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Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

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    #1

    Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

    “Internet of Things” security is hilariously broken and getting worse
    http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/how-to-search-the-internet-of-things-for-photos-of-sleeping-babies/2/
    Shodan search engine is only the latest reminder of why we need to fix IoT security.


    This is extremely important for everyone to know. This article talks about a website where anyone can view a random unsecured webcam from anywhere on the internet (apparently means non-password protected? someone else might be able to explain it better). This is a serious privacy concern, and I please implore everyone to share this article with friends and family, so we can swiftly bring it to the attention to lawmakers, and hopefully have this function on the website shut down.
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

    Wouldn't it be easier to secure your web cam? I think this is a personal responsibility and there is no need for government intervention.
    The Dragon sees infinity and those it touches are forced to feel the reality of it.
    I am his student and his partner. He is my guide and an ominous friend.

    Comment

      #3
      Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

      I generally put tape over the cam lens when not in use for this reason.

      Comment

        #4
        Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

        My lens is taped over, too.
        "Turn, and look in the mirror. What do you see?" Her own brown eyes stared back at her until she was nothing but a blur.

        "I see you. Red lipstick spread perfectly over your lush mouth, brown eyes that hold centuries upon centuries of secrets. A face made to entice even the most celibate of men and women alike. A red dress that sways and moves with your body, making you a temptation like no other."

        Comment

          #5
          Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

          Securing the webcam is all told the only real answer. Shutting down a site won't counter a webcam that opens an unsecured port. That said, I should look into this further because a standard residential router should shut down what's being described here without any effort whatsoever. Thus, either

          A. Something is happening that isn't being mentioned or
          B. A large number of people actively conspire to make themselves more vulnerable.

          Since most people don't enough about networking to pull off B without someone leading them by the nose...
          A is more likely.
          life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

          Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

          "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

          John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

          "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

          Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


          Comment

            #6
            Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

            It doesn't matter to me much if someone hacks my webcam. All they'll see is my desk. So it happens that my laptop is on my cooler. So the webcam is directed to the upper part of the desk.
            "Fair means that everybody gets what they need. And the only way to get that is to make it happen yourself."



            Since I adore cats, I might write something strange or unusual in my comment.Cats are awesome!!! ^_^

            Comment

              #7
              Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

              I've had my computer remote accessed twice now and my web cam turned on once in the past few months after having encountered someone who didn't like what I was saying on a facebook page (I think it was AlterNet). The person I think did it made a big deal of commenting on my comment that he had looked through my photos and that I, "although I was cute enough, I still looked like the kind of person who ... (bunch of unflattering stuff)." They also messaged me that I was effing stupid. Whatever ... Facebook warriors.

              I've heard that this should have been hard to do through my router, so I tried unplugging it for a while after each time. I am moving this next week though, so hopefully a whole new place should put a stop to this little passive stalker.

              But yeah, it taught me to tape up my webcam.

              Comment

                #8
                Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

                Originally posted by TxanGoddess View Post
                I've had my computer remote accessed twice now and my web cam turned on once in the past few months after having encountered someone who didn't like what I was saying on a facebook page (I think it was AlterNet). The person I think did it made a big deal of commenting on my comment that he had looked through my photos and that I, "although I was cute enough, I still looked like the kind of person who ... (bunch of unflattering stuff)." They also messaged me that I was effing stupid. Whatever ... Facebook warriors.

                I've heard that this should have been hard to do through my router, so I tried unplugging it for a while after each time. I am moving this next week though, so hopefully a whole new place should put a stop to this little passive stalker.

                But yeah, it taught me to tape up my webcam.
                Routers don't provide a perfect counter to everything. I brought them up because the exact weakness mentioned here is one that a router should stop cold unless

                a. The attacker is already on your home network or
                b. A program (by which I normally mean virus) is making calls outside your network and bringing friends home to play

                Most residential routers won't tolerate unsolicited contact without you specifically telling them to but there are programs that will make a call out to a pre-built server and suddenly someone else has control of your computer. Most of the illegitimate ones should be caught by a good virus scan. Granted if someone got access to your web cam via subverting your machine then they may also have subverted your router.

                I should say that I don't use web cams so it's possible that I'm missing something but normally routers stop unsolicited calls and you need to bypass them before randomly tinkering with network resources.
                life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

                Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

                "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

                John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

                "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

                Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


                Comment

                  #9
                  Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

                  Well I haven't made myself more vulnerable on purpose!

                  I don't know ... but I feel pretty good about the change of address helping things. I am sure that I could be more vigilant about anti virus, malware, spyware etc, but I run a couple of scans from trusted programs 1-2 x a month. So not hyper engaged, but I know I am more attentive to that than anyone else I know IRL with a home PC.

                  I think I just got the perfect combination of a weirdo with hacking skills and attracted their interest by not tolerating their mess. Lucky Me.

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

                    The cameras used in this instance are not computer webcams; they're surveillance cameras that function through wifi. Apparently relatively easy to get into, the RSTSP is not as safe as one could wish. However, I've heard that there is little to no risk that the same thing can happen to your webcam (a PC which has a webcam does not use the same protocols as the aforementioned surveillance cameras). If anyone knows more about that..?

                    It's nice to see that someone is taking computer and internet security seriously, but I'm not sure about some of those criteria that IATC talks about.
                    Besides, I think it was around 70% of security fish-ups are human errors, not hardware or software deficiency. Internet and computer security starts with educating people about phishing and not randomly clicking "OK" on everything.
                    "The idea is to be whispering, and not to gain the attention from the flock, but to get attention from the individuals. That's why I relate it to whispering. It's not something you can put on a big scale; you can't get sheep to attend to it. You need to have people who can stand for themselves. It is important to have a lot of space for yourself to be able to grow strong branches, which can stand in the most extreme surroundings."

                    Gaahl

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

                      You might be surprised at the number of people who keep the default password on their routers/modems. If it is not personalized and and well implemented you are vulnerable to unwanted access. Choosing a safer OS can be as important as the password you use. Windows 10 is the biggest virus ever formulated as far as I am concerned. It is designed to track everything you do and report it to Microsoft who then sells it to merchants. I quit using Microsoft when ME was introduced. I haven't had any problems since I switched to Linux. I have my system set to never track or store history and the firewall that is included in the open source OS is pretty good.
                      The Dragon sees infinity and those it touches are forced to feel the reality of it.
                      I am his student and his partner. He is my guide and an ominous friend.

                      Comment

                        #12
                        Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

                        All the hacker is gonna see is some sexy God.

                        Check out my blog! The Daily Satanist

                        Comment

                          #13
                          Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

                          Originally posted by DragonsFriend View Post
                          You might be surprised at the number of people who keep the default password on their routers/modems. If it is not personalized and and well implemented you are vulnerable to unwanted access. Choosing a safer OS can be as important as the password you use. Windows 10 is the biggest virus ever formulated as far as I am concerned. It is designed to track everything you do and report it to Microsoft who then sells it to merchants. I quit using Microsoft when ME was introduced. I haven't had any problems since I switched to Linux. I have my system set to never track or store history and the firewall that is included in the open source OS is pretty good.
                          Sure routers are frequently vulnerable due to humans sucking at security....

                          If the hacker is close enough to pick up the router's wi-fi signal. That requires a degree of physical proximity. If you aren't close enough to pick up the router's wifi and its owner hasn't deliberately set it to allow web access then you need to infiltrate past the router's standard firewall which drops unsolicited connections and then you need to use the machine you've infected to access and modify the router. If I try to access *picks name out of hat* Corbin's router remotely then odds are good that it ignore me. Can I bypass it, sure, if Corbin downloads the wrong item that I control then it will invite me right past the router but otherwise I need to get a lot closer to his router than I am now or skip the idea.
                          life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

                          Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

                          "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

                          John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

                          "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

                          Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


                          Comment

                            #14
                            Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

                            Some websites can try to access your webcam too. I know the internet browser I use, Opera, has a security setting to block websites from accessing my webcam without my permission. I'm not sure if Internet Explorer, Firefox, or other browsers have this setting but they probably do and it's worth checking your settings.

                            Comment

                              #15
                              Re: Random People Can Look Through Your Webcam

                              Originally posted by pillar View Post
                              Some websites can try to access your webcam too. I know the internet browser I use, Opera, has a security setting to block websites from accessing my webcam without my permission. I'm not sure if Internet Explorer, Firefox, or other browsers have this setting but they probably do and it's worth checking your settings.
                              I'd forgotten about this trick, thanks for bringing it up. Another issue attached to web surfing now that you've reminded me is
                              6 Ways to Defend Against Drive-by Downloads
                              http://www.cio.com/article/2448967/security0/6-ways-to-defend-against-drive-by-downloads.html
                              Cybercriminals are increasingly using drive-by downloads to distribute malware without end users knowing something bad has just landed on their machine--until it's too late. Here are six ways IT departments can protect end users from the productivity sink and potential data loss that drive-by downloads create.


                              Granted the link is a little old and it focuses on enterprise users but it's a migraine you can run into and one way to get access and control of a system.
                              life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

                              Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

                              "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

                              John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

                              "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

                              Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


                              Comment

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