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Comment by hvs | Hacker News Reader

Looks like they have guides for multiple operating systems:

http://www.nsa.gov/ia/guidance/security_configuration_guides...

I love the level of paranoia. The transparent message of these documents is that its possible for The Enemy to exploit everything on your system. "Disable your laptop camera. Disable your computer's audio input."

For the NSA and other top secret uses this makes good sense.

I have duct tape on my Macbook Pro's webcam ever for the last 3 years or so ..

Why not indeed: after hearing that the FBI could remotely activate microphones on mobile phones when no call was even active, of the story of that school that used webcams in Macs to spy on students at home with a special system that disabled the activity light, and knowing the ability for malware to do any of that: Why do I have this camera facing me all day, when I use it three hours a week?

There is no way to disable the activity light on a Mac's integrated camera.

In the case of that high school spying incident, the BOFH responsible had handwaved away the random LED flashes as a bug.

I see, I could be wrong about the particulars of that case. I could see how someone might not notice or be concerned about the light flashing every now and then, too.

If the school wanted to disable it though, it wouldn't be impossible for them since they had access to the hardware. A thin dot of black paint might do the trick, especially if they peeled back the glass a bit, which is a pain, but quite do-able. Certainly something people in the NSA would be wary of... it's a shame that high school students should have to worry about that, too.

and now there's one on our phones!!!

If people want something that won't discolor the plastic or leave residue, use the sticky portion of a yellow sticky note to cover the camera. I've been using the same piece of little sticky for 2 years or so.

On Macs it has the added bonus of still letting you see when the camera light comes on.

Some laptops actually come with small shutters you can slide in front of the cam. I have one such shutter on an Eee PC

Not even just disable, they recommend physically removing it.

DoD had a removable device scare a while back (someone intruduced a windows virus into an internal network via one), and for a while there they were going around and filling external USB ports with epoxy. Eventually they "relaxed" their position on that.

They also have a very useful guide focused on network infrastructure hardening. It's intended for Cisco IOS switches, but many of the principles can be adopted to other platforms:

http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/switches/switch-guide-version1_...

There's also the DoD's Security Technical Implementation Guides:

http://iase.disa.mil/stigs/stig/index.html

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