Random story just for fun. Years back I was at a tech meetup, and left my laptop sitting on a lunchroom table, and wandered off to chat. Now my laptop then looked a bit odd, with three extra cameras, on folding sticks gaff taped to the lid. Two fisheyes perched on the corners, and a keyboard cam hanging out on a wooden-ruler arm.[1] For head, eye, hand and stylus tracking - the ThinkPad's quadro would run hot just driving the HIDs, even before starting the desktop UI, let alone any apps. Now while I was gone, a host had gone around the tables, and left a gift. Sitting on/beside the laptop, under the assorted extra cameras on sticks, was a small piece of logo-ed swag... a little webcam sliding-cover thin plastic stick-on. There was laughter.
I think we should all be pushing for norms that any camera must be covered with an easily visible (i.e., yellow) cover if not in use at that actual moment. Like zipping up the fly in your pants.
I used to use a black sticker so it wasn't visibly obtrusive, but since the rise of videoconferencing this past year, I now use a yellow sticky note as well, so I can easily verify if it's there or not.
3M also makes black sticky notes (intended for use with gel pens). Cut a piece off the sticky area and it blends in perfectly with ThinkPad matte black bezels. I also recommend putting another small piece on the backside (to make a "band-aid" shape) just to ensure that no adhesive gets left on your webcam lens cover.
What apps or programs do you use to make your phone work as a webcam? I've tried that last year but none of the solutions in the play store seemed to work for me.
I use Droidcam OBS with OBS on Windows/Mac and it's pretty good, especially over USB. Droidcam X is good as well but with OBS you get more control over the image quality and you can do some arranging of the scene as well.
There's also https://vdo.ninja/ (previously obs.ninja) that doesn't require any special apps. You open up a browser on your smartphone and input the link into OBS as a browser source. The performance on Chrome is superior to other Android browsers in my experience. There's a bit of delay and the quality isn't quite as good as OBS as the connection goes through the internet and isn't local, but the delay is actually surprisingly small.
IMHO apps that use your camera when you least expect it aren't legit. Don't allow big tech to kill you death-by-a-thousand-cuts style. If you don't control your hardware and your firmware, the machine isn't yours and the sensors should be on physical kill switches. You can install these (e.g., kill switch for mic, cover for camera) or you can buy machines with these (e.g. from Purism https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/ )
I just assume my laptops are all compromised, because if they are managed or have any commercial software on them, they are. Put another way, if you think your machine is secure, can you afford to be wrong? The reason I have used a lens cover as long as there have been cams (back to the SGI days) is because, to borrow a phrase, corporate IT people are not gentlemen.
Is anyone really going to try find a novel rootkit on their daily driver windows thinkpad or airbook, when you could more easily set up a honeynet if you were hunting that threat. Without a honeypot, pulling apart your workstation means you are your own control group, and you just start losing your mind. To me that seems like spending a day to source and replace a UART in a cheap pair of headphones instead of replacing them. If I still ran linux or a bsd I would pay more attention, but running a commercial OS is already being at such a disadvantage that the effort doesn't justify the results. Instead, there is a room or a box that electronics go in when they aren't being used.
Software security controls are a speedbump for the threat actors most of us deal with. If they want to get you, they will. Cam covers and physical controls are the best possible controls because they do what they are. The same cannot be said for software.
I use a camera cover for my work computers since I don't have full control over the devices. It has saved me from default broadcasts in conferencing software several times.
That seems like a very valid use case. Corporate laptops also often have mandatory software like RemotelyAnywhere on them that allow the mothership to poke in anytime they like.
Added benefit of webcam covers: if your office has mandatory cameras on, you can always turn on the video feed with the camera covered and just pretend you don't know why it isn't working.
This is a dystopian future I hadn't imagined, but in retrospect it seems like something you should've bet on. Is this really a thing, "mandatory cameras on"?
Note for people who want to put a third party slidable webcam covers: make sure that the tolerances of your Laptop or other device will allow you to put the webcam cover without damaging your screen or other components. Instead as directed above use a Post it note. Another strategy would be to compartmentalize your activities using separate computers but this is a much higher cost (get a separate laptop for home use).
Never ever ever ever should you do anything home related on work hardware. Likewise never do anything work related on personal hardware.
It isnt 'higher cost' to have a personal computer, it is the cost you would have if you didnt have a job.
I have seen what IT do when they 'replace the sim card on your phone' it involes looking through all your pictures and reading all your messages.
As for companies that say they are not providing hardware and you have to use your personal hardware / phone / whatever for your job. Fuck them.
I love the slider, but why did they have to put a painted red dot on it? It makes it look as if the camera is on and recording me. It’s unnecessarily jarring.
When I saw the red dot on my wife's Lenovo laptop I immediately thought 'that looks like an IR pass filter.' if a company wanted to have a bypassable privacy slider they could have an IR cut filter behind the lens and an IR pass filter up front. When the bypass needed to be activated the IR cut filter could be moved out of the way (this happens automatically on night vision security cameras, so it's not farfetched).
I don't think they would actually use the bypassable filter in everyone's camera, maybe just political dissidents, but having the red dot be the standard would make it less noticable when a bypassable filter is deployed.
We just slide it half way, then there's no irritating red dot and the camera is still covered.
Yes, if it’s built in then it’s a lot less awkward. You can close the laptop with it on, etc. The practical problems with doing this are bigger than theoretical ones.
Ultimately Apple should probably build this in given their “privacy” messaging.
But in any case, I think surreptitious microphone access is a bigger problem than this, and there’s no easy solution to it.
Why can't you make a hardware switch for the microphone too? Both the PinePhone and Librem 5 have this.
I would like to see more and more of these physical kill switches, hopefully kind of like the silent switches on my iPhone, but maybe with little sliding locks to keep them in position.
There used to be a hardware switch for WiFi on laptops not long ago. But being "always connected" took precedence over privacy. Same can be said with microphone and voice assistants.
Does the slider also physically disconnect the microphone, or alternatively is there a separate switch for it?
I find this popular trend of webcam sliders for purported security reasons is mere security theatre as long as microphones cannot be physically disconnected.
My laptop camera is permanently covered with black electrical tape, but if it was uncovered there would really not be much to see except my bleary eyeballs and my pandemic-necessitated mad-scientist-looking self-inflicted haircut.
I worry much more about the microphone, not just in my laptop, but in my phone, and in who knows what other devices that have the insidious things hidden away. I wish there was a way to block microphones with tape to kill any audio pickup when not wanted. It's harder to manage than cameras, making camera covers something like privacy theater if the microphones are going to be left unblocked.
Yeah I know about the Pinephone with its microphone kill switch, but that switch is apparently quite a pain to operate. If I get a Pinephone I'm likely to leave the mic permanently shut off, and simply use an external or bluetooth mic if I want to make a voice call.
I use a webcam cover, but I'm not worried about people hacking into my laptop.
What I'm defending against is one of the many apps I have to use for conferencing (Zoom, Google Meet, Bluejeans, Teams) starting up with the camera on when I'm not expecting it (and e.g. not wearing a shirt, my wife getting ready in the background, etc) for example because it was on last time I used that particular app.
That is probably the main concern for most people. I conference from my office and I simply don't go in there if I'm not presentable at some level. But if you're conferencing from your bedroom, especially with another person, it would be super-easy to mess up with an early morning video call.
Revoking permission in my browser's control after each use might be an option. I wonder if I could make a script to change the browser settings (or an extension?)
This is automatic in Firefox. When giving e.g. microphone permission, you can leave the 'Remember this desxision' option unchecked. This will make the permission 'Allowed temporarily' and will be reset when you close the tab or window.
As far as I can test, Chrome does not have this option.
I installed a virtual camera driver (eg, Canon's EOS camera driver) and set that camera as the default. If any program starts up the camera unexpectedly, they get a giant "NO EOS DEVICE CONNECTED" instead of me partially clothed with my no-coffee-yet face on.
Exactly. If someone can see through my webcam, I have more to worry about than them seeing my room.
I get the appeal of webcam covers; they’re a quick and simple alleviation to the idea of a “peeping Tom”, but if someone can see through your camera when you don’t want them to, they probably already have control of other things on the computer. They could install a keylogger and siphon my documents/photos for more blackmail material.
Maybe I’m just dense because it never happened to me (AFAIK), but am I wrong?
"Someone" getting control of my webcam bothers me a lot less then "my workplace's invasive monitoring software (which can be deployed at any time in the future if its not there now) is collecting images of my home workplace.
My webcam on my own computers, no real fear. When that same device is USB connected to a work supplied computer? Zero trust.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t. I actually think manufacturers should go a step further and add physical kill switches to webcams. That would allow cutting off the audio as well.
I’m just saying that a sticker seems to be a bandaid on a possibly bigger issue.
There are very few physical switches and ports on most modern laptops. How many people out of the 99 who don't care are willing to pay for the physical (and not just "physical" as in triggers software) killing of audio and video for the one (if that) who cares? I know I'm not.
[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERqCfdkX0AEWTN_?format=jpg&name=...