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

GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 323 posts

Re: GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

#131

Post by tripzilch »

zacinbusiness wrote: post #22
route66 wrote: post #17

The document estimates that between 3% and 11% of the Yahoo webcam imagery harvested by GCHQ contains "undesirable nudity". Discussing efforts to make the interface "safer to use", it noted that current "naïve" pornography detectors assessed the amount of flesh in any given shot, and so attracted lots of false positives by incorrectly tagging shots of people's faces as pornography. So, if you have to hide something,…

Nope. You need to show a males private parts. You know they were having a fap fest over at GHCQ.

crude, but probably very true. just remember that confessions of a TSA agent blog. I can't imagine it would be any different (if not worse, because the people aren't actually present).

Re: GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

#132

Post by declan »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #63
brador wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You ever wonder why every device has a front facing camera when they're known to be one of the least used parts?.

Because they only cost $1-2 and people feel like they add value to the device (to use it with Skype, Yahoo!, Google+ Circles, and so on). There is no evidence right now that the intelligence services can remotely activate webcams on any device of their choosing. They would likely need to first install malware on most devices to accomplish that.

There is, however, evidence that FedGov can remotely activate webcams on some devices of their choosing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/fbis-searc... The FBI has been able to covertly activate a computer’s camera — without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording — for several years, and has used that technique mainly in terrorism cases or the most serious criminal investigations, said Marcus Thomas, former assistant director of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division in Quantico...

Re: GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

#133

Post by zacinbusiness »

tripzilch wrote: post #131
zacinbusiness wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. You need to show a males private parts. You know they were having a fap fest over at GHCQ.

crude, but probably very true. just remember that confessions of a TSA agent blog. I can't imagine it would be any different (if not worse, because the people aren't actually present).

no more crude than the process of collecting the images in the first place. Were they live streams or some sort of cacheing thing?

Re: GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

#134

Post by w_t_payne »

samstave wrote: post #65
dmix wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even though webcam stills may be the least important (or useful) spying the US and UK Blackmail. Polticial, economic, and spying-related informant-turning blackmail. The CIA's primary business is getting informants and agents all over the world. Usually via some threat. This is perfect fodder for it. Using cheating and sex (ie homosexuality in the 50s) against people is one of the most classic examples of recruitin…

I'd wager that this is one reason homosexuality has been held as taboo for so long: it can be weaponized against your enemies for leverage and power.

It is no accident that socially conservative ideologies are correlated with right-wing / authoritarian politics. It is such an age-old instrument of manipulation and control that I am tempted to believe that it is innate and ingrained into our biology.

Re: GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

#135

Post by touristtam »

buro9 wrote: post #92
touristtam wrote: post #87

What's the purpose of founding this kind of spying program? Do they expect to find Al'Quaida' sbire among the average joe?

Facial recognition technology, combined with every camera on earth. They are laying the foundations for a 24/7 ubiquitous and always-on surveillance and tracking system. The ultimately goal might be to use very little resources (humans, drones, etc) yet achieve a near-omnipotent level of power and influence. If they are able to conflate many such methods and systems into one sense of intelligence, then their ability…

Sure, but in this end of the world, machine domination, and terminator like scenario, they still need to convince us to use a webcam and a mic on the computer.

Re: GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

#136

Post by fit2rule »

garethadams wrote: post #53
fit2rule wrote: post #36

I honestly think it was deliberate. What class of Operating System developer ships their OS releases without 100% CODE COVERAGE? Apple do code coverage testing, surely? I mean, more than the "-warn-dead-code" args that get flung around. I can't understand how this would have gotten released into the wild if they were doing industry-standard code coverage tests. And .. if they're not doing industrial-strength code-cov…

I think you may have got the wrong story here

Thanks - I did indeed get the wrong story.

Re: GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

#137

Post by tripzilch »

touristtam wrote: post #87

What's the purpose of founding this kind of spying program? Do they expect to find Al'Quaida' sbire among the average joe?

the more I hear about this, the more I have to think it's just "because they're evil" and "because they can".

Re: GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

#138

Post by dandelany »

samstave wrote: post #65
dmix wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even though webcam stills may be the least important (or useful) spying the US and UK Blackmail. Polticial, economic, and spying-related informant-turning blackmail. The CIA's primary business is getting informants and agents all over the world. Usually via some threat. This is perfect fodder for it. Using cheating and sex (ie homosexuality in the 50s) against people is one of the most classic examples of recruitin…

I'd wager that this is one reason homosexuality has been held as taboo for so long: it can be weaponized against your enemies for leverage and power.

I don't know, that seems like a tautology - the only reason it can be weaponized against your enemies is because it's taboo.

Re: GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

#139

Post by tripzilch »

user24 wrote: post #28
markyc wrote: post #7

i wish i could chose from a wider range of laptops without camera and microphone i own an old hp like that and i love it i never need the camera and when i need to skype i just plug the headphones

I wonder if having the webcam always on but piping to /dev/null would prevent a trojan from accessing it... I also wonder if plugging a 3rd party mic into line-in and switching it off would have a similar effect for the mic. You can never be sure unless your fix is physical.

well if plugging the disabled 3rd party mic somehow leaves the internal one recording, that would imply your soundcard just got upgraded to having the ability for two inputs recording simulataneously. usually cost a premium, such cards :)

Re: GCHQ intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users worldwide

#140

Post by pbhjpbhj »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #109

Don't the Brits have a constitution to protect their civil liberties? Oh wait, they really don't have a constitution...

UK has the rule of law, the ECHR (for example).

Would it matter if there were some other document making such things unlawful? Do you think that if they had the protections of the ECHR but it was called a constitution that GCHQ wouldn't have taken the same actions?

Lawyers may tell you the UK do have a constitution - I've never really understood how that's true however.

Post reply on HN