FBI director: Cover up your webcam • Hacker News Board

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#21

Post by fl0wenol » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 3:09 AM UTC

nathancahill wrote: post #7

waterphone wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a bad thing to do, it's just hypocritical of him to value his own privacy but tell everyone else they need to give up theirs and let the FBI and NSA have access to everything they want to keep private.

Why would you be concerned about the FBI or the NSA knowing about the content of your digital communiques if you have nothing to hide? Even the most ardent supporter of personal freedoms will admit that the government observing you over a network is the same as taking pictures of you with a telephoto lens on a busy street. The truth is the same: there are too many people and you aren't special enough to deserve perso…

This is a very weak analogy.

What the NSA is doing right now, and what the FBI would like access to, is in no way similar to taking pictures of you on a busy street.

What the NSA has is every intersection wired up with cameras, recording 24 hours a day, and all of it indexed with facial recognition and license plate readers.

No organization should have that much information or reach at their fingertips, no matter how virtuous the mission or the people working there.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#22

Post by gkoberger » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 3:09 AM UTC

ipsin wrote: post #12

If you're so concerned about having your webcam subverted, it seems like the first step would be to insist on a hardware LED that can't be subverted in firmware. If nothing else, it would serve as a canary, indicating that your machine has been thoroughly compromised.

And who do we trust to do that? More importantly, is it even possible?

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#23

Post by flukus » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 3:10 AM UTC

nathancahill wrote: post #7

waterphone wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a bad thing to do, it's just hypocritical of him to value his own privacy but tell everyone else they need to give up theirs and let the FBI and NSA have access to everything they want to keep private.

Why would you be concerned about the FBI or the NSA knowing about the content of your digital communiques if you have nothing to hide? Even the most ardent supporter of personal freedoms will admit that the government observing you over a network is the same as taking pictures of you with a telephoto lens on a busy street. The truth is the same: there are too many people and you aren't special enough to deserve perso…

> Even the most ardent supporter of personal freedoms will admit that the government observing you over a network is the same as taking pictures of you with a telephoto lens on a busy street.

Is it? If i'm having a 1 to 1 conversation with someone online then that is a private conversation. There monitoring my traffic is more like opening the letters I would be sending that person.

More fundamentally though, the meat space public/private divide does not map at all to the cyber space one, all analogies and laws to apply one to the other are flawed.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#24

Post by andrewflnr » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 3:11 AM UTC

So the guy who decries "going dark" when it comes to encryption wants us to literally go dark with our webcams. It's like a dystopian comedy setup.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#25

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 3:12 AM UTC

This is like the coal burning power plant telling you to make sure to sort your recyclables into appropriate containers, to make the environment cleaner.

Also people enjoy and feel good about accomplishing small things. Putting a sticker on your laptop is a small easy task. Do it and they feel more "secure" in an instant.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#26

Post by anexprogrammer » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 3:12 AM UTC

ipsin wrote: post #12

If you're so concerned about having your webcam subverted, it seems like the first step would be to insist on a hardware LED that can't be subverted in firmware. If nothing else, it would serve as a canary, indicating that your machine has been thoroughly compromised.

If it was on my radar I would much rather have an LED for microphone active (laptop and phone) than webcam - precisely because I can put a sticker on webcam.

Better still a hardware switch.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#27

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 3:12 AM UTC

nathancahill wrote: post #7

waterphone wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a bad thing to do, it's just hypocritical of him to value his own privacy but tell everyone else they need to give up theirs and let the FBI and NSA have access to everything they want to keep private.

Why would you be concerned about the FBI or the NSA knowing about the content of your digital communiques if you have nothing to hide? Even the most ardent supporter of personal freedoms will admit that the government observing you over a network is the same as taking pictures of you with a telephoto lens on a busy street. The truth is the same: there are too many people and you aren't special enough to deserve perso…

[deleted]

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#28

Post by iamdave » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 3:12 AM UTC

nathancahill wrote: post #7

waterphone wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a bad thing to do, it's just hypocritical of him to value his own privacy but tell everyone else they need to give up theirs and let the FBI and NSA have access to everything they want to keep private.

Why would you be concerned about the FBI or the NSA knowing about the content of your digital communiques if you have nothing to hide? Even the most ardent supporter of personal freedoms will admit that the government observing you over a network is the same as taking pictures of you with a telephoto lens on a busy street. The truth is the same: there are too many people and you aren't special enough to deserve perso…

Are we really still building a brick wall between "nothing to hide" and "prefer to keep personal"? I'm asking this as far away from the legal and moral realms as possible; do people just not even deserve the basic benefit of having aspects of their day-to-day kept to themselves, even if it might not be inherently and/or objectively wrong?

Because that's the question I hear being begged when the "you have nothing to hide" counterpoint is brought up. You've got nothing to hide, so let me just look anyway. Sure it's none of my business, and I have no actionable legal right to it, but it's not illegal so why don't you want me to see it?

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#29

Post by krastanov » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 3:12 AM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #22

ipsin wrote: post #12

If you're so concerned about having your webcam subverted, it seems like the first step would be to insist on a hardware LED that can't be subverted in firmware. If nothing else, it would serve as a canary, indicating that your machine has been thoroughly compromised.

And who do we trust to do that? More importantly, is it even possible?

In terms of electronics it is fairly trivial and it can be inspected by eye (or microscope) if the manufacturer decides to not encapsulate everything on a chip (which presumably would be the point of such a feature).

Just have the only positive voltage rail going to the camera be the same one that is directly powering the LED. The firmware will be turning this rail on and off, hence turning the camera and the LED on and off simultaneously.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#30

Post by Hilyin » Thu, Sep 15, 2016, 3:13 AM UTC

I guess this is just as good place as any to bring this up. In current OS X, you cannot disable your mic. You can turn down the input volume, but never disable. All malware needs to do is raise the input volume and it can listen to you to its hearts content.

And its worse with your iPhone.