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How to tell if webcam is on or not? (Privacy issues)

post #1 of 7
3/26/07 at 9:59am
Thread Starter 
if i am to get a laptop with webcam, which i will most likely do, how does someone tell if its on or not.

see, i have never used a webcam in my life (maybe 4-5 years ago when yahoo/msn chatting was still popular) and that was a regular webcam i could just hide if i didn't want anybody to see it.

how does it work for laptops? is there any way to tell if its on or no? maybe there are some sort of "clips covers" on ebay that you pur over the webcam?

the reason why i am asking is because i am aware of many hacks out there that could easily manipulate the webcam from some other location.
just like remote assistance, when people take over somebody's comp to help out with the problems.
what if the hacker took control over the comp, and essentially the webcam?

p.s. please don't suggest me antiviruses/firewalls...i know about them, I am talking about extreme cases of skilled hackers
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post #2 of 7
3/26/07 at 11:42am
Umm, I don't think u should worry about it. First of all, the camera is off, and when u turn it on, u will see a light on it saying it's on and u will see urself on the screen.

If someone decides to "hack" into ur camera, what are they gonna get out of it besides seeing ur mug 24/7?

I think hackers have better things to do than hack into people's cameras. I mean at least if u were a woman, maybe u should worry about this. But I don't think this is gonna be a problem. Frankly I've never heard of such problem or people worrying about it, so u should concentrate on safekeeping ur identity online thru other ways.
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post #3 of 7
3/26/07 at 5:52pm
You can just tape a piece of electric tape on the webcam if it's going to bother you that much. Problem solved cost $25cents plus tax.

P.S. if yu actually decide to do this, use electric tape, literally.

The adhesive on electric tapes doesn't degrade and seep out onto the surface they are pasted on over time. Its not flammable either , not that would be a problem but also nice to know.
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post #4 of 7
3/26/07 at 7:05pm
You can also disable your webcam in the device manager, or simply not install the drivers.
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post #5 of 7
3/26/07 at 10:16pm
I have recently posted approximately the same question. I am looking to buy a notebook computer and thinking it would be convenient to have a built-in web cam and mic but I want to make sure that it has an activity LED next to the camera so that you can see if the camera is on. I went looking and it seems that most of the notebooks that have cameras also have a little LED right next to the lens. But it occurs to me that it might be better to buy a small clip-on webcam and plug it in when needed. Of course if your doing video calls every day then it probably makes more sense to have it built in rather than wearing out a USB connector. I go back and forth on that.

Maybe there are people so adept at cracking into remote computers that they can turn on the cameras and maybe they might also know what it takes to turn off the activity LED. But I've never heard of that. (but how would I?)

The black electrical tape sounds like a good idea if you really are concerned. I'm not, until I hear that this can be and is being done.
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post #6 of 7
3/27/07 at 11:01am
I find it peculiar that the settings for Adobe Flash brings up this dialog:
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post #7 of 7
3/27/07 at 9:52pm
my girlfriends laptop has an intergrated webcam and it has a cover on it that you slide off when you want to use it, and you can close it if you feel like it i would think a lot have some way of moving or closing them so they are not focused on you if your really worried about that.
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