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FBI director: Cover up your webcam

thehill.com

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Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#41

Post by jonaf »

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…

This wouldn't work for me, as I store all my passwords on a Post-It note attached to my forehead.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#42

Post by bradbeattie »

stephentmcm wrote: post #20
eganist wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, you can still capture conversations from a webcam if your mark is speaking right in front of it, regardless of whether microphones are on.

Source? I'd hazard a guess that it's likely only marginally more accurate than lip reading?

http://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/VisualMic/

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#44

Post by wingerlang »

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.

I think university aged women would be the most logical person to cover up their camera.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#45

Post by anexprogrammer »

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…

> there are too many people

Oh please. They can probably harvest the lot. It'll be some algorithm that deems you worthy or otherwise or gets you on an "of interest" list. Let's keep "personal surveillance" for '50s spy movies and Banksy murals.

More generally, what about the chilling effect on legal and legitimate conversation?

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#46

Post by throwanem »

boxkite wrote: post #36
gkoberger wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Have you a source for that? My experience of laptop webcams is that they need at least a second or two after power on to initialize the camera. That'd be pretty noticeable if you're using the machine, at least.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#47

Post by Larrikin »

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…

I know that what the webcam captures is probably the least important thing a hacker can get but I do it because it is visible.

Protecting your privacy should NOT be weird and a sticker over your webcam is a very visible way of showing that to the public. When people ask why I do it, its a good opportunity to educate them on the capabilities of the US government, other nation-state actors, and hackers in general. If they don't believe me and haven't heard of Snowden its simple to show them images of Zuckerberg, the FBI director, and other in tech with taped over webcams to convince them.

John Oliver also did a special last year that showed that a lot of people don't really care about the government getting most of their personal information on their computer. But when they think that the government is getting naked pictures of them and their family they're a lot more interested and upset. Bringing up the fact that the government can see them nude in conversation scares a lot more people and they are more inclined to become more privacy conscious.

If you use one of the bookmark post-it notes, it makes it easy to remove the sticker and put it back when you're done with your video conversation.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#48

Post by sillysaurus3 »

bradbeattie wrote: post #42
stephentmcm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? I'd hazard a guess that it's likely only marginally more accurate than lip reading?

http://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/VisualMic/

Interesting technique. This requires 60fps 1280x720 video. People would surely notice the slowdown. I wonder if it's possible to improve on this?

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#50

Post by beachy »

waterphone wrote: post #4
meowface wrote: post #2

I know this thread will probably get politicized, but I see nothing wrong (or necessarily hypocritical; he's law enforcement, not IC) with his advice here.

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.

Perhaps he's not concerned about the FBI and NSA viewing him in the buff (seems to be a recurring theme here - am I the only person who uses his computer fully clothed?) but rather the Russians/Chinese/enemy.
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