Is your webcam taped up? 0_o

[PJ]

yea yea I know…paranoia. Or is it? Check this recent article out.
A synopsis:

Britain’s surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the US National Security Agency, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal.

GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 explicitly state that a surveillance program codenamed Optic Nerve collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and saved them to agency databases, regardless of whether individual users were an intelligence target or not.

In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency collected webcam imagery – including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications – from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally.

Thoughts? All for our safety of course….

[The Maj]

It goes much deeper, I am certain. I have worked in areas where I had access to more information than the public / media had and sometimes, my wife would ask “how bad is it?” Based on restrictions and classification, I legally could not tell her (especially over the phone) but I gave her a general rule to follow when she would see something on the news and that was the news media was given access to no more than 25% of the story, so it is generally AT LEAST three times as bad as it was being portrayed.

Same thing goes with this story, someone stumbled upon something (no, I do not have faith in “investigative journalism”) and just enough information was released to appease the curiosity. Rest assured, the rabbit hole goes much deeper.

[J]

I have friends in the UK and have visited several times. It is the most watched country in the world. I have been told by them that going out for a day on the town, shopping, doing errands, etc., you have your photo taken an average of just over 600 times.

Cabs, buses, trains and vrirtually all other forms of public transport have CCTV in them, as well as shops and businesses.

I sometimes wonder if our leaders have decided that our allies had a good idea and have decided to improve on it.

Remember years ago when the “paranoid” people were ranting about how electronic communications of all types could be monitored and stored and the response was “Oh, silly, that will never happen!”?

[PJ]

It really is interesting watching all of this unfold and those who are all too willing to simply let it happen. I actually spoke about this with one person who conceded that everything probably was monitored but that we shouldn’t worry about that, we just “need to live and enjoy life.”

“War is peace, Ignorance is strength, Freedom is slavery.”

-George Orwell, 1984.

• This reply was modified 10 years, 10 months ago by PJ.

[Muleskinner]

My brother was ASA and even during the 70s we knew the government was monitoring phone calls. During those years it was mostly done to keep and eye on military officers but they weren’t beyond tapping anyone’s phone. I can only imagine how deep the rabbit hole really goes now. I think Maj. just gave us a hint.

[Echo5charlie]

I know what a Cpl and Sgt could see and monitor 14 years ago on a small scale. I can only imagine with recent revelations and on a higher level what is gathered, stored and cross referenced now. It might well be for our safety now, it also might be abused in the future. I’d rather not put that trust in man.

[Muleskinner]

Echo5charlie:

That is the truth.

[Echo5Charlie]

Just wanted to share another low tech tip to protect yourselves that was on our local news this morning.

Besides taping the Web cam, you can be listened to through the laptops audio. Take on old set of ear buds or headset and cut it close to the audio plug. Then plug it into the laptop. This will mute the internal audio.

What ever happened to tinfoil hat people. Everyone is now being told to tape our Web cams and dummy plug our audio, in the mainstream media.

[bigpaul]

had a virus on my computer a couple of times, was pretending to be from the Police but was extorting money to unfreeze my laptop, anyway it also takes a photo through the webcam of anyone sitting in front of the computer, so after getting my computer fixed I taped over my webcam with Gaffa tape..no more photos!

[Author]

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