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FBI Director James Comey: Cover Up Your Webcam (thehill.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: The head of the FBI on Wednesday defended putting a piece of tape over his personal laptop's webcam, claiming the security step was a common sense one that most should take. "There's some sensible things you should be doing, and that's one of them," Director James Comey said during a conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "You go into any government office and we all have the little camera things that sit on top of the screen," he added. "They all have a little lid that closes down on them. "You do that so that people who don't have authority don't look at you. I think that's a good thing." Comey was pilloried online earlier this year, after he revealed that he puts a piece of tap over his laptop camera to keep away prying eyes. The precaution is a common one among security advocates, given the relative ease of hacking laptop cameras. But many found it ironic for Comey, who this year launched a high profile battle against Apple to gain access to data locked inside of the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino, Calif., terrorists. Many viewed that fight as a referendum on digital privacy.
"There's some sensible things you should be doing, and that's one of them,"
Another sensible thing you should be doing is using encryption.
And voting out anyone who thinks that the FBI's warrantless wiretapping is sensible.
Like the NSA, doing illegal mass surveillance on their own citizens?
Ive seen this before from some of my customers and yes I've thought of it. Since its possible I guess its a step you need to take but why stop there. His phone has two cameras and they need some tape also. That pinhole in the wall may be sporting a camera also. How do you know the air conditioner vents doesn't have camera. Oh MY GoD they are watching ME!
I trust desktop software to behave as far as I can throw it. Sure it's possible to bug anything, but after the horror of video conferencing software lighting the camera up unexpectedly while I was in "work from home" attire, never again.
Are you being obtuse for a reason? Seeing as you're on /. you know perfectly well most CCDs in webcams can be activated without the "on" LED being powered. In fact a good number of webcams are always on - just measure the current draw if you have any elementary skills.
There's a world of difference between a hidden camera placed for espionage, and one built into a consumer device that's permanently connected to the Internet and happens to be remotely accessible by various govt agencies as well as the OS supplier, and no doubt the company that has a badge on the front.
No go and fix your teeth and shitty language skills you limey turd.
stare directly into the camera and slowly stroke off. establish dominance.
"You go into any government office and we all have the little camera things that sit on top of the screen"
Why the hell are they not ordering real pro laptops without the camera? my Dell Precision 7510 does not have a camera and company wide we all understand that a camera on the laptop is 100% useless in business. if you need to do a video call you use one of the conference rooms.
we are not even high security and we dont have cameras. what the hell are they doing ordering laptops with cameras at their level?
So the director of the FBI has a insecure laptop...... This is why we cant do shit in this country in law enforcement.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It must mean he has something to hide, right? Because privacy is only needed for people who have something to hide.
You can't get a camera in the air vent from a drive-by download from an otherwise reputable website that had the bad luck of its ad content network being hacked.
And the workaround with the tape wouldn't even be necessary if the camera LED would be hardwired to the camera reliably across laptop manufacturers and not switched on and of by the driver on a goodwill base.
bickerdyke
The different parts of executive branch can't even count on being safe from each other, when their culture is to disregard the constitution for some perceived higher purpose.
The head of the FBI on Wednesday
That guy's old news. What does Thursday's head of the FBI say?
FBI Director James Comey: Cover Up Your Webcam
Don't tell me what to do, chief. Maybe being perved on by hackers is my thing! You can't judge me!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
If he's worried about someone hacking his laptop and turning on his webcam without him realizing it, then he isn't using his laptop in a secure and reasonable way.
He is also overlooking the fact that voice recordings are generally at least as valuable as video (unless he is worried they are going to record his silent meetings with prostitutes or something), and covering up the webcam doesn't generally do anything to prevent sound from being recorded. If someone else has control of your webcam, they almost certainly have the ability to record sound using your system when the webcam is blocked by tape. Equally important, if they are recording sound with no video, they can record much longer time-wise than if they are recording sounds with video.
But ultimately if he was using a secure OS, or at least using his OS of choice in a moderately secure way - he shouldn't have to worry about this. If he's spending most of his day falling into clickbait and loading malware, he's going to get what he has coming.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
As a side note, sticking tape over the microphone holes does not work, no matter how thick the layers of tape. You can confirm this yourself by sticking tape over mics on your phone and then using a recording app. It will still record audio that is clear enough to understand.
A modern tablet or phone has enough microphones in a mic arrange, and enough sensitivity that sound coming through the case can be recorded easily. The best you can achieve is to make it muffled.
Snowden used a fridge to stop stuff recording (it is airtight and bulky enough to stop sound so phones inside cannot record). It's not useful as a faraday cage, because a lot of the spyware records stuff and sends it only when opportune (e.g. on Wifi, or when you're sending lots of other data to conceal the transmission). So a faraday cage would not help, it could still record audio and video and send it later.
FBI head tapes over his cameras, Mark Zuckerberg does, Anonymous Cowards does, so *you* definitely should.
Perhaps you recall the case of the Pennsylvania schools that installed spyware on their laptops and recorded kids at home using the computer? Well if you take a typical Android phone, it has lots of apps pre-installed that have camera access. So I noticed that Microsoft Word came pre-installed, and when I hooked the camera API, Word was being started periodically by Microsoft Skydrive, and accessing the camera api.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2521075/windows-pcs/pennsylvania-schools-spying-on-students-using-laptop-webcams--claims-lawsuit.html
is when you do not have a record light on your webcam, otherwise when the webcam is on, the record light is on, and it's a hardware mechanism and it is impossible to get video without the record light coming on.
Re How do you know the air conditioner vents doesn't have camera. :)
Most cults and inward looking communities with global ambitions have some very easy and old methods to try and counter that digital sneak and peak hardware placement.
The extended community stays around any sensitive locations and have eyes on 24/7. Or can even fake a sensitive community project for decades and understand who comes looking and how they try to gain entry, build trust
All strangers entering the area are noted, photographed and talked to.
If the neatness, sloppiness, jargon, slang, accent, hair cut, life story, education level, local issues, local sports, stories told, trade tools don't fit and access is requested, its usually ex mil, federal or state efforts to seek access with limited time or funding for a full back story.
Its getting harder to place undercover officers as many groups of interest are not just allowing people to join. Informants will often admit they got turned and pass on lots of low level gossip to keep their freedom i.e. the faith, other nation or cult has more of a hold than any gov offer.
All most federal and state task forces can then do is track all movements from public land, try and bluff their way in just once, get any informant with a real life story in or push malware down any network.
COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... worked too well and most groups by faith or method understand the easy past entry methods.
State or federal courts paperwork on any case can even be leaked back by deep cover cult or faith members. Secure telco requests to collect or log phone numbers will often be tracked long term and database changes noticed. Very interesting people can then escape thanks to telco and court database issues.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
That switch to turn off your microphone and video camera. Should not just send a digital bit to the OS to decide what to do with it. It should physically cut circuit that provides the device power. Also the same with the LED on camera to show that it is recording this shouldn't be a feature that is programmed in the software it should be hard in the device.
The only real trade off with a mechanical switch is that it will take up more space. So your device will be a bit bulkier and heavier... However my point of view is how much security do you want to compromise for form factor.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Just in case you missed it, James Comey has lied Congress, has lied to the American public and is not to be believed, listened to or repeated.
Just sayin'.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Replace the A/V driver that handles the webcam with module that mimics the webcam driver interface but streams a video file of the user's selection. My choice would be a video of a donkey show.
Well, yes.
But is it more ore less paranoid than wondering if that webcam activity LED can actually be switched on and off independently from the camera by the device driver software? (which it usually is. Not due to malice, but to bad or "unsafe" design)
And most camera sensors today ARE already IR cams due to sensor characteristics. Most have an IR filter to improve image quality in sunlight, but again, it wouldn't even take malice to cut that filter for cost saving reasons.
bickerdyke
Good thing the FBI director made sure nobody can see what he looks like when someone hacks his laptop and steals sensitive information.
FBI and NSA Clearly wants to stop looking at pictures of naked fat guys and I say: "No way!" Make them watch! That is the least we can do. It is the only revenge we can exact on them. Wave that dong, juggle those layers of fat right at the camera. Make them see what their eyes cannot un-see. FFS. What are they going to do with it? Show your naked pictures to your girlfriend? Come on, you don't have any anyway. So pull that tape and make them suffer!
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Do you actually oppose the FBI decrypting the iPhone of a guy who declared loyalty to ISIS and killed a bunch of people? Many people thought that trying to force Apple to do it was a bit much, but what is so sacred about encryption itself?
This was intended to be a semi-humorous comment, but I'll answer your question (though you probably won't see it because you're Anonymous and have forgotten about it already) - NO. Game on. If the FBI can decrypt the data, rock on. If they require that companies make all data decryptable, YES. I have a problem with that. It's not about having things to hide, it's about the constriction of American rights. Do I want them to be able to find a guy who shot 1000 people in Times Square, uh YEAH. Do I want them to have access to everyone's data in order for that shooter to be part of the "everyone" whose data is accessible, NO.
Simple freaking logic: There's a line. Don't cross. One side of the line has people using paper to communicate and burning it / destroying the ashes / burying it. The other side has an encrypted electronic device. The rights of the government to TRY and reconstruct the paper and get details off of it OR decrypt a device using brute force or other methods they designed to uniquely, on their own, get access are fair game. Making a rule that paper is to be designed to electronically log everything written on it, or all devices have a quick access method is NOT. If the method exists, it will be exploited, so it shouldn't exist.
I was going for funny. However I've never had a plus +2 flame bait before. Thats almost as good as a +1 Troll.;)