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FBI director: Cover up your webcam

thehill.com

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Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#51

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Larrikin wrote: post #47
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 t…

I agree. It's more of a statement than a meaningful security measure.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#52

Post by mikeash »

jonaf wrote: post #41
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.

Written backwards so you can read it in the mirror, right? They wouldn't be able to read it, since they get a non-mirrored image.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#53

Post by white-flame »

I said it then, and I say it now:

- Encryption is our webcam tape.

That tape cannot be thwarted by any remote attacker, legally warranted or not. It's perfect, unbreakable security from webcam visuals being exfiltrated, exactly the security features that Comey says we shouldn't be allowed to have for our data.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#54

Post by beachy »

Steuard wrote: post #39
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 rende…

Perhaps you mean in parallel. An LED is driven by 20 mA, whereas a camera requires more like 200 mA, so it's not feasible to wire them in series - either the LED will burn out or the camera won't power up.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#55

Post by 1_2__3 »

krastanov wrote: post #29
gkoberger wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Idle though on possible attack vectors:

Convince the firmware to use a lower voltage, one that doesn't hit the breakover voltage on the LED but still powers the camera.

Strobe the line, get snapshots without the LED doing more than very faintly glowing.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#56

Post by pdkl95 »

white-flame wrote: post #53

I said it then, and I say it now: - Encryption is our webcam tape. That tape cannot be thwarted by any remote attacker, legally warranted or not. It's perfect, unbreakable security from webcam visuals being exfiltrated, exactly the security features that Comey says we shouldn't be allowed to have for our data.

"What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail? If a nonconformist tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he's hiding. Fortunately, we don't live in that kind of world, because everyone protects most of their mail with envelopes. So no one draws suspicion by asserting their privacy with an envelope. There's safety in numbers. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their email, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their email privacy with encryption. Think of it as a form of solidarity."

~ Philip Zimmermann, "Why I wrote PGP"

https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#58

Post by Natsu »

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 have a black laptop. I put a tiny piece of black electrical tape over it.

I do lots of calls, but I've never seen a good reason to use video except perhaps with one's SO.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#59

Post by krastanov »

1_2__3 wrote: post #55
krastanov wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Idle though on possible attack vectors: Convince the firmware to use a lower voltage, one that doesn't hit the breakover voltage on the LED but still powers the camera. Strobe the line, get snapshots without the LED doing more than very faintly glowing.

I have a very hard time believing that the camera itself will not brownout in such a case.

Re: FBI director: Cover up your webcam

#60

Post by conradev »

I use a MacBook Pro as my daily driver, but I recently purchased a Lenovo ThinkPad to play around with. Sometimes I forget how awesome it is to have a repairable and modular computer.

I didn't want the webcam or microphone in the ThinkPad… so I took 30 minutes and removed it. Easy as that.

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