Targeted Ads Spying through Camera

a reply to: JAGStorm

Several years ago I was doing simultaneously translation for a meeting. I was in a soundproof booth and the walls were lined with those egg-crate looking acoustic panels. I had my phone lying face-up on my desk in case I needed to do any quick word references. The phone was wright by the wall so in direct view of those panels.

I finished my translation work and went home for lunch. After lunch, I was looking at some stuff on the web - Facebook, I think - and ads for those panels started to show up. I'd never searched for them, never spoken about them, never had anything to do with them save the fact that my phone was lying beside a wall where they were installed.

a reply to: incoserv

Exactly. I never bought that little jar, I purchased lotion in that jar.
The camera saw that jar!

a reply to: JAGStorm

Oh damn, that is just creepy! Ew!

a reply to: ColeYounger

Thanks for the link. I will download that to my cell phone.

originally posted by: GENERAL EYES

I used to have a webcam that was being remotely accessed by someone and they were able to disable the light.

I flipped them off and don't use my webcam anymore.

Unless one actively NEEDS a camera that's built into a device, put tape over it. That nice little "in use" light means nothing.

originally posted by: tamusan
a reply to: JAGStorm

You're not the first that I've heard this from.

Does your camera have a light that comes on to show that it is working?

My computers have the camera inside, and I have to pop it out for it to work. I often forget to pop it out whenever I am in a meeting or on a video call.

Newer versions of Android and iOS display a small icon at the top right of the screen when mic or cam are being accessed.

a reply to: gb540

This was an external cam on my tower.

I rarely use my laptop to connect to the internet, but thanks for the heads up.

a reply to: Tortuga

Came here to say this.
It's a type of confirmation bias called the Baader-Meinhof effect.

You are bombarded continuously sensory information daily. Your brain does an AMAZING job filtering everything out.
That is until you have a reason to take notice. Once this happens, most people will react in one of two ways.
The most common is that you start to notice it more often (and on many occasions, assume that it's new or a trend)
The other reaction, which seems to be the case here is to inadvertently put two pieces of unrelated information together and assume that it happened for 'a reason'

a reply to: Gear

Thanks, didn’t know it had a name. Even if that name is linked with a German terrorist gang, I certainly won’t forget that now.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Most of social media does this. I go on two websites, only one has ads, and yes the same thing happens to me, and everyone else. They have been doing this for years. This is why we don't have Alexa, ech dot, or any of those creepy devices that talk to you. Anyone who has those items in their homes, not smart. We don't even have a doorbell cam. We have alarms that go off in our house if someone comes into a yard but they are not connected to Google.

originally posted by: GENERAL EYES
a reply to: tamusan

I used to have a webcam that was being remotely accessed by someone and they were able to disable the light.

I flipped them off and don't use my webcam anymore.

websites can't access cameras without being given permission. this whole thread is just a load of FUD and BS.

sensible browsers (like chrome, believe it or not) ask when a website wants to use a camera. websites are sandboxed, they do NOT get access to the hardware when the browser doesn't allow it - and browsers are opensource. now i'm not saying there can't be some low-level backdoor (in phones mostly, due to integrated nature of the SoC), that allows agencies to remotely access a mic or even a camera, but the whole notion of websites accessing those without user's knowledge to serve them ads is just facepalm-level BS.

some paranoid folks don't need camera covers, they need a couple of IT lessons and a psychiatrist.

originally posted by: incoserv
a reply to: JAGStorm

Several years ago I was doing simultaneously translation for a meeting. I was in a soundproof booth and the walls were lined with those egg-crate looking acoustic panels. I had my phone lying face-up on my desk in case I needed to do any quick word references. The phone was wright by the wall so in direct view of those panels.

I finished my translation work and went home for lunch. After lunch, I was looking at some stuff on the web - Facebook, I think - and ads for those panels started to show up. I'd never searched for them, never spoken about them, never had anything to do with them save the fact that my phone was lying beside a wall where they were installed.

data gets mined and corelated in ways you folks just don't comprehend.

all they need is your location - they will know from whatever various sources that those panels were at that place. AI could figure out you likely saw them, so you got served such ad.

facebook knows where people are (messenger, photo metadata, the list goes on), who they know, where they work, what their interests are, and you act all surprised when they figure out what you saw somewhere and think "it had to be my phone's camera, THEY'RE SPYING ON ME"?

mother of all facepalms, really.

they don't need to spy on you, you're willingly sharing your data without even comprehending how much information can be inferred from it.

a reply to: jedi_hamster

Location data has nothing to do with egg crate panelling or a specific jar of cream. 🙄

originally posted by: Creep Thumper
a reply to: jedi_hamster

Location data has nothing to do with egg crate panelling or a specific jar of cream. 🙄

YES people aren’t understanding what we are saying.
Of COURSE they data mine.

If I order pizza online and then two weeks later get an ad for Papa Johns on a Friday, yes we all understand that.

This jar, I’ve never looked up jars, I didn’t buy an EMPTY JAR. I bought cream!
Wouldn’t it make more sense that they placed an ad for face cream?

My camera has a piece of duct tape across it.

I uninstalled it, when I bought the monitor, but I also covered the lens. Just in case.

My browsing history still gets targeted ads. Although the connection is sometimes a bit odd.

originally posted by: JAGStorm

originally posted by: Creep Thumper
a reply to: jedi_hamster

Location data has nothing to do with egg crate panelling or a specific jar of cream. 🙄

YES people aren’t understanding what we are saying.
Of COURSE they data mine.

If I order pizza online and then two weeks later get an ad for Papa Johns on a Friday, yes we all understand that.

This jar, I’ve never looked up jars, I didn’t buy an EMPTY JAR. I bought cream!
Wouldn’t it make more sense that they placed an ad for face cream?

What you're saying is understandable.

What I'm saying that if were true, it would 100% instantly be obvious to anyone that knows what a PCAP is. FB isnt doing it.

Its possible you've downloaded an app from somewhere that you've given permissions to use your camera and that app is malicious. (the android api will not allow access to the hardware if permissions aren't granted and apple will straight up reject the review to publish). If you think that's the case then look for signs of abnormal behavior:

1. Battery drains at an rapid pace
2. Rate at which device warms relative to current device workload (i.e you're browsing a web page and your devices is getting hot from that activity alone)

Finally: Bridge your device to a PC and run a PCAP. It will show you 100% of every packet that's leaving the device's interface, as well as where it's going and its contents (might be plain text, might be encrypted).

Since you said it's a tablet, I'm assuming you're using wifi so you can skip the bridge and just install a PCAP tool (wireshark is really good).

Something like this is pretty easy to prove, you can't hide it.

a reply to: JAGStorm


So I had another incident.

I was at Whole Foods and they had these cute little perfumes. They were Egyptian and had unique bottles.
There was a scent called Patchouli, and I picked it up and smelled it since I had heard about it but never smelled it before. It was the only bottle I picked up. I put it back and went on my merry way.

I get home and there is a big ad on Facebook for that EXACT patchouli perfume. I showed my husband.
It is not something I have ever searched before. The bottle in Whole Foods was the first time I even ever saw it.

So one of two things happened. My brain waves were read, or Whole Foods has a ton of cameras, it used face reading tech and signals from my phone to identify me and that I picked up that perfume.
I don’t even like that perfume, I just wanted to smell it because I’ve never smelled it before. Perhaps I had a curious look on my face.

In case you forgot, we are being surveilled everywhere…….