Posted on 12/07/2013 12:48:49 PM PST by Jim Robinson
EX-OFFICIAL SAYS FBI CAN SECRETLY ACTIVATE AN INDIVIDUAL’S WEBCAM WITHOUT THE INDICATOR LIGHT TURNING ON
The FBI can secretly activate a computer’s webcam to spy on an individual without turning on the indicator light, a former official revealed to the Washington Post in an article published Friday.
According to the Washington Post’s account of what Marcus Thomas — former assistant director of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division in Quantico — said, “The FBI has been able to covertly activate a computer’s camera — without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording — for several years, and has used that technique mainly in terrorism cases or the most serious criminal investigations.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...
I turned 60 this year. I don’t yet feel ‘old’, but I’m all too aware of how out of step my world view, opinions, and considerations are with the current stream of American culture.
I suppose I’m sort of locked in to a lot of the ideas and ideals I was brought up with. I hate the rot and degradation of America that I see all around me. We’re losing something that will take a long period of suffering and an eventual sacrifice of great proportions to win back.
“When will the end begin?”
my dtr goes to strange sites..she got a scary FBI virus..it actually took her picture from the web cam....we had to take the lap top into a professional to get it fixed.....you better believe we have the webcam covered up....this really happened...
Are there Adobe ‘flash’ programs for Iphones?
If so, Adobe ‘flash’ settings can allow others to use the webcam.
Is a microphone an external device? Most laptops don’t have them, do they?
No ... because Apple banned Adobe Flash from the iOS. And that was a very wise move by Apple.
Get an iPhone. None of those programs are able to be installed on it.
Some people do run a program that strips away the protections that Apple has for the iPhone. Those are “jailbroken” - as they call it. One should never jailbreak their iPhone, because then all sorts of bad things can happen to it.
Ha! Wise indeed..
Flash is incredibly insecure. People have no idea of the privacy they give up to watch ‘free’ videos.
Everyone should check their flash settings but almost no one does.
http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html
Click the “settings manager” link on the left.
I believe the webcam is turned off by default but seems easy to turn on if someone wants to. Default settings allow lots of other skullduggery though.
For how long, though? I can't see Uncle Snooper just letting tens of millions of Americans walk around with their privacy fully intact. He's going to figure out a way to break into their phones.
Here’s the thing about that ... programs absolutely cannot be installed on an iPhone - but by only one route - which is the Apple App Store. All the apps are vetted by Apple first, or else they can’t get in the store. You can’t get a program on the iPhone unless it passes through that store.
If, by some quirk, some malicious code snuck in another program and got on the Apple App Store, within a short time of someone seeing problems and reporting it, Apple would yank it,
BUT FURTHERMORE, a person cannot get a program downloaded to their iPhone unless they sign onto their account by name and password - and you can make as strong a password as you want and keep changing it every week if you want.
If you don’t sign in with an account, you can’t get an app on the iPhone. No account sign-in means no app downloaded. So no one else can download a program on your iPhone because they don’t know your password. And then, as said above, all apps are vetted through the Apple App Store.
It’s a combination of software protection (by design of the iOS), plus the method you get apps (can only be from Apple), plus the practice of vetting all apps, plus the practice of not being able to even have an app on your iPhone in the first place, unless you enter the correct password.
And one more thing. If you think that something is wrong with the system that you’re running, it’s real easy to wipe the phone (and easy to back up your personal data) and load a fresh copy of the system, straight from Apple, itself.
The actual apps are NOT RESTORED from any backup that you have, but they are DIRECTLY REDOWNLOADED from the Apple App Store itself, They are all fresh and clean copies, directly from Apple.
Again, it’s a COMBINATION of PROCEDURE and SOFTWARE that blocks this from happening. The procedure is FORCED by Apple and by it’s design of how everything works.
Well, that’s all very nice and comforting, except for the fact that all of the biggest players in the high tech arena have been exposed as collaborators with Uncle Snooper. They’ve allowed the federal spy agencies open access to otherwise secure portals across the digital domain.
Someone with an iPhone may be very safe from hackers and malware, but gov’t snoops have unfettered access to their digital devices — with the full cooperation of those companies we’ve trusted for so long.
One can track data that is leaving an iOS device (that’s an iPhone, iPad or iPod). If that is happening - it will be seen by those who look at this stuff and look for problems. In all this time that the iOS devices have been around, I have never seen that reported,
NOW ... once again ... if data is going out of an iOS device it WILL BE SEEN by anyone who is examining such data. You can’t hide that. NO ONE has ever seen such data.
ALSO such data is going to have a “destination” that can be seen, too. There HAS TO BE an Internet address that the data is going to. You would find similar (and unknown) addresses across many different iOS devices.
Not only has NO ONE has ever seen such data going out - NO ONE has ever reported strange and unknown “addresses” that data was going to - from a series of different iOS devices.
If you have no data going out to a collection of unknown addresses — such things ARE NOT HAPPENING.
I can’t stress this enough that the data going out WILL BE SEEN. And secondly there WILL BE AN ADDRESS that it’s going to.
The iPhone and the other iOS devices DO NOT HAVE THIS HAPPENING.
Thanks for the lengthy explanation. I just have no confidence that the gov’t isn’t secretly (and invisibly) monitoring ALL handheld digital devices, including the iPhone.
Just keep in mind that the data itself cannot be invisible - while the shadowy figure collecting it may be “invisible”.
The DATA simply cannot be made to disappear “into the ether” to then magically appear somewhere else - and not be seen between here and there. It HAS TO pass from router to router. There’s no exception to that. You can’t hack your way out of that absolute law.
And then secondly - the data HAS TO HAVE A DESTINATION ADDRESS. You can’t hack your way out of that one either.
And, by the way, don’t get this mixed up with data that youy create yourself and send out on the Internet. In this thread we’re talking about something that you did not initiate - and it’s important to understand the difference.
Data you create yourself and send out onto the Internet are things like a phone call you make, a text message you send, an e-mail you send, a face-to-face video call you make, etc.
With all that, you INTENTIONALLY and with purpose SENT THAT DATA out onto the Internet. Once it’s “on the Internet” someone else can snag that data. That’s not a security risk or problem with the iOS device, because the data is being snagged apart from the iOS device and far away from it. THAT is definitely going on ... and that has been amply reported. That’s not a defect in the iOS device.
What we’re talking about here is someone getting right inside your iPhone and snagging the data from within the iPhone, itself, in a way that is in seen by the owner. That’s why I was making it clear that although you might not know exactly WHO is behind taking the data — you WILL SEE the data leaving and you WILL SEE a destination address (the same address across a number of different iOS devices).
I don't even have one. When I did, I did like you and only plugged it up when needed. Many devices have them built-in and in most you can disable them. Don't know if they can re-enable or not, but a piece of tape over the lens would stop them. Seems like they would get more "useful" data by hacking the files than they would by watching your face look at the screen.
Memo. Update Lunabar. “Full Diver’s Moon”.
Not so - the data could be transmitted to (and embedded within) the data-packets sync-ing to cell-towers, matched by user [IMEI number] at some telecom facility and then sent to the feds. In such a setup no "target address" [IP or otherwise] would be needed.
Sure you can: make the destination implicit (via protocol) or explicit on an out-of-band channel. — Taking all your mail [ingoing or outgoing], opening it copying/photographing the contents, resealing it and inserting it back into the normal postal flow doesn't require a third address... and that's basically what the NSA's PRISM (and data-centers) are supposed to do.
You are talking about data that has already left the iPhone and is in someone else’s hands — and that wasn’t what I was talking about. You’ll see I specifically mentioned this.
Quoting myself ...
Data you create yourself and send out onto the Internet are things like a phone call you make, a text message you send, an e-mail you send, a face-to-face video call you make, etc.
With all that, you INTENTIONALLY and with purpose SENT THAT DATA out onto the Internet. Once it’s “on the Internet” someone else can snag that data. That’s not a security risk or problem with the iOS device, because the data is being snagged apart from the iOS device and far away from it. THAT is definitely going on ... and that has been amply reported. That’s not a defect in the iOS device.
You are talking about data that has already left the iPhone and is in someone else’s hands — and that wasn’t what I was talking about. You’ll see I specifically mentioned this.
Quoting myself ...
Data you create yourself and send out onto the Internet are things like a phone call you make, a text message you send, an e-mail you send, a face-to-face video call you make, etc.
With all that, you INTENTIONALLY and with purpose SENT THAT DATA out onto the Internet. Once it’s “on the Internet” someone else can snag that data. That’s not a security risk or problem with the iOS device, because the data is being snagged apart from the iOS device and far away from it. THAT is definitely going on ... and that has been amply reported. That’s not a defect in the iOS device.
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