Thought your webcam was secure? Think again!

Red standby light on the TV anyone?

This is amusing-
I just knew I would be but one of many seasoned ATSers with tape on webcam and mic...

I don't go too silly though-I have never owned a tinfoil hat.
(They make the alien microwaves fry your brain faster,they say).

But allowing any unknown goons to listen and watch my rooms is a step too far IMO,So the tape stays on the cam and mic.
Iv'e tested it as well-Turned em on,ran skype to my bro,and he couldn't see or hear squat even on highest mic vol.

rickymouse
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.

You're thinking of Fresnel lenses which are flat (not lens shaped with a very obvious curve),but still need the ridges moulded into them that act as lots of small lenses,something which would still be very obvious to the user if one was built into the first internal layer of any portable devices display.Also of course,it would very obviously magnify the outgoing image as well,don't you think that would be pretty easy to spot? Oh and finally there still wouldn't be enough distance between the lens and the sensor underneath it for it receive a focussed image,Fresnel or similar lenses focus down to maybe inches for the best ones and certainly NOT fractions of a millimeter as would be needed for what you've suggested.

Even if conventional LEDs could be made light sensitive (which they can't) and you made the front of their casing an optically perfect lens,you'd get nothing more than a 1 X 1 pixel imaging sensor.Even if you included all the 100s of 1000s of other LEDs in the display,they'd all get and transmit the same image.

reply to post by Imagewerx


You are probably right. I look at possibilities but do not know the technical stuff about how these things work. I am guessing that at this time this is impossible. Maybe in a few years the technology could exist to do this. Without opening the mind to possibilities..... we would still be chopping wood with stone axes and making stone dishes.....Actually that would be really fun, as long as I could still go on the net to research. So not yet is this possible.

reply to post by Imagewerx

Even if conventional LEDs could be made light sensitive (which they can't)

I came across this info earlier looking for something a little different. I'm not saying this could make LEDs in a screen into a camera but thought it may be of interest to you.

Single LED Takes On Both Light-Emitting And Detecting Duties

electronicdesign.com...

Dont read anything you guys. It would break all the fun.

You see, downloading malware is required. Yup. You have to be silly enough to click on a link in your email which installs the backdoor software they used.

Remember backorifice from the mid 90s? If you tricked someone into installing it you had them.

If youre the sort of person to reply to king mbuntububu for 900,000 pounds or click on big penis now emails, be afraid...


Ps it even says this in the original article along with times a judge refused them warrants to be allowed to do this.

rickymouse
reply to post by Imagewerx

 

You are probably right. I look at possibilities but do not know the technical stuff about how these things work. I am guessing that at this time this is impossible. Maybe in a few years the technology could exist to do this. Without opening the mind to possibilities..... we would still be chopping wood with stone axes and making stone dishes.....Actually that would be really fun, as long as I could still go on the net to research. So not yet is this possible.

I read recently that someone thought they'd read somewhere (i.e. they made it up) that you could make a single pixel on a screen into a digital camera.My laptop screen has about 150,000 pixels and just one of them is now dead,sods law dictates that it MUST be right in the middle of the screen,which of course it is.And of course it sticks out like a sore thumb despite the remaining 149,999 healthy ones all around it.
With current technology we could squeeze at the most a 6 X 6 light sensitive matrix onto a single pixel site.There are a couple of downsides to this.The first is that the pixels would be so small they'd be very insensitive to light,or would be very noisy in anything but bright sunlight,and of course a 36 pixel image certainly wouldn't fall into the category of HD would it?

DenyObfuscation
reply to post by Imagewerx

 

Even if conventional LEDs could be made light sensitive (which they can't)

I came across this info earlier looking for something a little different. I'm not saying this could make LEDs in a screen into a camera but thought it may be of interest to you.

Single LED Takes On Both Light-Emitting And Detecting Duties

electronicdesign.com...

edit on 7-12-2013 by DenyObfuscation because: (no reason given)

Thanks.That is interesting as I've never read about that before.So it appears that conventional LEDs can be multiplexed and used as transmitters and receivers at the same time,although with compromises when not used for their original purpose.

reply to post by winofiend


Wouldn't that also depend on the target using the windows operating system, or the trojan being designed for the targets system, including achieving root access, if required?

Snarl
WHEN ... is something going to be done about the progressive encroachment on OUR privacy?

Never.

In the coming future we are all open books except for the contents of our minds we keep internal... and even that might not be all that secure.

The only difference will be who takes control of judging the contents of the books and what the judge's natures are. The battle is over how the variety of opinions on those books are going to play out.

One path will choose banning and burning disagreeable books until one is left standing all alone, the other path will choose reading and understanding (though not necessarily agreeing with) all books.

The lesson of technology is once the genie is out of the bottle... the question isn't how to put it back in but how to survive now that it's here and more potent than those who summoned it expected.

There are pros and cons. For example in an open book world... blackmail is far less effective thus removing the bulk mechanism allowing a secret world government to function.

I may be in support of privacy... just as I'm in support of not being crushed by an avalanche. But when I'm standing on the mountain as the snow rushes over me... thinking about how to stop the avalanche doesn't really go anywhere.

All they would see is my car. I have it setup with motion detection. No reason to have one pointed at me or in my house. If they like looking at a stationary car for hours on end more power to them lol! Would be pretty hard to get past my firewall if they did then they deserve a nice screenshot of my vehicle that they already have a record of.

Btw glad to see you using a new AV Wrabbit! Looks good!

winofiend
Dont read anything you guys. It would break all the fun.

You see, downloading malware is required. Yup. You have to be silly enough to click on a link in your email which installs the backdoor software they used.

Remember backorifice from the mid 90s? If you tricked someone into installing it you had them.

If youre the sort of person to reply to king mbuntububu for 900,000 pounds or click on big penis now emails, be afraid...


Ps it even says this in the original article along with times a judge refused them warrants to be allowed to do this.

edit on 7-12-2013 by winofiend because: (no reason given)

True for your garden variety hacker malware.

Not true for someone (or some agency) with the skills & resources to get into your system.

And if people don't think someone can get into almost any computer that is connected to the net, they're dreaming and/or have not been paying attention the last few years.

With the right tools, it's a piece of cake to hack the average "home PC". Hardened facilities require a little more work, finesse and access - but they too get hacked - and much more frequently than people know.

I know THEY are watching me. Nothing can save me from THEM. THEY can see through the duct tape on my laptop webcam. Thats why I type in the nude with a goat mask on. At least the facial recognition software cant be used on me.



Seriously though...
nakedsecurity.sophos.com...

If you think you have a RAT ( Remote Administration Tool) on your comp... google it. You can take care of the problem yourself. IT can come from anything from torrents to emails.. to sites you visit.

DenyObfuscation
I came across this info earlier looking for something a little different. I'm not saying this could make LEDs in a screen into a camera but thought it may be of interest to you.

You're sort of missing a lot of pieces to make them into a camera. Like a lens, some sort of scanning apparatus, and the interface circuitry on the other end to do A-D duty.

w8tn4it
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.

Naw, that's a harmonica bug. Lido was a Russian machine you used as part of a complete brainwashing/interrogation setup. Koontz, like King, is non-technical.

w8tn4it 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

No, it's made up of LCD pixels. There may or may not be LEDs behind them for backlighting, depending on the screen design. However, a pile of LEDs do not a camera make, light sensitive or no.

reply to post by Snarl


dont buy, enable or use a webcam then.

problem solved.

Do you have a phone by any chance?

and have a look at your digital tv boxes there might be a bit more than a infa red sensor in there i keep my phone in the kitchen drawer and do not have a webcam that is just inviting trouble

Advantage
I know THEY are watching me. Nothing can save me from THEM. THEY can see through the duct tape on my laptop webcam. Thats why I type in the nude with a goat mask on. At least the facial recognition software cant be used on me.

Seriously though...
nakedsecurity.sophos.com...

If you think you have a RAT ( Remote Administration Tool) on your comp... google it. You can take care of the problem yourself. IT can come from anything from torrents to emails.. to sites you visit.

Isn't it rather ironic on a thread regarding privacy and technology that "google it" comes up?

RidgeWalker

Advantage
I know THEY are watching me. Nothing can save me from THEM. THEY can see through the duct tape on my laptop webcam. Thats why I type in the nude with a goat mask on. At least the facial recognition software cant be used on me.

Seriously though...
nakedsecurity.sophos.com...

If you think you have a RAT ( Remote Administration Tool) on your comp... google it. You can take care of the problem yourself. IT can come from anything from torrents to emails.. to sites you visit.

Isn't it rather ironic on a thread regarding privacy and technology that "google it" comes up?

Now that you mention it. LOL!!
Then again.. tracking my history/searches to try to sell me things I dont need versus some voyeur watching me surreptitiously in my husbands skivvies singing " If I Were a Boy".... in living color... with zoom and screen shots... well thats a huge difference in my mind.