Mark Zuckerberg Tapes Over His Webcam. Should You? (theguardian.com) 292
Remember when FBI's director James Comey was spotted using a piece of tape over the camera on his laptop? At the time, Comey noted that he started doing it after he saw a person "smarter" than him do it as well. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apparently also puts a tape over his webcam. Zuckerberg posted an image on Facebook yesterday, celebrating Instagram's big milestone of hitting 500 million monthly active users. In the background, we can see that his laptop has a tape over the webcam, as well as something around the microphone port. From a report on The Guardian: Even experts who don't cover their cameras think they should. Why doesn't Matthew Green, an encryption expert at Johns Hopkins University? "Because I'm an idiot," he said. "I have no excuse for not taking this seriously ... but at the end of the day, I figure that seeing me naked would be punishment enough." While Zuckerberg probably does have any number of advanced persistent threats trying to break his digital security, normal people shouldn't be too complacent either. Installing backdoors on compromised computers is a common way for some hackers to occupy their time.On an unrelated note, it appears, Zuckerberg uses Mozilla's Thunderbird as his primary email client.
Light Sensor... (Score:2)
Yes, I'm that paranoid.
Re:Light Sensor... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Light Sensor... (Score:4, Funny)
You must be new at this.
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>> I figure that seeing me naked would be punishment enough
On second thought, I'm pretty much in this guy's camp...except why are you naked in front of your computer? Are you really in that much of a hurry?
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I skip the middleman and just put tape over my mouth and nipples.
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Re:Light Sensor... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I'm that paranoid.
To clarify, I'm not worried about a 3 letter agency using my webcam. I'm worried about a two letter department. IT. Here's why:
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I cover the camera for a very similar reason. Skype for Business is very commonly used, and it can be too easy to mash the wrong button, and wind up with people finding out that I drink ice tea instead of coffee.
Re:Light Sensor... (Score:4, Funny)
I drink ice tea instead of coffee.
Monster!
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Or in my case, Maker's Mark at 10:30am.
Re:Light Sensor... (Score:4, Funny)
Disgraceful. You should have a good slug in your coffee when you arrive and not touch another drop till lunchtime.
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I close my laptop & hook up an external monitor.
No chance of me picking my nose on a skype call, or the NSA seeing what my kids are doing.
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I almost always use the external monitor. Sadly though, OSX just does not seem to make that mode work very well. It's been buggy for the last seven years. Unplug the laptop to go to a meeting and it'll rearrange and resize your windows. Plug in a projector and all hell breaks lose with the windows. Once I had windows resized to one inch by one inch, another times half the icons were moved off screen, etc. Half the time when I reboot it won't see the monitor so I have to open the laptop to type in my p
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I hear ya, but windows is just as bad. I have 3 monitors on my laptop/dock. NEVER works right coming back after a presentation.
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I agree with the conference camera thing. It's super easy to forget if it's on. I didn't even know my computer had a microphone until the Jabber settings popped up with it.
I don't even like sharing my screen. I was in a conference call getting trained on our ever-so-useful ERP system. I was taking hones notes in notepad about quirky things that needed to get fixed. I was in a bad mood, so the text file was peppered with colorful metaphors. Anyway, halfway through the training I got volunteered to walk thro
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The UI on Skype for Business sucks
So its not just me...
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The UI on Skype for Business sucks
So its not just me...
Every meeting someone calls in from their phone, and their computer mic gets turned on. Everyone on the call gets treated to the lovely sound of feedback while we wait for the host to figure out how to mute the mic remotely. Then we spend 10 minutes waiting for the host to figure out how to present...
Re:Light Sensor... (Score:4, Funny)
Ha had a lousy web conference call a few weeks back, new remote building and things weren't working so well. It was mostly audio only but at one point we wanted a picture of what was being projected so one person used his laptop as the video. Then when done he forgets to turn it off, pulls the laptop back to himself, then partially closes the lid. The camera is now pointed straight at his groin. His hands are in his lap twiddling his thumbs, tapping his fingers, clearly bored and impatient. Luckily he never adjusted himself...
I put tape. (Score:2)
Just to be sure, and to avoid hidden web cams too, I put tape over my private parts
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And you pay someone to rip the tape back off again? I really don't like some of these day spas.
Sometimes (Score:2)
I normally use a post-it note, makes it easier to take off for when you actually need to use it.
Re:Sometimes (Score:4, Interesting)
I use foam tape - that way it also buffers the lid, something that many laptop manufacturers have skimped on.
For most machines, I also make sure I disable the audio drivers in the kernel, and rebuild without them. My main laptop can still be used with an external microphone through the high-def audio driver, but not through the built-in microphone that uses an intel-snd driver that isn't in my kernel. That's probably fairly good protection against being listened on, even if not perfect.
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I imagine some drops of superglue put directly on the microphone work. After all, the mike top has to vibrate...
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Fun with Windows: I disabled the microphone and uninstalled the driver on my laptop. No microphone was there in the devices UI. Silverlight has some debug mode where it will show you volume coming from your mic, it it was clearly still enabled.
And that wasn't even Windows 10.
Even on Linux, I wouldn't be surprised if the "auxiliary processor" on INtel CUs that has access to the IP stack also has microphone access, with some "power on voice" feature as a disguise for it's true purpose. There were definitel
Re:Sometimes (Score:5, Funny)
I normally use a post-it note, makes it easier to take off for when you actually need to use it.
We're still talking about webcams, right?
Sam (Score:2)
I normally use a post-it note
Same here - cut down to an appropriate size. Though I originally used electrical tape.
I've been taping them over since they started being standard equipment on enough laptops that finding a laptop without one when looking for one that could run linux crimped the selection.
(If they'd had a switch I might have trusted it - though that would be foolish. Since they don't the choice is easy.)
I
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They used to come with a covering tab at one point. Even a light when the camera was on. Not anymore.
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If they'd had a switch I might have trusted it - though that would be foolish.
My TV has a camera. The camera has a switch. The "switch" is to rotate the camera so that it points at the ceiling (and also becomes hidden behind the screen, instead of an ugly lump). That's the only approach I trust.
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Use it? There's an actual use for that camera?
A-Team Style (Score:5, Funny)
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"I love it when a plan comes together".
I suspect, however, that a relatively small amount of image processing will reveal that trick. A mirror, angled at 45 degrees from the camera, might be a better solution.. .
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Just add a looped video of yourself picking your nose.
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It's the microphone I'm worried about. At least the camera usually has an LED so you can see it is on, but there is no way of knowing if the microphone is active. It's also harder to block - tape helps but won't completely stop it hearing ambient sound. Also, microphones have been demonstrated as a way to secretly communicate without generating suspicious network traffic, using ultrasound.
The only way to be sure is to open the laptop and unplug it.
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It's the microphone I'm worried about. At least the camera usually has an LED so you can see it is on, but there is no way of knowing if the microphone is active. It's also harder to block - tape helps but won't completely stop it hearing ambient sound. Also, microphones have been demonstrated as a way to secretly communicate without generating suspicious network traffic, using ultrasound.
The only way to be sure is to open the laptop and unplug it.
Most of the webcam malware can actually disable the LED indicator for the camera. Apparently it's not fully hardware based. Kind of ridiculous really.
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It's the microphone I'm worried about. At least the camera usually has an LED so you can see it is on, but there is no way of knowing if the microphone is active. It's also harder to block - tape helps but won't completely stop it hearing ambient sound. Also, microphones have been demonstrated as a way to secretly communicate without generating suspicious network traffic, using ultrasound.
The only way to be sure is to open the laptop and unplug it.
Plugging in an empty 3.5 mm plug connected to nothing might switch in circuitry from the built in Mic to the non existent "plugged in" Mic
I wouldn't count on any software fix that disables something. That can be worked around with the right software.
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Tempting, but then you discover that someone has hacked it to read out the decimal value of kernel memory as its random number source.
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Or transmits continuous death metal. I'm thinking maybe the "None So Vile" album by Cryptopsy.
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No You want Mary has a Little Lamb, played on some kids' squeaky musical instrument. With one note wrong. Over and over. That's the fate the snoops deserve.
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When I was a kid, there was an episode of the A Team where they took a Polaroid picture from the perspective of a security camera and then put that picture in front of the camera lens so it couldn't see them. Just do the same thing but with a print out of goatse or something.
Goatse... Zuckerbug nude... Hacking his camera is it's own punishment!
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Could you shim your own video source? (Score:2)
Why hasn't someone come up with a virtual video camera device that could be fed whatever input you wanted (video files, stills, etc) and tell your camera-enabled software or OS that this was the "default" video camera or just outright disable the physical camera device.
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You're a very noughty boy.
Microphone? (Score:2)
But does he cut the wires to the microphone on his computer?
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Especially that microphone that is on the same board as the webcam.
I choose to remove the whole board ;)
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The original commentary on the picture I read about claimed that there was tape over the mic as well.
Net Worth: 35.7 billion USD (Score:2)
If I had a net worth of 35.7 billion USD, then yeah. Until I make a bill, I'm just fine without any tape. I run Linux and keep my OS updated. Lot easier, more valuable targets out there.
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(1) They won't know if you're valuable until after they crack your system.
(2) It doesn't matter if you are more vulnerable than the guy down the street, it matters if what you are believed to have justifies the expense of cracking your system.
(3) A lot of this is done for lulz, not money.
Laptop and tablet makers need to add a switch (Score:5, Insightful)
A switch needs to be added to laptops and tablets to electrically turn off the microphone and camera by removing power to them. We can't trust software to do this, so it shouldn't be in a menu as a soft function.
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Could you trust the switch? With all the reports coming in about backdoors found hardware, I am not sure one could actually trust a switch these days, unfortunately.
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If a laptop had a mechanical switch on the side to turn off the camera like most do for WiFi, I would eventually trust it.
And by that I mean, if this feature is advertised as a way to deny any TLA from snooping, then security-wise people will let us know if it works or not.
That's good enough for me, until, I'm sticking with the tape. .. or you can go Edward Snowden on your phone/laptop like in that recent VICE episode.
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a simple cover such as the ones used for camera lenses would be even simpler to do, no wiring required
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That only gets the camera, though, not the microphone. For that you really would need a switch.
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The only thing I have in common with him (Score:4, Insightful)
it appears, Zuckerberg uses Mozilla's Thunderbird as his primary email client.
I've been using Thunderbird for a long time now. Before that I used Netscape Communicator (which looked a lot like the usual setup for Thunderbird). If he's smart enough to use Thunderbird then maybe he's not completely awful.
Normal in our time (Score:4, Informative)
I have been doing that for years, that's what the Chiquita Banana stickers are for.
Psychological manipulation (Score:3, Interesting)
This story is utter manipulative bullshit. Propaganda.
The story encourages people to irrationally displace their urge to take action by suggesting an easy act of resistance.
It basically tries to delude people into thinking they are in any way resisting mass surveillance by encouraging them to engage tangibly with the idea by covering up their camera when not in use, or at least imagine that surveillance can be resisted by such simple and pointless measures. It's a blatant psychological trick.
You should not feel better about your privacy because you tape over a camera. Even if video data of you is being collected continuously most of that information is completely worthless compared to everything else that with absolute certainly is being collected and processed.
Of course the important video data would come from when you are actually using your camera....try covering it then....
You should be absolutely OUTRAGED that this kind of toxic thinking and blatant psychological manipulation is being shoved in front of your face if you have a single basic unit of free will and intelligence.
But then you should also be organizing into independent unions and threatening to strike to cripple the economy until the appropriate referendums can be held to abolish mass surveillance and tyranny in general. But hey, that takes a lot of confidence in your perception of society. I guess you're excused from your duty to your family, your community, and your country because you let your self esteem get worn down to nothing by constantly deferring to "experts" on every matter.
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Not because I'm worried about mass surveillance but because I know there are ways for individuals to gain access to these devices.
I'm not worried about what they might see, but the creep factor of the 1 in a million chance someone gains access to the camera without me knowing is worth the tiny effort to block the view.
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and you are totally missing the point....you're being misdirected to care about something that doesn't matter at all instead of the complete and blatant destruction of your freedom
Asus laptop (Score:2)
My desktops generally don't even *have* webcams on them unless it's deliberately attached for a particular event. My laptop has one built in, but Asus was nice enough to give many models a little sliding plate/door which covers the camera. When you want to conference, just slide the plate off.
I've Been Doing This for Years (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I'm an asshole.
Alternate solution (Score:5, Funny)
Instead of taping over my webcam, microphone and whatever - I came up with the brilliant idea to cover MYSELF in tape all over, before I use any computer. That way it does not matter if I use some other computer where I have forgotten to tape over the webcam.
I'm not hardcore about it though, it's not like I use the camo duct tape, just the normal stuff.
This isn't about government surveillance (Score:2)
Yeah the government could be watching me too. But while I oppose that on philosophical grounds, I don't personally do anything that might interest the government. Hackers OTOH are less discriminating, and it's easier to just eliminate the possibility of compromising pictures or even blackmail by covering the ca
No need to (Score:5, Funny)
I run FreeBSD on my laptop. I don't have camera drivers on this thing!
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Someone who has that level of access to your computer could certainly install drivers themselves.
And if it runs an Intel or AMD chip then you probably have remote management hardware/firmware inside your processor that can operate outside of your operating system and, at least to some extent, while your computer is "off".
Theoretically that's all very secure but blocking light from entering the lens seems like a low effort high reward security practice.
If you think I'm spouting nonsense about the remote mana
Oops (Score:5, Interesting)
Posting to undo a bad mod
Do this -- and support the EFF at the same time! (Score:5, Informative)
Go get 5 re-place-able and very opaque stickers for a $5 donation. I keep one on my webcam. To boot, it looks classier than a post-it; it lasts forever; and it advertises for the EFF -- a worthy cause.
Go here to get your own set of camera covers. [eff.org]
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I came here to shill the same link.
Linus Torvalds uses a secure OS. Should you? (Score:2)
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Problem fixed (Score:2)
Tape won't work forever (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
I don't know why Zuck worries (Score:2)
I only turn it on when he makes a FB status update via the app. Legit.
Zuckerberg and Thunderbird (Score:2)
dadada (Score:5, Funny)
Should I? Wrong question: (Score:2)
Education (Score:2)
I believe I once heard that people like Zuck, Gates, Jobs etc. don't let their kids have smartphones, tablets, social media accounts etc. or severely limit the usage of such (and television) to a very limited time each day. No citation, obviously, but it would be nice for someone with the inclination and time to try and find out how much of this statement is true.
Which would probably say much more than some jewish dude taping over his cam.
At the risk of sounding too tinfoil-hat... (Score:2)
Would it be a good idea to stick a small piece of aluminum foil under the tape? Not a huge amount, just enough to cover the lens. It might not even have to stick out from under the tape.
I ask this because not all Webcams have good infrared filtering, and tape by itself often lets IR through. Aluminum foil should theoretically take care of that. But do modern built-in Webcams still have IR filtering bad enough to even make this necessary?
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i go the other way (Score:2)
microphone (Score:2)
The camera isn't particularly worrisome to me, but the microphones are. And it's really hard to reliably disable the built-in microphones on laptops, phones and tablets.
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Silicon Graphics Zeye 1.3 (Score:2)
True with our company laptops (Score:2)
I tape over the webcams at home too.
Re:Meh, I won't bother (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm using Linux, so it probably doesn't work, anyway ;)
(serious: I suppose this actually IS possible on Linux, but any cases in the wild?)
Not too likely. Most people can't get their own camera to work properly on Linux. ;) If some malware does, Skype should hire him!
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I'd rather take the laptop apart and unplug it. I still have an ancient laptop that I purposefully bought without a webcam.
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yeah, he *talks* with 3 letter agencies.
I'm very sure there's a reason he's doing this.
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How can you tell when Betteridge's law of headlines doesn't apply?
Force the issue. Write a headline "Betteridge's law of headlines doesn't apply".
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How can you tell when Betteridge's law of headlines doesn't apply?
When you actually understand what the original point of it was rather than lazily trying to appear smarter than you are by thinking "OMG it's a headline in the form of a yes/no question, therefore Betteridge applies." [slashdot.org]
Re:The question you shlould ask is... (Score:4, Funny)
You should care because Fuckerberg knows a thing or two about invading people's privacy. If he himself is worried about his, you should be about yours.
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Years ago, before the miniaturisation of all this shit, webcams used to have a hardware light that lit up when the camera was active. Even on laptops.
Rather than software that can't possibly detect if another driver's been used to power the hardware, without all the hotkey/taskbar junk (if they're on your machine already, they can do anything, including disabling your hotkeys or rendering them irrelevant).
Yet again, some tiny, simplest, cheapest-possible-piece of hardware is excluded in favour of software
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It probably costs more to special order a computer that doesn't include a common consumer grade peripheral. Not to mention there has to be different SKUs, and different plastics to deal with the hole, even if it is merely fitted with a plug.
your points #2 and #3 are spot on though. But I wasn't able to disable my microphone without pulling the laptop completely apart, which it resisted doing, the hinge gave me so much trouble that I gave up and put it back together.
Who uses a laptop microphone anyways? they