Thought your webcam was secure? Think again!

Now who hasn't heard that hackers can take over your webcam if they get lucky? I worry about anyone who hasn't heard that by now, as it's a well established fact. I've actually sat there and watched it happen at a neighbor's house. (He thinks IMVU is a place to live...go figure his bad luck, eh?) anyway... I always figured if the light was off, so was the camera (where lights are mounted). I just figured the light was wired into the current flow for a little LED, and not controllable to shut off WHILE everything else is fully active.

Surprise!

EX-OFFICIAL SAYS FBI CAN SECRETLY ACTIVATE AN INDIVIDUAL’S WEBCAM WITHOUT THE INDICATOR LIGHT TURNING ON

The FBI can secretly activate a computer’s webcam to spy on an individual without turning on the indicator light, a former official revealed to the Washington Post in an article published Friday.

According to the Washington Post’s account of what Marcus Thomas — former assistant director of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division in Quantico — said, “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.”

Source: The Blaze

That's just..RUDE!

To be honest, i have known about this for years... if there is something i dont want them to see then i'll cover it with tape or anything to block the view... to think this is the only thing they are doing is to be in 100% utter ignorance

reply to post by steve95988


Between you and me, I haven't had a web cam uncovered or plugged in where I cared about the public seeing it's feed for a very long time myself. It was over concern for hackers and digital peeping toms though. I hadn't considered the Web cams themselves had bypass circuits built in at the design stage to disable the power indicator while power is still full active on the device.

That's quite a coup they managed, when you look at the level and method required to achieve this.

I never bothered with a webcam on my system.
No use for it.

-Peace-

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


A few months ago I was doing research with multiple tabs open. When I went to open a new tab, it would not open, so in my frustration I flashed the webcam the bird. Guess what! My motherboard fried within seconds!!

True Story!!!

reply to post by Wrabbit2000

I thought about opening this thread ... and then waited so I could comment on yours.

WHEN ... is something going to be done about the progressive encroachment on OUR privacy? It's about time to put the proverbial foot down ... and I'm talking about stomping somebody's face until their eyes pop out of their sockets.

Ha-my webcam and mic were taped over on day one of getting a laptop.
Always will be.
(Me-Paranoid you say?-No I call it being security conscious.)

This snooping has been going on since the first webcams were on the market.

They can't take over my webcam....I don't have one on my old computer....I won't get one either. The cheap monitor I have isn't supposed to have one but who knows for sure. If I were the head of Security in the government I would make every monitor have one built in so I could monitor someone who is causing trouble or is a possible terrorist. The code would be unhackable by others. No worry though, anything the government does never seems to work as intended.

Putting a little piece of tape over the area where the camera is on a laptop can disable the camera. They make sticky little fancy stickers that will look better than tape.

I think that a led screen could be made to work both ways though, as a camera or a screen, by incorporating digital technology into the monitor screen itself...Maybe they have already done that.

reply to post by Starwise


About a month ago I was online here at ats, I was bored , so I started to look at the icons onscreen and saw one for my wall. I put my cursor on it and it said "view your wall profile". I don't know what a wall is, so I said out loud- I have wall profile? When I clicked on it the time and date said "I have a wall profile!" was posted, when I never typed anything! I read a Dean Koontz book called Night Chills a few years back which told of a story about a company that did subliminal messages, you know, like they used to do at drive in movies (showing my age). Anyway, the book said everything was true, except for names and minor bits. But he said the machine in the story was called a Lido machine, or device. With it the operator of the machine could dial a phone number, it would disconnect the ringer and you could listen to whatever conversation was going on in the room. This machine could be purchased in Belgium for 1500 Dollars back in the mid to late 70's. They had this technology then, you can only imagine what they are doing now. By way, the did you know that an LED both transmits light as wall as receives it? Your computer screen is made of LED's. Sorry, not trying to scare you, just keeping you informed

I've kept tape on my webcam every since I got my laptop. The gubmint can do all kinds of things remotely, but one thing it hasn't figured out yet is how to manually remove black tape from the lens. ANY device that receives signals (computer, television, phone) can be used to spy on a person. Hell, I don't even trust the smart meter they stuck on our house without our knowledge or consent. Funny how it looks exactly like the old one....except for the fancy electronics complete with motherboard which is now visible through the plastic on the side....

The age of assuming that we have privacy in our home is long gone.

This is not surprising.. I had a friend back in early 2000-2005, he would use a program called subseven.
It was a trojan horse.. He would send it to the person as a picture. It was actually a .exe not a .jpg. or a .gif and hardly anyone even knew the difference then.. As soon as they got the 'picture' the whole system was up for grabs AND the webcam could be turned off and on..

reply to post by rickymouse


Thats leaning towards more of what i am talking about.... there is sooo much more technology we dont know about.... its there.. trust me.. its there

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I think this snooping goes way beyound the webcam. Almost all cell phones have 2 cameras now, one on each side of the phone and almost everyone that I know in the cities carries a phone. Thats alot of cameras!

1984 never looked so good...

I won't be sending 'I told you so' mail to all the people who ridiculed the notion I might even entertain the possibility it may have been so...

Å99

reply to post by rickymouse

Not without a focussing device such as a lens it can't.If you've got an SLR camera that lets you take or at least preview photos when a lens isn't attached,give it a go and you'll see what I mean.This applies to LCD and LED displays,plasma,OLED,AMOLED,CRT etc etc.The same with our eyes,without the lens we'd only ever be able to discriminate between light and dark.

w8tn4it
reply to post by Starwise

 

By way, the did you know that an LED both transmits light as wall as receives it? Your computer screen is made of LED's. Sorry, not trying to scare you, just keeping you informed

edit on 3/2/13 by w8tn4it because: (no reason given)

Unless an led is designed to receive light its reaction to light is very poor. By the way, the vast majority of monitors are LCD, not LED, a completely different tech.

w8tn4it
reply to post by Starwise

 

By way, the did you know that an LED both transmits light as wall as receives it? Your computer screen is made of LED's. Sorry, not trying to scare you, just keeping you informed

edit on 3/2/13 by w8tn4it because: (no reason given)

I don't know of any computer screens that use LEDs to make the image.All the ones I've seen or read about are LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) that is non-emissive (it doesn't make it's own light) so has to be back lit by LEDs.Even if it they were,LEDs are not photo-voltaic (they don't generate a voltage when light falls on them) and they aren't photo-resistive (they don't change their resistance in proportion to varying light levels).
This works (or doesn't in this case) the same way as trying to make imaging sensors such as the CCD and CMOS types used in digital cameras emit light,it just isn't something they're capable of doing.
And as I say above,without some way of focussing the light falling on any sort of imaging sensor,you will not and can not get a coherent image.

reply to post by Imagewerx


But can't the lens be spread out on the screen within the lcd display? It could give a picture but special technology would be needed to put the picture together. You could have a hundred lens the size of a dot on the screen but these lenses would need to be assembled. I think they could even make a pane of glass on a window into a camera if they wanted to. They could make the surface tension reflection energy form a picture, just like you see your picture in a mirror. Technology is scarey.