Do you cover/disable your laptop camera?
 

As title, really. There's a guy next to me in the library with a sticker over the camera of his Macbook Pro [it seems nearly all students in London these days have Macbook Pros, it's almost a requirement]. I don't cover mine because I figured I have less chance of being spied on due to my using a Linux OS, and a non-systemd one at that.

But maybe I'm wrong? Furthermore, my camera has a light that goes on next to it when it's activated [I suppose one could argue that the light could be disabled too].

If you never use the camera just open the case and disconnect it from the board and might as well disconnect the microphone if possible.

For me personally an active microphone poses a bigger risk than someone recording my face. Well except maybe for those self gratification moments i wouldn't want someone to capture my OH face :D

Yes, I use tape, multiple layers. I could disconnect, but that's a PITA. Never thought about the mic really, guess that could e an issue as well.

I remember things like this are what Snowden referred to as "the fringe benefits of surveillance positions".

I was thinking if someone can compromise your camera, remotely or otherwise ,wouldn't it be safe to assume they have access to the rest of your system including your keyboard, files, browsing history etc...

Depends on the malware used to gain this access. Access is most likely gained via a drive by install of malware, or a phishing install of malware. The malware can take over your camera, but if it has other functionality, then yes, it can probably do much more.

I cover the cameras of my personal laptops only in case I forget and Skype, or connect to some web service which enables cameras and I am "inappropriately attired". The hacking situation doesn't bother me.
I tested a couple of Amazon Alexa devices for a short time -- I don't talk to myself enough to care about microphones but I found the devices useless to me.

Yes, camera is covered on laptop at all times, broken plug is placed in the mic jack, camera is also covered on cell phone. Did this for many years then learned that Facebook founder Zuckerberg also always does it. If I need to take a picture and do not have my point and shoot on hand, then I take off the tape snap the picture and put the tape back on again. :) If you question the purpose of the camera/mic on the phone, consider that many new phones will not work correctly if you cover the camera, and unless you disable the location services your photos are tagged with the exact location where you shot the photo.

Ref: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/t...er-it-too.html
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...phone-facebook
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...microphone-on/

And regarding people hacking your webcam:
https://www.digitalspy.com/tech/a795...tphone-camera/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/...ers/377676002/
https://uk.norton.com/yoursecurityre...webcam_hacking
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...rophone-spying

Pretty much this. I never cover my camera and always thought the paranoia around it was a meme.

Same for me I never covered mine before like you said being Linux and a non-systemd execpt mine has no light so I got a little paranoid and just put Guerrilla tape over it.

We covered the camera access on my wife's machine. I have an old machine with no camera. Using it now in fact. I keep it running for use when I would want to cover a camera. ;-)

If you are in control of your system, there should be no need to do this.
I currently do not own a laptop, but it wasn't covered on my last one (ARM running Armbian). I might have blacklisted the driver though.

Mr Zuckerborg apparently is not in control of his system... :D

Is it not the entire point, that if you are NOT in complete control of your system that you may not e able to tell?

It is only paranoia if they are NOT out to get you! ;-)

I unplug the camera on my desktop. And the microphone.

But then I use them on skype, which undoes all the good that the paranoia brings.

Couple of years back I went to a Linux conference where everyone got a (commercial) webcam cover for free.
Same conference a couple of years prior to that was sponsored by our defense signals directorate (think NSA, GSHQ), so my reaction was WTF ????.

Recent hacks against whatsapp, and things like finfisher prove we are all up the creek without a paddle anyway ... :shrug:

Not really, unless you exchange top secrets on Skype or undress or something. You knkw when your microphone and camera are attached and cam act appropriately.

If some cute female twentysomething FBI agent wants to see that weird face I make when the laptop buzzes too loudly, I don't really care. :D There are worse things to be concerned with in life from an information security perspective than a picture of your face, and I figure for the truly dedicated a good game of OSINT mining could yield much more in the results category.

So in short, no.

I think the reason why the likes of *spits*Zuckerberg cover the camera is because they may have trade secrets on display or, possibly, a picture of them "in a compromising position" could cost them money.
Personally, I don't have anything remotely worth any money and I'm a middle-aged, slightly gone to fat, average, "bloke". There's no money to be made from any pictures of me and, within reason, exposed pictures on the internet wouldn't make much difference to me. (My ex manager and her sister " starred in a porn movie" together and that didn't affect their careers at all, the sister still works in the same place)
I block my camera so if I accidentally hit video-call when I'm naked my friends don'lt get to see just how bad my lifestyle is for my body.
I think built-in webcams should be distrusted because you do not know when they are on. With a laptop from work, or whatever, you don't even have control of that. Not an issue for me, but could be for others.

No way 273, its because he and others understand why it was created and what its true purpose is. Similar to why Steve Jobs did not permit iPhones/iPads in the house and the kids were only allowed to use the computer in the living room, computers were not allowed in bedrooms and the router had time restrictions etc... Bill Gates did a similar thing with his kids. In other words, they understand the dangers of the devices because they created them. :study::jawa:

Ref: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...-a8017136.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/f...ch-parent.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/here...l-media-2017-3

Great article, very interesting.

Since we know that GCHQ was caught watching American cameras a few years ago, I thought that it's best to cover them just to give them the finger.

It might not be possible to cover cameras in the future-- two manufacturers are working on phones with the camera behind the screen.

I also think encouraging/endorsing 1984 is a dealbreaker for me. We know there are programs that activate cameras used by spy agencies. If they want to bug my home, they can do it themselves. I'm not going to do it for them. Same goes for the Amazon speakerbugs. And yes, my mic is covered (I disconnected it.) If they want to listen to me they will, but I'm not bugging myself to help them.

I gather it's common for webcam lights to be controlled by software rather than slaved to some part of the camera, so the light is no more reliable than whoever is controlling its driver. I remember a report years back about a lass who learned that the hard way.

As for me, most of my cameras and mics are covered when not in use as a matter of course. I agree that a good user-controlled OS massively reduces any risk, but post-its and tape are cheap and easy to use.

Incidentally, it's worth reading the terms and conditions of any commercial software you use. I have a (non-rooted) 'phone with a pretty good GNSS receiver but usually keep that feature turned off because the manufacturer requires access to location data whenever it's on. It might not be a huge security risk but my considered opinion is that my daily movements are none of Samsung's dang business.

Amen.

I only had time to read one article but if the gist is they raised their kids tech free fro some reason it's both irrelevant to cameras and worthy of a seperate thread.

No.


Motorcycle shop cam is always on. Pretty boring stuff for anyone watching with short bursts of crazy stuff.

Laptops?

No.

I sit nakkid sometimes. " Pity the fool "

If you take the time to read them then you will see why I said: "its because he and others understand why it was created and what its true purpose is. Similar to why Steve Jobs did not permit iPhones/iPads in the house and the kids were only allowed to use the computer in the living room, computers were not allowed in bedrooms and the router had time restrictions etc... Bill Gates did a similar thing with his kids. In other words, they understand the dangers of the devices because they created them."

Those devices are mainly for spy purposes. Imagine 10 years ago being told that one day you will carry a device in your pocket that sees, listens to and records all of your actions and locations of those actions. That you will store your information on systems (cloud) that gives agencies easier access to all of your private data, that you will have cameras in your home in the name of security and microphones in your home in the name of entertainment and convenience. Oh, almost forgot one, that you will allow Amazon to have access to your home or garage to deliver your packages.

Yup, nothing nefarious about any of that, nothing to see hear (pun intended). Three letter agencies and private detectives used to work hard and spend alot of resources collecting data on people, now people willfully volunteer that information for "free". Windows and i(eye)devices have those names because they were designed to allow certain people/agencies to see what you're doing. ;) Otherwise Microsoft could have chosen The Great Wall OS, or Apple could have used pPhone for privacy, etc.... Nope, the names reveal the intentions.

roky? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbtxLMW0qfc

Although sometimes videos like this are interesting:
AMSTERDAM��LIVE 24/7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M8u4jaCCJs

Spectacular View of Grand Canal - Live view from Hotel San Cassiano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjCmsRjxVL0

I'm busted. But. My voice was dubbed. I don't scream like a afeared little girl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0w5oGVwJ_Q

Everything you just posted is irrelevant to this thread.
This thread is about covering cameras and the reasons to do that. Most of us have no reason to do it other than, as I suggested, accidentally answering video calls from friends whilst naked, and similar. Well, OK, any attractive members or those with children would probably be worried about naked video and the list for that goes on.

Your point aout modern equipment, social media and the like I don't dismiss -- I just think they deserve a thread of their own to discuss as they don't have much to do with covering the camera on my Debian laptop, for example.

Sorry to contradict you but I disagree. Cameras and microphones can be and are accessed without user knowledge, so it is relevant to the thread and part of the reason I asked the question. If you think the only motivation for taping over a camera is to not accidentally answer a video call while naked, you have to take your head out of the sand.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...rophone-spying

What is the third word in that headline? What is the sixth word in this thread title?
The interesting diversion made by ChuangTzu does not, in my opinion, have any bearing upon those of us using Linux on laptops. Or do you know something about Linux distros that suggests this is an issue?

You're actually suggesting that because it happens on phones it doesn't happen on computers? To me that's a very limited way of thinking. We even said earlier in the thread that Zuckerberg tapes over his own laptop camera:

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...phone-facebook

The list goes on:

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...acebook-google

Yes, the above article mentions Macs but Linux is not immure.

The EFF even sell laptop webcam stickers.

https://supporters.eff.org/shop/eff-sticker-pack

no. I am not suggesting that.
What I am suggesting is that whether or not people feel the need to cover the camera on their Linux laptops is a different topic to why modern operating systems were created to spy on people. And that whether some people don't care whether their webcam allows the world to see them naked is not the same as a CEO not wanting people to see a whiteboard full of corporate secrets.

Glad you found it interesting, and it most definitely has bearing on this thread as the technology is the same, only difference is the size of the device. Your webcam, security cam, nanny cam, cell phone cam, can very easily be used to spy on you; whether its video, audio, location, chat/text log, phone call list, app preferences etc...

Having a wifi connected or internet connected camera or microphone in the post Snowden/Assange world is just plain hazardous. Also, it does not matter what OS you are running its the hardware/device that is the problem. That's why the FSF used to pass these out at conferences: https://shop.fsf.org/stickers/antisu...ebcam-stickers

I highly recommend those stickers as they serve a dual purpose of blocking the damn camera and advertising for FSF.

PS: ever wonder why "we" were encouraged to ditch our point and shoots for smart phones with cameras? Funny how the progression is always from freedom towards tyranny and spying in the name of convenience, security, or any other catchphrase that makes us feel all warm and tidy at night.

Its not only about corporate secrets. What is the percentage of non CEO/Politician types using smartphones compared to CEO/Politician types? Its about mass/macro surveillance not micro surveillance.

I hope we have not lost track of the reason phones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers come into the same conversation and appear to be confused at times: they are ALL computers. The distinctions between them are function and purpose. They share many vulnerabilites and features because they are all closely related. I do not think that any important purpose is serverd by picking nits on the common factors.

My point was that the fact smarty phones may be created as spy devices has no bearing upon whether somebody would or should cover thir laptop webcam. I wouldn't cover my laptop webcam if I were walking or driving somewhere I should not, for example, but I may well power off my phone and seek to put it in a faraday cage if I took it along at all.
Similarly, just because my phobe is pinpointing my location does not mean I need to cover my webcam.
Personally, my laptop is witness to so little that any "untellegence" gained from the webcam would be worthless. I suspect the same is tru for many people. This isn't "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" by the way, just an awareness that webcam surveillance has to capture something other than somebvody picking their nose to be useful.

Sometimes, depends on how parnoid I am. It isn't like I have anything to hide, they might even feel sorry for me after seeing my surroundings. It is just the thought of someone spying on me.

I absolutely "get" that. I don't like the ide of being spied upon either and, yes, go through periods when my behavior is more "anti-spying" than others.
I just feel that Tying Zuckerberg into some conspiracy theory about every device spying is not really in line with identifying what the actual risks are with not covering a webcam. Webcam may see passwords beng typed in, for example, and may be easier to subvert than the keyboard driver or X11.

The "conspiracy theory" ship sailed a long time ago when those theories were proven to be a fact. Why are you so adamant that the conversations/topics are not the same?

On this subject there is no answer that is right or wrong. What you do about your laptop camera depends upon your personal behavior and risk assessment. There is no point to criticizing the decision of someone who does not live the same life or with the same risks and information you live with.

It make as little sense, and is just as incorrect, to say "Anyone who covers their camera is a paranoid idiot" and it does to say "anyone who does not cover their camera is being stupid and ignoring the facts"! Both are the fallacy "if anyone does it differently than 'I' do they are wrong" that we should all have long since outgrown.

Because people cover laptop cameras and prevent the microphones from recording so that their information, passwords and the like, do not leak.
If some virtual panopticon does exist that's not why the likes of Zuckerberg cover their cameras. It makes actual, real-world-without-any-conspiracy-sense to cover a camera on a laptop in some circumstances. Whether or not you subscribe to the opinion that the likes of Gates and Zuckerberg are in some kind of conspiracy is irrelevant to that primary concern.
I wish to separate the topics because it is fact that covering a webcam is a good idea in certain circumstances but it is only speculation that spying is taking place in the ways mentioned above.
Everyone should be aware that a webcam, ought to be covered. Parents should be aware that their kids could be filmed, for example. That is a separate issue from our mistrust of technology and binding the two together makes it too easy for people to brand those covering webcams as paranoid.

It's not only speculation.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...internet-yahoo

https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/y...ry-proven-true

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...of-yahoo-users

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbin...chool_District

Methinks you doth protest too much.

You needn't worry about people drawing natural and obvious connections between CLOSELY related topics as part of a conversation on privacy.

If covering your cameras on your devices isn't about privacy, I defy you to say what it is.

I would also defy you to explain how government surveillance is a separate topic from privacy, except that you have tried over and over and will only try again.

Everyone nitpicks, especially online, but I don't know why you need to try so hard. If someone wants to reductio ad absurdum this thread to mere paranoia, they can do it with or without the parts you claim are irrelevant.

The spying is not hypothetical or speculation-- the problem with closely and obviously related subtopics in this thread is. I can tell you which of the two problems I think is the larger one.

The reason I wish to separate the two topics is because, as we have already seen in this thread don't care "if some perv wants to see us naked" and a lot of us don't do anything in front of a laptop which would be in any way useful to anyone*. However, some of us do things like use VPNs, clear browser caches, use encrypted messaging apps and other privacy protection methods. Each thing is done for a specific purpose and to address a specific threat. So, OK, if this thread is about protecting privacy in general, then so be it. But I find the general "The Government, Google and Facebook are spying on us all and we're all under threat, cover your webcam!" is conflating a few issues.
The school spying above, for example, is a good reason why you should never treat a device you don't own and didn't install the OS on (kind of includes mobile phones here, doesn't it? Which, yes, does connect things a little). However, a standard laptop which you, yourself, have installed the OS on is going to be relatively trustworthy and, if it isn't, then the fact that the people who control it can see through your webcam is the least of your worries. Well, apart from the fact that if the governments of this world were spying on everyone all the time they'd not have time to do anything about the information gathered anyhow. OK, I know I'm rambling a bit now, but this is getting back to my point that any surveillance will be targeted and for a specific reason so, for example, for a single, childless, wage-slave middle-aged man such as myself the threat from a webcam left uncovered is a lot less than for a person with young kids or a CEO who worries about the whiteboard behind them having secrets on it. However, what I do have to worry about, due to my demographic, is things like my bank details being stolen or a conversation with a friend about my employer's lax security being seen by my employer. Thinking about it, I'd rather a picture of me naked be on the internet somewhere than a picture of the back of my bank card with the CRC -- now that's a reason for my to cover my webcam if I'm using a bank card online and has nothing to do with Google, Facebook or the government.





*Baring some very weird fetishists who we don't care about.

fair enough, but speak for yourself.

I for one I'm sure that Internet is used for spying purposes (among other useful purposes) ;).

It's just a global information network and this information is not only what you read, watch or find on Internet, but also what you share, even unknowingly.

Yep. Same here ^^.

As I scare the person in line behind me to get back, back I say, so I can punch my pin in for my purchase.
Now they probably consider me a big bully.

Good thing I live rural.

fair point.
next time I get a laptop I'll make sure I'll get some duct tape too.

It saddens me to see this line of argumentation here on LQ; it's just a version of "I don't mind if G/FB gets all my data, I have nothing to hide".
I am so tired of it, but I'll try to list the counter-arguments one more time:

• what about the amount of information one can get from BEHIND where you're sitting
• in the age of AI and Deep Learning, a face combined with an IP is a pretty large step to a complete data set

now if you say "I'm happy if G/FB and whatever inter/national 'security' agency have a complete data set on me" - then I rest my case.

Yeah, I do cover my laptop camera, just feels safer that way.

I got tired of where this thread went but I'm glad to see there is some sense being imparted.

It is not the same if I take a Youtube video and post it online from my room since that is planned.

If pictures/videos are unknowingly taken in my room, people I don't know and don't want to know can have information on where I live, who is there at any point in time, what I am reading, what I am watching, what I am researching. Some of this might be sensitive and some of it I may not want anyone to know about.

"I have nothing to hide" is such a terrible argument. Would you like every thought inside your brain exposed? Because with that kind of attitude, we're well on our way.

I'm using a laptop that doesn't have a camera right now. That was a positive feature when I purchased it. I'd rather just plug in an external webcam when I want one, which is very rarely since I think in text and mentally translate into spoken language.

When people know what I look like, it changes the relationship and not in a good way.

I like getting to know people from the inside out. It's fun when you're surprised about things like age, sex, or location that would have seemed like insurmountable barriers to friendship afk. I think it changes me for the better to realize that my best buddy is one of "them", so there actually is no "they", only "we".

I'll duct tape or disable the camera when I can't find camera-free hardware any more if I still want to use the internet then. It's becoming an increasingly unfriendly place, but I still have some ties that I care about, like LQ in general and other beloved communities and special individuals.

My local area has very few Linux users so I usually just say, "I don't have a phone" or "I don't have a Facebook" and leave it at that.

I don't like the way I respond to "What's Linux?". Most people would rather believe that it doesn't exist and that I am a mentally ill person with delusions of grandeur.

That makes me feel feelings. I'd rather edit my configuration files or play my guitar.