NSA Spy Cam Blocker

100 points by humbyvaldes 11 years ago | 64 comments

justaman 11 years ago |

A better idea would have been a "Rand-aid". A sticker in the shape of a band-aid that covers the webcam so you can still close your laptop.

Crito 11 years ago | |

You could even just use band-aids. The cotton section would protect the lens from the adhesive. You could probably even commission a run of them with some sort of branding printed on the back.

91bananas 11 years ago | |

I cannot upvote this enough times.

natch 11 years ago |

Stole the idea from the EFF, which sells it for a lot less money:

https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set

finnh 11 years ago | |

Not really apples-to-apples, though. The Rand Paul cover is a sliding bit of plastic, vs just an adhesive strip.

ceejayoz 11 years ago | | |

The Rand Paul cover is a campaign contribution.

edit: Not sure why this is getting downvoted. The price difference is unlikely to have much to do with the physical costs involved. Political campaign stores typically have inflated prices as they're fundraising efforts.

gyoza 11 years ago | |

Considering the Rand version is not a sticker, they are not the same..

anExcitedBeast 11 years ago | |

Nope, this has been around for a while. It's not an original idea, but it isn't meant to be. He didn't "steal" it anymore than he stole campaign yard signs or promotional pens.

jonwachob91 11 years ago | |

Does your version help finance Rand Paul's next campaign? I didn't think so, so nope, they are different.

I'm obviously kidding around.

dataker 11 years ago |

If anyone is exploiting my system, microphone would be my top priority. Getting image doesn't really tell as much as listening to what, how and when you talk.

a3n 11 years ago | |

It establishes that you were there at a particular time. A jury or secret tribunal would probably believe a picture that they can see for themselves easier than an expert's voice print testimony.

s_q_b 11 years ago | |

You can also extrapolate a fairly decent image from the microphone, sort of like a make-shift SONAR.

usefulcat 11 years ago | | |

From multiple microphones, perhaps, but from a single microphone? Seems unlikely.

canvia 11 years ago | |

The mic would also record the sound of keystrokes.

uptown 11 years ago | |

Where is the microphone on a MBP?

seandougall 11 years ago | | |

Varies from model to model, but on my 15" Retina MBP, it's tucked in under the left speaker grille, near the Tab key. Pull up some software that shows you a live mic level (e.g. System Preferences -> Sound -> Input tab), and rub your finger gently over the grille, and you can usually tell roughly where it is by the spike in input volume.

If you're wondering about blocking it off, though, that's much harder than the camera. You'd basically have to open the laptop and unsolder the mic capsule -- or mount a little white noise generator right over the mic, but then you can't close your laptop. :-)

tombrossman 11 years ago |

The website is also using Google Analytics without disclosing this in their privacy policy, which violates Google Analytics' TOS[0] and is a pet peeve of mine. Hard to take the site too seriously but I like that privacy is a campaign issue, so it isn't all bad news.

"You must post a Privacy Policy and that Privacy Policy must provide notice of Your use of cookies that are used to collect data. You must disclose the use of Google Analytics, and how it collects and processes data."

[0]http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html

kapitalx 11 years ago |

A great way to both raise campaign financing and instill fear

peeters 11 years ago | |

I'm OK with a bit of fear mongering if it means that warrantless spying actually becomes an election issue. These tactics have been used to go to war and substantially reduce individual rights; at least this is a cause I can somewhat get behind.

kevinnk 11 years ago | | |

"I'm okay with the ends justifying the means when the ends are something I like."

13years 11 years ago | |

I think the fear came about from people being spied on, not from the campaign. And to not fear unchecked, non transparent power is to be a bit naive.

LordKano 11 years ago | | |

Unless, of course, one wishes to blame the fear on Snowden's disclosures as opposed to the activity described in said disclosures.

myth_buster 11 years ago |

The Nope [0] laptop cover (featured in kickstarter) uses magnets and prevents from scratching the camera lens.

[0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1893116150/nope-live-fr...

mhurron 11 years ago | |

Also looks like it would prevent the laptop from closing all the way.

ebbv 11 years ago |

Brought to you by the guy who:

- Used to claim the Civil Rights Act went too far before he started thinking maybe he wanted to be president.

- Says he will sell off a bunch of our national parks to the highest bidder.

- Invented his own bogus Ophthalmologist certificate and certified himself.

Come on HN, you're better than this.

Stefan-H 11 years ago |

I am a big fan of the Nope that had a kickstarted a little while ago. It is small and still allows your macbook to close: http://erlibird.com/go/nope

PaulHoule 11 years ago |

When I was in a grad school I remember a professor who bought an SGI machine without enough RAM so he couldn't do work with it but he left it plugged into the wall outlet and ethernet for 5 years or so and didn't even know the root password when it got hacked.

Those machines came with a camera that had a little door you could slide to cover it, so at least he had that protection.

Animats 11 years ago | |

Those machines came with a camera that had a little door you could slide to cover it, so at least he had that protection.

Yes. Here's one in the closed position.[1] That feature seems to have disappeared.

There was a time when people were bothered about phones where the switchhook didn't physically disconnect the microphone. All the Western Electric phones had a hard disconnect when the phones were hung up. Many digital office phones don't have that, and can be used for eavesdropping.

[1] http://www.tamayatech.com/ProductImages/S/SGI-0138737XXX.jpe...

tracker1 11 years ago |

I'm surprised some laptops don't have something similar built in.. though a small piece of electrical tape works as well.

_lce0 11 years ago | |

I'm not surprised at all, it's like these embedded battery on mobile phones .. so anyone cannot easily remove them

hansjorg 11 years ago | |

I've seen this built-in on an actual laptop. Can't quite remember, might have been an HP.

po1nter 11 years ago |

Nice idea but I wish more manufacturers had something like this built into their laptops. An old ASUS of mine came with a sliding piece of plastic that you could use to cover the webcam[1] when not in use.

[1]:http://imgur.com/90X6PHF

CHY872 11 years ago |

Would this not just stop you from closing your laptop lid? I have a piece of tape over my laptop's webcam and that doesn't impinge on much (and actually has a useful purpose since I've been able to avoid the dreaded video interview when applying for jobs).

dogma1138 11 years ago |

To be fair that piece of plastic will be a much more effective NSA blocker than Rand Paul ever will.

kefs 11 years ago |

Relevant GCHQ/NSA Program for looking at your webcam dick pics..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optic_Nerve_%28GCHQ%29

SG- 11 years ago | |

While I'm sure there are other projects at NSA and GCHQ that actually break into targets and records without user knowledge, the Optic Nerve project was meant to simply grab unencrypted video stream data from Yahoo Messenger from people willfully recording themselves while "tapping" parts of the Internet.

Yahoo only decided to provide the option to enable encryption sometime in 2014 after they found about it and it's pretty shameful on their part.

There's mention of MS too with Kinect but I'm not sure if it was sending out encrypted video or simply using weak encryption.

tek-cyb-org 11 years ago |

Believe it or not.... This is actually a GREAT business idea. Just him being a politician, and having access to that ultra targeted customer base. Not that this product is actually useful or anything.

halgir 11 years ago |

Printable cam blocker: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:195405

joshavant 11 years ago |

Without having looked at any wiring schematics for the iSight module... does anyone know if it's even possible to apply power to the iSight hardware module, without the LED becoming illuminated?

I would presume the LED is wired directly to the module's power. Then, it would be physically impossible to turn on the camera, without the LED becoming illuminated. (And, in my opinion, obviate much of the need for these silly stickers.)

It would also be an odd design for Apple to make the camera's LED indicator an independently controllable component.

s_q_b 11 years ago | |

Yes, you can activate the camera without activating the LED. The LED is not directly wired to the power supply.[0]

[0]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/18...

Edit in Reply: Not necessarily. It's probably still possible on modern Apple hardware, albeit with a lot of firmware hacking, according to the authors of the paper: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/117937/how-to-use-i...

kaolinite 11 years ago | | |

Well, not exactly. At one point you were able to, but the flaw has been fixed for over 5 years now. It affected cameras on some Macs sold between 2006 and 2009 I believe.

Here's the paper describing the flaw: https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2...

tokenizerrr 11 years ago | |

Weirdly(?) enough a lot of laptop cameras (and other devices) have their led wired/powered separately and controlled by a driver.

lechevalierd3on 11 years ago | |

I thought that a few years ago someone succeed to take picture with the LED off.

david_shaw 11 years ago | |

A brief Google search indicates that, yes, it can be circumvented.

weberc2 11 years ago |

I find that a sticky note works well, particularly in strip form. Much cheaper.

ary 11 years ago |

This is a testament to how helpless the average person is when it comes to using, much less understanding, modern computer technology. It is the equivalent of "duct tape and WD-40" to repair a broken down vehicle.

As a software developer I'm regularly ashamed by the inaccessibility of computer technology. The non-technical individual's inability to control what happens to them and around them in regards to electronics and software is rapidly outstripping their capacity to act in their own self interest.

It's kind of depressing.

elihu 11 years ago | |

I think the low-tech solution is the correct one in this case. If one wants to be sure their camera is not recording them they can a) audit the entire source code of their OS and relevant applications (including the complete chain of compilers that have ever been used to compile compilers for their device all the way back to the very first one), device firmware, and inspect the circuit layout of all integrated circuit devices in their computer to look for backdoors or b) they can put something in front of the lens.

I agree that this is a pretty regrettable state of affairs that we basically can't trust anything with a turing-complete processor in it somewhere.

ary 11 years ago | | |

For this specific case I'd argue that a switch which severs the power from both the camera and the mic simultaneously is the right solution. A physical sheath could also cover the camera for peace of mind. As others have pointed out the mic is probably the more dangerous of the two.

revelation 11 years ago | |

As a software developer, I know enough to realize that this is in fact the only solution for this particular problem.

Apple and others have decided they will happily save 1 millionth of a cent for a proper hardware solution and instead relegated camera LED indicator control to software. And obviously, it is impossible to prove that software will not activate the camera without also activating the LED.

vortico 11 years ago | |

True, duct tape would work, but you can never be 100% sure whether the device is being used without disconnecting the cables, which is difficult for some laptops and displays.