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Revisiting webcam covers

rubenerd.com

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Re: Revisiting webcam covers

#21

Post by mncharity »

Random story just for fun. Years back I was at a tech meetup, and left my laptop sitting on a lunchroom table, and wandered off to chat. Now my laptop then looked a bit odd, with three extra cameras, on folding sticks gaff taped to the lid. Two fisheyes perched on the corners, and a keyboard cam hanging out on a wooden-ruler arm.[1] For head, eye, hand and stylus tracking - the ThinkPad's quadro would run hot just driving the HIDs, even before starting the desktop UI, let alone any apps. Now while I was gone, a host had gone around the tables, and left a gift. Sitting on/beside the laptop, under the assorted extra cameras on sticks, was a small piece of logo-ed swag... a little webcam sliding-cover thin plastic stick-on. There was laughter.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERqCfdkX0AEWTN_?format=jpg&name=...

Re: Revisiting webcam covers

#22

Post by booleandilemma »

Daneel_ wrote: post #5

There's something to be said for the more recent thinkpads that have physical sliders built into the laptop.

I love the slider, but why did they have to put a painted red dot on it? It makes it look as if the camera is on and recording me. It’s unnecessarily jarring.

Re: Revisiting webcam covers

#23

Post by Nitrolo »

gumby wrote: post #11

I use my phone as my webcam. So to stream video I have to put it onto the clip on my monitor and plug in a cable. That doesn’t happen by accident. I recognize that this is more awkward than most people want. But the built in cameras (and third party too) are so terrible that it’s worth it to me.

What apps or programs do you use to make your phone work as a webcam? I've tried that last year but none of the solutions in the play store seemed to work for me.

Re: Revisiting webcam covers

#25

Post by ghaff »

remram wrote: post #18
maliker wrote: post #2

I’d be way more worried about someone putting a keylogger on my laptop versus them taking control of the webcam.

I use a webcam cover, but I'm not worried about people hacking into my laptop. What I'm defending against is one of the many apps I have to use for conferencing (Zoom, Google Meet, Bluejeans, Teams) starting up with the camera on when I'm not expecting it (and e.g. not wearing a shirt, my wife getting ready in the background, etc) for example because it was on last time I used that particular app.

That is probably the main concern for most people. I conference from my office and I simply don't go in there if I'm not presentable at some level. But if you're conferencing from your bedroom, especially with another person, it would be super-easy to mess up with an early morning video call.

Re: Revisiting webcam covers

#26

Post by httpsterio »

Nitrolo wrote: post #23
gumby wrote: post #11

I use my phone as my webcam. So to stream video I have to put it onto the clip on my monitor and plug in a cable. That doesn’t happen by accident. I recognize that this is more awkward than most people want. But the built in cameras (and third party too) are so terrible that it’s worth it to me.

What apps or programs do you use to make your phone work as a webcam? I've tried that last year but none of the solutions in the play store seemed to work for me.

I use Droidcam OBS with OBS on Windows/Mac and it's pretty good, especially over USB. Droidcam X is good as well but with OBS you get more control over the image quality and you can do some arranging of the scene as well.

There's also https://vdo.ninja/ (previously obs.ninja) that doesn't require any special apps. You open up a browser on your smartphone and input the link into OBS as a browser source. The performance on Chrome is superior to other Android browsers in my experience. There's a bit of delay and the quality isn't quite as good as OBS as the connection goes through the internet and isn't local, but the delay is actually surprisingly small.

Re: Revisiting webcam covers

#27

Post by NegativeLatency »

booleandilemma wrote: post #22
Daneel_ wrote: post #5

There's something to be said for the more recent thinkpads that have physical sliders built into the laptop.

I love the slider, but why did they have to put a painted red dot on it? It makes it look as if the camera is on and recording me. It’s unnecessarily jarring.

A little bit of black fingernail polish could fix that

Re: Revisiting webcam covers

#29

Post by MrStonedOne »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #12
Daneel_ wrote: post #5

There's something to be said for the more recent thinkpads that have physical sliders built into the laptop.

Does the slider also physically disconnect the microphone, or alternatively is there a separate switch for it? I find this popular trend of webcam sliders for purported security reasons is mere security theatre as long as microphones cannot be physically disconnected.

somebody didn't read the article
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