CAUTION Laptop Camera Spying, you are NOT SAFE!

[uncleyap]

I had been telling laptop users for years regarding the potential of their secrets including sex life be recorded as video and stolen for sale or watched Online completely without their knowledge & consent. The camera & microphones in any PC especially laptops can be activated by virus / Trojan / Spyware / malware / root-kit etc. It can either become a live web cam or silent recorder and the recorded files are secretly stored in invisible areas of your harddisk and then later sent to the hackers / thieves while you have Internet connection.

The victims will totally be unsuspecting, this can actually happen even if you had installed security software such as most popularly used. This is because the malware / Trojan knows how to patch & attack these security software at the very first moment. Your virus scanner or firewall may look perfectly working and could even detect some other malware / virus or block other attacks, however these intended spying will still NOT be reported.

Spying can be activated even when your laptops / PC are turned off, because Trojan can turn PC on with completely blank screen & silently spy their victims. Over 90% of computers can be remotely turned on via network / USB / modem. It is absolutely possible to turn on computer vis USB mobile broadband, it is similar with my USB keyboard being used to turn on my desktop.

In China there is already such commercial porn sites selling secret spying live webcams where views use pay to spy view victims online. Typical victims are students who live closely with their laptops.

The following news cut & pasted showed how spying had been caught in the USA by SCHOOLS ON PUPILS!

It happened on Mac Books which are supposedly more secured than usual Windows laptops, but yet they had been hacked and spied!


http://www.computerworld.com/s/arti...n_Pa._say_schools_use_peeping_tom_technology_

Irate parents in Pa. say schools use 'peeping tom technology'

FBI investigates, federal prosecutors subpoena documents in MacBook spying case, say reports

By Gregg Keizer
February 21, 2010 07:50 AM ET Comments
(0)
Recommended
(0)
Digg
Twitter
Share/Email


<!-- start content inset --> <script language="javascript"> function showContent(item){ var element; element = document.getElementById(item) element.style.display = ""; } function hideContent(item){ var element; element = document.getElementById(item) element.style.display = "none"; } function activeStyle(item, base_state){ var element; element = document.getElementById(item) element.className = base_state + "_active"; } function inactiveStyle(item, base_state){ var element; element = document.getElementById(item) element.className = base_state; } </script> Top Stories

• Outlook Social Connector add-on a worthwhile addition
• Buzz, Facebook and Twitter create 'social insecurity'
• EU Windows users get first peek at browser ballot next week
• nCircle prioritizes Microsoft, Adobe, Apple patches for users
• Chuck Norris botnet karate-chops routers hard
• Intel wants to put Moorestown chips into tablets

<!-- end tab 1 --> <!-- start related tab -->

• <!-- Number related: 0 -->

<!-- end related tab -->

<!-- end tab 2 -->

<!-- end block -->
<!-- end content inset --> Computerworld - The parents of a Pennsylvania high school student have asked a federal judge to bar school district personnel from switching on cameras in school-issued MacBook laptops, calling the security feature "peeping tom technology."
Federal officials have also stepped up their investigation of Lower Merion School District of Ardmore, Pa., according to reports published Saturday. The Associated Press said that the FBI was exploring whether district officials broke federal wiretapping and electronic surveillance laws, while the Philadelphia Inquirer cited sources who said federal prosecutors have subpoenaed documents from school officials.
In their motion Friday, Michael and Holly Robbins of Penn Valley, Pa., asked U.S. District Court Judge Jan DuBois to issue a restraining order preventing the district from remotely activating the webcams on student notebooks. They also requested that the judge block the district from recalling the laptops from students, saying that they believe school officials will then wipe the MacBooks' hard drives to delete evidence of any camera activation.

 

[uncleyap]

Last week, the Robbins family sued the district, accusing it of spying on students and students' families using the MacBooks' cameras.
Two days after the lawsuit was filed, district officials said they had disabled the camera functionality of a feature designed to locate lost, missing or stolen laptops. However, that wasn't enough for the Robbins, who submitted their Friday motion on behalf of their 16-year-old son, Harriton High School student Blake Robbins.
"There can be no assurances that the School District will disable the use of the remote webcam or, once deactivated, make an internal decision to reactive the webcam," the motion argued.
Elsewhere in the motion, the Robbins labeled the camera functionality "peeping tom technology," and disputed the district's account that cameras had been activated only when a notebook was reported lost or stolen. "[Blake Robbins] was at home using a school issued laptop that was neither reported lost nor stolen when his image was captured by Defendants without his or his parents' permission and while he was at home," the motion said.
According to the original complaint, Robbins was accused by a Harriton High School assistant principal of "improper behavior in his home" and shown a photograph taken by his laptop as evidence. In an appearance on CBS' "Early Show Saturday Edition," Robbins said he was accused by the assistant principal of selling drugs and taking pills, but he claimed the pictures taken by his MacBook's camera showed him eating candy.

 

[uncleyap]

On Friday, Christopher McGinley, the superintendent of Lower Merion, sent another letter to district parents, acknowledging that the district had turned on laptop cameras 42 times thus far in the 2009-2010 school year. As he had earlier in the week, McGinley again said that the webcams were activated only as part of an effort to locate stolen or missing machines. Just 18 of the missing MacBooks were recovered or found after the cameras were turned on.
McGinley also said that only two members of the district's technology department have access to the theft-recovering feature, and expressly denied that the assistant principal who confronted Robbins was allowed to trigger the camera activation.
The district has hired the Philadelphia law firm Ballard Spahr LLP to represent it in the lawsuit, according to court documents. Henry Hockeimer, a partner with Ballard Spahr, will also help the district conduct a review of district policies and suggest improvements, said McGinley in his Friday letter to parents.
McGinley has admitted that students and parents were not told of the computer tracking feature or its remote camera activation capability. "There was no explicit notification that the laptop contained the security software," he said in his letter of Friday. "This notice should have been given and we regret that was not done."
In a Q&A section of the letter, McGinley said that students could mask the camera lens on their MacBooks if they wished. "There is no requirement that a student use the camera's standard webcam feature," he said. Some media reports have quoted high school students in the district as saying they had taken to slapping Post-It notes over the camera lens.
Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is [email protected].
Read more about privacy in Computerworld's Privacy Knowledge Center.

 

[Zombie]

don't know this spying is true or not...

but i always cover the webcam with a piece of paper and secure with masking tape.... since i never use it..

 

[uncleyap]

don't know this spying is true or not...

but i always cover the webcam with a piece of paper and secure with masking tape.... since i never use it..

I had helped some users using that way. These days laptop buyers have limited choice in terms of features, when you want without cameras, then you may not be able to have some other necessary features.

That is way laptops are rigid and desktops are more flexible as you are not forced to buy unwanted features in a rigid bundle altogether as one single laptop. You can freely choose a desktop's base and then add only hardware that you need and pick each piece of hardware 1 by 1.

Many features in most users laptops are not exactly what they want nor what they needed, but they had been forced to PAY FOR.

If you right-click on Macromedia Flash in browsers, there are security settings that asked you if you allow your cameras & microphones to be enabled. That gives you a idea how & why remote connections can SEE & HERE YOU weather you are aware or not.

However, turning that off does not secure yourself at all. It only meant that flash will then not enable cameras & microphone. Spyware & Trojans & Root-kits are not depending on flash at all. They can override ANY security settings.

 

[lionsoup]

What A FUCK! I bought cameras for them to spy myself?

 

[sodoMee]

interesting meh?