Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

FBI director: Cover up your webcam

thehill.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 307 posts

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#31

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr »

dingo_bat wrote: post #3

I have never covered my Webcam because I trust the light to come on if the camera turns on. Is it possible to bypass that led?

From a user perspective it is hard to know whether the webcam LED is software controlled. If it is software controlled, e.g. by the webcam driver, it is prone to manipulation and could remain off while the webcam is recording.

Of course, there are many cameras that do not even have an activity indiator (LED), e.g. stand-alone cameras, or simply your phone front and back camera. I find it a good habit to cover all cameras, regardless of wether they have an indicator.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#32

Post by sotojuan »

The webcam cover up is interesting to me because it's the only "weird privacy thing" I've seen regular, non-technical people do. A good amount of people at my university, most of which use social media liberally and don't care about encryption, cover their camera up.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#35

Post by hkmurakami »

6t6t6t6 wrote: post #6

From all they ways I can be spied, the webcam is the one that concerns me the least. At the end, all they will see is a bearded man staring to the front. May they be able to see me naked? Well, probably, but I honestly don't think that they will make a lot of money by selling my naked pictures... My wife tells me that I still look good, but I suspect that she is being nice to me. What would scare more is that they ma…

Blue paint tape makes the on/off process at least a bit more bearable.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#36

Post by boxkite »

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?

Even if it was, most of the time when people are taking surveillance webcam photos (a hacker or a person trying to recover their stolen laptop) you can take the picture so quickly that they probably won't see the light.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#37

Post by the_common_man »

Hilyin wrote: post #30

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.

Can someone confirm if this is actually true? Sounds too far fetched that you cannot disable the mic (i.e not muting, I assume?).

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#38

Post by smelendez »

sotojuan wrote: post #32

The webcam cover up is interesting to me because it's the only "weird privacy thing" I've seen regular, non-technical people do. A good amount of people at my university, most of which use social media liberally and don't care about encryption, cover their camera up.

It actually seems less weird to me in a university setting. Most university students live in small quarters, so they're more likely to have a computer in front of them while they're nude, using drugs, having private conversations or doing other private things.

They're also around lots of new people of varying levels of maturity who could have a decent chance of getting physical or network access to their computer, much more than neighbors in the rest of the world.

A creepy stalker or blackmailer spying on a university student through a webcam sadly doesn't seem that farfetched, especially for women.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#39

Post by Steuard »

dingo_bat wrote: post #3

I have never covered my Webcam because I trust the light to come on if the camera turns on. Is it possible to bypass that led?

In addition to the attacks that others have mentioned here, I've also heard folks comment previously on the possibility of turning on the camera very briefly, just long enough for a single still shot. If it was done fast enough, the brief flicker of the LED might not be noticeable.

(Like you, I had always assumed that the power for the webcam was literally in series with the LED, so that disabling the LED would render the camera inoperable. That seemed like the obvious way to do it if you wanted to provide a truly reliable signal. But evidently that's not the case.)

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#40

Post by noobermin »

6t6t6t6 wrote: post #6

From all they ways I can be spied, the webcam is the one that concerns me the least. At the end, all they will see is a bearded man staring to the front. May they be able to see me naked? Well, probably, but I honestly don't think that they will make a lot of money by selling my naked pictures... My wife tells me that I still look good, but I suspect that she is being nice to me. What would scare more is that they ma…

When you're a person with access to the nation's secrets, it may matter.
Post reply on HN