished to achieve that mission, they know the metrics they need to hit to advance within that organization, and they are adept at focusing their full attention and energy on whatever task is in front them that leads directly to those ends. It's a personality type that thrives in large organizations - government, private, whatever - and to a certain extent its necessary to make large organizations work, but the risk is that you end up with people wielding significant power who behave like wind-up dolls.

Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam

#50

Post by nyolfen »

JohnTHaller wrote: post #25
billhendricksjr wrote: post #16

Don't almost all cameras activate their "on" light when being used?

Like phones, most laptop webcams have no "on" light. You have to trust that the software you have on your device isn't using the microphone and camera without your permission.

you and i have very different experience with webcams. i have yet to see a webcam without an indicator led in my life.
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