Can your TV be used as a Camera to Watch you?

reply to post by ThatGuy45


Why did this idea about the tv-screen looking back at you surfaced in my mind a few months ago? Here in holland we have these busstops with the CBS logo...the watching eye. Why is that...what is their business with busstops,,,,? The only thing I can think of is to see who is going where.

These "spy" application at busstops are probably not active yet but I suspect they will be when the government has reason to do so. Something much worse than 911 would be an excuse to activate these "control devices".

The other day I read that it is possible to activate your cellphone without you knowing it. If these options in your cellphone are purposely designed it will not surprise me that "they" want not only covertly hear your personal stuff, but also want to see it.

Power is all about control...having evidence and reason to take you out of a peacefull and smooth running society

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Originally posted by ThatGuy45
DISCLAIMER first: Yes this is a serious question. No, I am not trying to fear monger. No this is not a 'Troll' thread - they seem to be running rampant lately. Mods, this is my first thread so if I have done something incorrect - please let me know, thanks!


I wish to discuss the probability of Your digital television being used as a camera to record

This notion is so silly that there is absolutely no chance of the 'fear monger' effect so don't worry about that. Anyone who builds and repairs TVs for a living will tell you that the mechanics do not allow for this. Plus even in this day and age some of us have analogue TVs which are only 'digital' by virtue of being hooked up to a satellite dish.
Thinking youir appliances are watching you can be a sign of schizophrenia. But if anyone is still convinced otherwise, I suggest they do not pick their nose or engage in 'naughty behaviour' and remain fully and respectfully dressed while sat in front of the TV while it is switched on.

My wife's iPhone takes a photo (front camera) of anyone who enters the phone pin incorrectly so next time you try and look at your partners phone, remember to thumb over the camera ;p
if that's possible in a consumer device it's probably been around in other devices for a long time, just think next time you incorrectly enter your pin at an atm, for example, or even every time you withdraw money - the possibilities go on and on. You can't hide from it, cctv is everywhere, covert and overt.

As far as camera's in TV's - it's already on it's way. A big investment in consumer telepresence (video conferencing) is coming direct via your TV and set-top box. Cisco are already working with Scientific Atlanta (whom they now own) on this.
Sources : news.cnet.com...
news.cnet.com...

Don't be at all surprised if TV manufacturers drop 3D TV in favour of integrated camera's as telepresence is set to change the way we communicate - the landline phone will be as dated as a cassette tape in a few years time.

reply to post by ThatGuy45


I doubt it, but there are rumors that you can be watched from your camera on the computer.

I believe its is possible to have a device inside your tv set to record what you do and send it to a central data store. I dont think it is happening. If it was , wont the cops be busting down the doors of all the wanted dudes. Or are criminals to clever to watch tv? Seriously , if you have nothing to hide why worry? They can watch me the whole day and all they will see is me picking my nose and scratching my bum. Not what I will call entertainment. They will need to get the popcorn ready when me and my lady get busy though xxx

I don't see why the govs should wan't to watch you via your tv when tracking your every move on the internet is so much easier and effective in getting to "know" you.

Also there's a lot of people involved in making ex a tv, someone would tell us if this really was being done, at least so i hope.

Originally posted by LiquidAsh
I believe its is possible to have a device inside your tv set to record what you do and send it to a central data store. I dont think it is happening. If it was , wont the cops be busting down the doors of all the wanted dudes. Or are criminals to clever to watch tv? Seriously , if you have nothing to hide why worry? They can watch me the whole day and all they will see is me picking my nose and scratching my bum. Not what I will call entertainment. They will need to get the popcorn ready when me and my lady get busy though xxx

I believe that it's possible for them to tap into your vision/eyes and dental work... and telling us about converter boxes and other things is only a diversion tactic.

reply to post by ThatGuy45


I dunno, man.

My keychain watches me.

My cigarette lighter watches me.

My alarm clock watches me in infrared!

My wrist watch watches me.

Also my cell phone and laptop watch me. Additionally, my cell phone tracks me!

All of these things listen to me, too, and record everything.

But my TV? Nah. Impossible. That's just CRAZY!

Seriously, it's the converter box, dude. There's pinhole cameras built into them. Look for a teeny, tiny hole or "window" for a remote. Crack that box open and take a peek at it's innards. There's where you'll find your microphone and camera.

The keychain et al that I listed above? Yeah, they work. the lens is about 1/16 inch in diameter. The whole lens/CCD assembly is less than a quarter inch in diameter and less than 1/8 inch thick. The PC board that runs it is about the size of... well, they can fit it into a key fob, so figure it out.

If they can pack all that into a key fob or a cigarette lighter, there's nothing to keep 'em from putting one damn near anywhere, in any kind of equipment.

I've seen 'em in smoke detectors. I've seen 'em built into pictures hanging on a wall.

Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. don't be naked anywhere in your house, including the shower. Shower heads have those tiny pin holes, you know?

Originally posted by Irish614
Just look at things like Xbox Kinect, and Sony Playstation's Move. I'm sure that when you use those systems there is some goon somewhere recording it and piling up all the data, how much you use it, what time/day you use it, etc.

My thoughts exactly, millions of people have those things. My brother let me borrow his Xbox Kinect system for a few days and after the WOW COOL passed I was a little creeped out. The Kinect has the capability of moving, following you around the room. It will recognize the shape of whoever is using the Kinect to sign in to their Xbox account, for example my younger nephew stepped in front of it and it switched over to his account. It collects and stores data about you, most of the games take photos of you and the room you're in while you're playing, and since most people with an Xbox are hooked up to Xbox live (the internet) it wouldn't take much to access the files on the kinect and look into your living room.

With the new boxes - converters they have it is conceivable but hardly likely.

Thing against:

It is hard to entirely conceal the camera.

Needs to have power physically turned on at the source.

Chances of getting anything wothwhile is minimal.

Audio from mic would, afaik, pick up the audio from t.v speakers over conversations ='s not good.

Thing for:

Cant really think of any.

I know for a fact that digital televisions, at least some of them, not only receive data but also send data. I can't remember exactly how me and my friend figured it out now, it's been a few years ago already, but we're both "computer guys" and like to mess around with different things, such as networking. For example, when we were in college, the only internet access we had for a while was my parents America Online account - it took me forever to get my parents to change over to DSL.

Anyway, at the time I was trying to teach myself a little bit more about Linux, so I installed one of the many distros to the computer I had at the time while he had his own computer running Windows XP.

The problem was we couldn't exactly install America Online on Linux, so what we did was set up a network between each other, then set up ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) on the XP box that had America Online installed - had the account and password saved. After we had it finished, I could simply sit down at my computer and as soon as I loaded my browser up it would automatically dial into AOL via his system and share the connection to me.

Sorry to get off topic (sort of), but I want to show the kind of stuff we used to figure out.

One day, several years later, he had just purchased a new digital television. One of the first things he wanted to do was connect the video card in his computer to his new television. During the process we had to do some "fine tuning" so to speak, to get the image on his computer looking the way it should on the television - color, resolution, that kind of stuff. Anyway while we were messing around going through the different settings, we discovered that his computer was also picking up "signals" from the television. I remember it to this day because of how strange it was when we discovered what was going on.

Basically, all digital televisions, and the cable boxes required to watch digital signals, send out signals to the cable companies. Why do they do this? They have to be able to charge people for pay-per-view, or do things like Netflix. There also needs to be a way to figure out ratings for all the different television shows - how do you think TV's on in the first place? Commercials!

So yea, anyway, you can be "monitored" by your monitor... but the idea of a TV or cable box having it's own camera in it? Never heard of that one before, but it's definitely possible. Desktops, Laptops, Cell Phones, Ipad's - all that stuff, however, is a totally different story...

After looking over some of the other posts here, I think it's a lot more likely that nobody's sitting down taking pictures or watching videos of people via their televisions, but that they're probably using them as more of a GPS type system. For example, if they wanna know when you're coming and going. In other words, if the TV turns on in your house, there's a really good chance that somebody's in your house sitting in front of it....

It WILL however happen in the near future, as someone has mentioned - Video Conferencing is really starting to take off these days, and what better way to talk to your friends than simply turning the TV on? The idea has been around as far back as the 80's, with the "video phones / TV's" of Back to the Future II, to the ones in Total Recall, and then in more recent years - Minority Report.

You people have your shorts screwed on too tight!

I have been repairing tv’s and computers since the days of tubes (38 years). There are no cameras or microphones in tvs. Period!

How many workers would it take to watch 300 million citizens? And yet no one talks?

They all converge in some big facility to watch multiple screens selected as “suspicious “ by some master computers. But no one sees them entering this building(s)?

None of these workers get fired for poor job performance because they might talk. So if you can’t get fired why go into work?

You people need medication along with your tin foil hats!

reply to post by digitalf


Don't be so quick into completely ditching landline phones.
When disasters strike,and they always do,landlines are
usually still working while cellphones don't.

Originally posted by martianmallow

Originally posted by Irish614
Just look at things like Xbox Kinect, and Sony Playstation's Move. I'm sure that when you use those systems there is some goon somewhere recording it and piling up all the data, how much you use it, what time/day you use it, etc.

My thoughts exactly, millions of people have those things. My brother let me borrow his Xbox Kinect system for a few days and after the WOW COOL passed I was a little creeped out. The Kinect has the capability of moving, following you around the room. It will recognize the shape of whoever is using the Kinect to sign in to their Xbox account, for example my younger nephew stepped in front of it and it switched over to his account. It collects and stores data about you, most of the games take photos of you and the room you're in while you're playing, and since most people with an Xbox are hooked up to Xbox live (the internet) it wouldn't take much to access the files on the kinect and look into your living room.

I mod these devices, and am also in a field of research that deals specifically with the ideas, concepts, technologies and systems of Ubiquitous Cities, and while the technology can seem a little frightening (if you saw some of the systems already in place, cameras in TV's would be the least of your worries if you are a hardcore civil libertarian... lol), i can assure you that so far there is no coordinated nefarious use of these systems.

Whether you like it or not, these technologies are becoming pervasive, and most of the research and agendas are specifically around privacy concerns and abuse of information, more than you most likely know, but the information is readily available, especially to researchers, with many checks in place to assure annonimity, even to the point of having clauses directly to not use the information as identifiers. If you understood how these technologies relate to each other, you would understand that so far there is no orchestrated abuse of these technologies by governments... it's just not happening... for more reasons than I will go into here (there are many research papers specifically on this subject if you care to look into it).

So.... relax, there is no need to fear your TV or your X-Box, it is not as bad as this site often seems to portray.

ETA: Many of these systems are public, or becoming public, with less and less government influence, if there was an abuse, the public could easily use these technologies to combat that abuse, or even bring down the entire system easily enough (the experts in this area aren't "controlled" by the goverment, and the military learn from us), but it's not in the public interest to because of the benefits the systems afford us all. In fact, because of USA fear of these issues, they are actually well behind the rest of the world, meaning if you are the paranoid type, there is even less concern in the US, and their slow uptake on these technologies is actually doing more harm than good to perceived "freedoms".

reply to post by Evanzsayz


If this is true I had better clean my office up a bit.
I have boxes and stuff all over the place.I need to
dust my desk and knock the cobwebs off the window
behind me.My trashcan needs emptied,I have some
papers around the floor and I found that crunchberry
I dropped the other day.

Correction...I found 2 crunchberries under my desk
I can be a slob at times.

reply to post by puzzlesphere

I mod these devices, and am also in a field of research that deals specifically with the ideas, concepts, technologies and systems of Ubiquitous Cities, and while the technology can seem a little frightening (if you saw some of the systems already in place, cameras in TV's would be the least of your worries if you are a hardcore civil libertarian... lol), i can assure you that so far there is no coordinated nefarious use of these systems.

really now..you can assure us?

Considering you know so much and "mod" these devices.. would it be acceptable to say I don't trust your 'rest assured' statements?

reply to post by gabby2011


You don't have to believe me, you are free to join the conferences and read the research in the area yourself.

In fact I urge you to.

If you are such a champion of "Freedom", then you should be involved in the conversations.

reply to post by ThatGuy45

Can your TV be used as a Camera to Watch you?

No

This should help you understand my answer: How digital cameras work

However, I'd be more skeptical when it comes to various gaming system add-ons like the Kinect...

I don't think that your TV can record you however, anything else connected to the internet that have a camera and microphone can be used against you. Just check out this one:

www.ccc.de...

This german hacker group uncovered a spyware used by the German government to possibly spy on people.

reply to post by loves a conspiricy

Again, I make no claims as to "the reality" of the posted video, and yes, seeing through plastic could be hard, you are correct but it was more just to show how small components have become and that it is at least very possible "theoretically" to implement.

Now to the meat and potatoes. See the guy in Holland above saying about the smart bus stops here in Holland? Combine that with so-called smart-travel-cards and you've just gained a lot of personal info about people's movements. Add to that the cameras monitoring some cities here already (Eindhoven is one I believe) monitoring their ring and access roads with real-time car registration plate recognition. Another little mine of data. Major roads coming to Holland from abroad are also using this tech "to see when nasty East-European criminals come to visit". (The reason they give for "needing" the tech, along with improving "road conditions" for travelers)

Now to mobile phones. They track you, record your calls and the people you call and providers are required by law to retain that data for 1 year. On the internet they now have Lawful Intercept equipment (Deep Packet Inspection) installed at all ISP's which theoretically can track every site you visit and what you do there. They probably won't need a court order to activate it.

They can tap a land line phone pretty easily and one of the rumours is that they can do it while it is on the hook. Mobile's can be traced apparently even when off and we are all connected via wifi/gprs/umts networks. Google's street-view has been used to steal data while scanning the street and they got taken to court for it in Germany...

You do see where this is all heading right? Total digital insight into the life of every law-abiding citizen whenever "they" feel like it. Nefarious components in consumer devices in the home would be the ultimate last step. In any case, the time is almost upon us....