[Cl0ud]

This is why you buy desktops over laptops I guess.

Exactly. :grin:

[itaxim]

I'm fairly sure if this was doable it would have to be written into the drivers of each and every single webcam. And if somehow they were able to do that without even one person balbbing about it all over the internet then some linux coder would have discovered this when porting drivers.

And seriously, I'm sure RAT coders would have been all over this if it was doable.

[JennoCide]

YEah, this sounds far fetched and unbelievable. Source is questionable too... at least it feels like its hyping up a small and insignificant technique used a few times by some FBI techie. FBI would most likely use all kinds of tricks in extreme cases, but thankfully we are not at all interesting to the watchful eyes of the higher powers. They don't have the money or resources to monitor normal civilians in any big brother kind of way. I would be far more worried about google and other internet corporations who want to collect data about the users then about FBI or CIA or alien powers etc etc etc...

[Dismas]

Doesn't sound far fetched, sadly.

[Reiko]

Doesn't sound far fetched, sadly.

It's really not. These lights are controlled through software and don't always have to be on when the cam is on. The camera drivers dictate whether or not the light comes on when the cam does. All that's really needed is a modified driver for your model of camera.

---

I'm fairly sure if this was doable it would have to be written into the drivers of each and every single webcam. And if somehow they were able to do that without even one person balbbing about it all over the internet then some linux coder would have discovered this when porting drivers.

And seriously, I'm sure RAT coders would have been all over this if it was doable.

It's a possibility that some of them do have the functionality already written into them, but not all of them.

Physical, manually-opened shutters.

[Dismas]

It's really not. These lights are controlled through software and don't always have to be on when the cam is on. The camera drivers dictate whether or not the light comes on when the cam does. All that's really needed is a modified driver for your model of camera.

---

It's a possibility that some of them do have the functionality already written into them, but not all of them.

Physical, manually-opened shutters.

That was my assumption. Also why I said it wasn't far fetched.

[Ayoub]

That shit is bad :O all my time online fapping :O

[wolfnotsheep]

A small piece of black electrical tape placed over your camera will take care of that, which is convenient on a laptop or tablet.

[raVinat00r]

Piece of tape FTW! They cant see nothing

[itaxim]

I could imagine newer cameras having this kind of thing built in, and maybe some of the older ones being able to be exploited. However it would take an awful lot of collaboration to arrange everything in such a way that there is hole to be exploited, and have it hidden in the code well enough that no one finds it and uses it for all sorts of nefarious purposes.

Someone hacking a secret FBI BigBrother-net would make this icloud leak look pathetic.