If it's a company laptop, put tape on it.
What are you doing while using your company laptop???
you don't wanna know...
The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam
31–40 of 218 posts
Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam
#32All these little wires [0] emit electromagnetic radiation that be intercepted and turned back into whatever you see (and more). Despite what you read on Hacker News no amount of encryption or software trickery is going to stop this. [0]: http://imgur.com/IHXKlNw
I like to believe that converting those EM signals back into something useful is beyond the ability of current technology, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong
Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam
#33I don't really understand the webcam paranoia. If my computer is completely compromised, somebody watching my face is the least of my worries.
It's about risk/threat minimization
It seems like a losing battle though. Small embedded cameras are becoming too widespread and you can't put tape on all of them. I think looking forward it's not unreasonable to rely on software controlled switches to minimize this risk, knowing that they will fail or be exploited sometimes anyway.
Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam
#34Don't almost all cameras activate their "on" light when being used?
A lot of people ask why the light isn't automatically turned on when it's in use. I think the problem is it's easier to turn it on through software than hardware. Plus, if you can treat the webcam as just a microphone, then anytime a device accesses the microphone (games for example), the light would turn on. Not a problem, per se, but the light would be turning on and off a lot if you use a push to talk game. Something that might cause people to make it so they can just turn the light off. Of course, this is all just speculation.
Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam
#35I care about audio so much more than video, and text/keys/etc captured from the machine even more. As long as my screen and keyboard are out of the frame of the camera, I don't really care about it getting RATed. At worst, you'll see me naked, or making angry/etc. faces at someone on irc or email. While embarrassing it would be less bad than most of what you could accomplish by stealing actual information. OTOH, carr…
Did I understand what you said at the end correctly, are you willing to commit to buy 8 million dollars worth of laptops?
Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam
#36Don't almost all cameras activate their "on" light when being used?
There's this https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2... [PDF]
Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam
#37All these little wires [0] emit electromagnetic radiation that be intercepted and turned back into whatever you see (and more). Despite what you read on Hacker News no amount of encryption or software trickery is going to stop this. [0]: http://imgur.com/IHXKlNw
I like to believe that converting those EM signals back into something useful is beyond the ability of current technology, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong
This has been a known/practical attack for decades. OTOH, it does require physical proximity, although you could probably do it with a remotely controlled sensor at an intermediate location near the target.
What would be terrifying would be if someone could figure out how to do this attack via software compromise of some hardware sensor system already present throughout the environment; say, a way to repurpose a wifi chipset to pick up nth-order harmonics off a keyboard bus or something. Then, remote-root of some lesser machine could be used to spy on a hardened machine.
Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam
#38I care about audio so much more than video, and text/keys/etc captured from the machine even more. As long as my screen and keyboard are out of the frame of the camera, I don't really care about it getting RATed. At worst, you'll see me naked, or making angry/etc. faces at someone on irc or email. While embarrassing it would be less bad than most of what you could accomplish by stealing actual information. OTOH, carr…
Did I understand what you said at the end correctly, are you willing to commit to buy 8 million dollars worth of laptops?
Yes. (and then sell them, obviously, ideally for much more than $8mm)
Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam
#39Re: The FBI Director Puts Tape Over His Webcam
#40All these little wires [0] emit electromagnetic radiation that be intercepted and turned back into whatever you see (and more). Despite what you read on Hacker News no amount of encryption or software trickery is going to stop this. [0]: http://imgur.com/IHXKlNw
Yes, carrying around a backpack with all of the receiving kit, and then processing it remotely or in the same kit. Most studies are done under idealized conditions as proof-of-concept for now. If they are close they can grab enough data, but it is still not 'there' yet to be ubiquitous; it will be soon though.
That being said, I use tape at work, and at home on my forward-facing cameras, simply for privacy insurance. Those wires don't show a masked image. Even the best image re-construction or processing algorithms need more data, although you'd be surprised how much data can be extrapolated from semi-transparent Scotch tape over your camera! Maybe you think it's ok if somebody wants to RAT you, but don't forget, some of the photos released or used for extortion are of your SO, or other loved one in the background walking around naked, or doing something embarrassing. I don't care if somebody wants to RAT me this way; they'll go blind, and they must have nothing better to do!