FBI Can Secretly Activate Laptop Cameras Without Indicator Light

There must be a point where people wake up and say....... just because you can do something in the name of "national security" you should not do it. Yet many people seem almost content (or at least ambivalent) to allow government to intrude into our lives further and further with each passing day. Limiting the power of government is the only way to insure our sovereign freedoms are not removed one brick at a time.

Souce: Gizmodo

Scary. Insane. Ridiculous. Invasive. Wrong. The Washington Post reports that the FBI has had the ability to secretly activate a computer's camera "without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording" for years now. What in the hell is going on? What kind of world do we live in?

Marcus Thomas, the former assistant director of the FBI's Operational Technology Division, told the Post that that sort of creepy spy laptop recording is "mainly" used in terrorism cases or the "most serious" of criminal investigations. That doesn't really make it less crazy (or any better) since the very idea of the FBI being able to watch you through your computer is absolutely disturbing.

The whole Post piece about the FBI's search for a bomb threat suspect is worth reading. It shows how far the FBI will go with its use of malware to spy on people and reveals the occasional brain dead mistakes the FBI makes to screw themselves over (like a typo of an e-mail address that the FBI wanted to keep tabs on). Good to know these completely competent folks are watching over us by any means necessary.

I have a piece of opaque plastic electricians insulation tape over mine for about a year now, and my wife has had the same on hers since she bought it a few years ago.

what about the sounds from your house? they can be heard even if the camera is not showing anything. And everything you look at tracked.

I think this is quite worthless to fight back at that level, although I would put on tape on mine too, lets not facilitate their job. lol

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Posted by Flash

what about the sounds from your house? they can be heard even if the camera is not showing anything. And everything you look at tracked.

I think this is quite worthless to fight back at that level, although I would put on tape on mine too, lets not facilitate their job. lol

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A lot of the time the internet connection here is only just good enough for posting on Avalon and other text based forums; but yes if they can turn the camera on they can turn the microphone on, and the bandwidth for sound is a lot less than for video.

There are cameras and microphones on everything now. My mobile phone never leaves my side. I could easiliy be under constant surveillance. :eek:

It's a good job I spent most of my time in silent thought, although they can probably listen in on that now too...

edit: And yes, I have the tape over my camera too. lol

Warning....Off Topic....Kind of....

Knowing the cameras can be activated without our control, or warning, aren't you in the least tempted to try something like this...just because... every agent needs a little loving...in their cubicle...uuuuuuhm....

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=W6DmHGYy_xk

I keep a bandaid over my laptop camera at all times.

What's scary about this endless policing, is that the agents responsible also have human failings. Many of them are no better than any of us and even use these devices to spy on their own loved ones.

Therefore in a few years Microsoft et al will probably take over America and provide an AI to substitute for all law enforcement, judicial, and medical needs (lol).
Human emotions will no longer be a factor in justice or learning or medicine. We will live in a sterile environment with unimaginable stressors.

The only human element remaining will be delegated to the weapons systems that "clean up" the last human mess. I.e. drones and nukes, that sort of thing, lmao.

Think maybe the corporations are intentionally bankrupting our government to hasten the corporate takeover?
Could some of them in fact be behind the "laws" that allow these agencies to abuse the public?

There are certainly some moral absolutes that may justify watching someone on a webcam without consent, you guys know that -- but on the other hand, morals and laws in particular are subjective, and what is right to you and your political-religious group might be "wrong" to the government, like Falun Gong in China.

When harmlessness is a threat, you know that you live in a warlike bloodthirsty capitalist society... duh

http://www.gizmodo.in/searchresult.cms?query=fbi+camera
thats - http://www.gizmodo.in/searchresult.cms?query=fbi+camera does turn up some interesting searches there..

I was kind of wondering :rolleyes: where those porn sites where getting so much cheesy porn captured via laptop computers.

You won't catch me with my pants down :nono:

in the year 1998 i could activate and record a microphone via a trojan-virus so im not realy surprized by that "news" the only thing that changed is you wont notice the bandwith the trojan uses because u got much more than u need.

also its possible to see your computers display in realtime by receiving its radiowaves and decoding it - the display itself is on its own frequency.

My hubby looked at me like I was paranoid about two years ago, when I duck taped mine. I told him I don't Skype and if I wanted pictures I have a phone or camera. No need to have this eye looking at me.

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Posted by Lifebringer

My hubby looked at me like I was paranoid about two years ago, when I duck taped mine. I told him I don't Skype and if I wanted pictures I have a phone or camera. No need to have this eye looking at me.

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you seem to be a weirdo that got something to hide ! :p

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Posted by Lifebringer

My hubby looked at me like I was paranoid about two years ago, when I duck taped mine. I told him I don't Skype and if I wanted pictures I have a phone or camera. No need to have this eye looking at me.

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And they're probably going like: what does she think she has that we've not seen before...

I kinda feel sorry for the poor gov'ment employee who has me as an assignment. ...Sixty three years old, same ol' husband for 43 years. No pets. Just a few close friends. Retired. Flower Garden. I do sing but no even that would make me interesting. (Might scare 'em off though.)

Let's have some sympathy for those folks who are just trying to make a living. It's probably not what they went to school for. Certainly not what their mother's dreamed for them. They probably just fell into this personal surveillance thing as an alternative to Unemployment. It would be almost as bad as looking at naked bodies all day at airport security.

Most peoples' lives are just incredibly boring. Would you be happy watching a bouncing view of the world from someones mobile all day?

Well, no one made them apply for those jobs.

:( imo

"the devil invades your gratitude" ~iron maiden!

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Posted by Heartsong

I kinda feel sorry for the poor gov'ment employee who has me as an assignment. ...Sixty three years old, same ol' husband for 43 years. No pets. Just a few close friends. Retired. Flower Garden. I do sing but no even that would make me interesting. (Might scare 'em off though.)

Let's have some sympathy for those folks who are just trying to make a living. It's probably not what they went to school for. Certainly not what their mother's dreamed for them. They probably just fell into this personal surveillance thing as an alternative to Unemployment. It would be almost as bad as looking at naked bodies all day at airport security.

Most peoples' lives are just incredibly boring. Would you be happy watching a bouncing view of the world from someones mobile all day?

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I believe they are not interested in watching you consistently, unless you did or said was filtered earlier. Everybody thinks, some staff sitting and monitoring everyone nope but those(watching/listening) are necessary for face/voice recognition for AI.

Well if anyone else is interested, I just hung my "wrecking ball"....yooo hooo mister FBI agent....

Sure, it is disturbing. But guys, just stop for a moment and consider the manpower required for such a maneuver to be truly invasive on a large scale. The FBI doesn't have underground bases filled with tens of thousands of agents monitoring random computer screens! Even if they hypothetically had a team of 1000 men and women dedicated to this one task, they couldn't even effectively monitor a small housing development.

No one is watching you. You're not that important!

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Posted by Heartsong

I kinda feel sorry for the poor gov'ment employee who has me as an assignment. ...Sixty three years old, same ol' husband for 43 years. No pets. Just a few close friends. Retired. Flower Garden. I do sing but no even that would make me interesting.

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I think we have to be real here and realise that while it's obvious they have the power to do this, they aren't watching everyone all the time. That's just silly.

I imagine Mr Julian Assange, Michael Tellinger, people of similar position are being watched, almost no doubt, but it's very doubtful that they'd have any interest in you or I.

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Posted by Chinaski

No one is watching you. You're not that important!

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^ this.