Revisiting webcam covers

Random story just for fun. Years back I was at a tech meetup, and left my laptop sitting on a lunchroom table, and wandered off to chat. Now my laptop then looked a bit odd, with three extra cameras, on folding sticks gaff taped to the lid. Two fisheyes perched on the corners, and a keyboard cam hanging out on a wooden-ruler arm.[1] For head, eye, hand and stylus tracking - the ThinkPad's quadro would run hot just driving the HIDs, even before starting the desktop UI, let alone any apps. Now while I was gone, a host had gone around the tables, and left a gift. Sitting on/beside the laptop, under the assorted extra cameras on sticks, was a small piece of logo-ed swag... a little webcam sliding-cover thin plastic stick-on. There was laughter.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERqCfdkX0AEWTN_?format=jpg&name=...

I use a small tab of yellow sticky note. I use it not due to attacks but rather for the many dumb teleconferencing apps I have to use at work.

Some automatically send video, some don’t. I try to configure them not to start video by default but for whatever reason, one of them always does.

I use my phone as my webcam. So to stream video I have to put it onto the clip on my monitor and plug in a cable. That doesn’t happen by accident.

I recognize that this is more awkward than most people want. But the built in cameras (and third party too) are so terrible that it’s worth it to me.

as the author mentioned, probably the bigger nuisance is not hackers getting access to your camera, but legit apps using it when you expect the least

I just assume my laptops are all compromised, because if they are managed or have any commercial software on them, they are. Put another way, if you think your machine is secure, can you afford to be wrong? The reason I have used a lens cover as long as there have been cams (back to the SGI days) is because, to borrow a phrase, corporate IT people are not gentlemen.

Is anyone really going to try find a novel rootkit on their daily driver windows thinkpad or airbook, when you could more easily set up a honeynet if you were hunting that threat. Without a honeypot, pulling apart your workstation means you are your own control group, and you just start losing your mind. To me that seems like spending a day to source and replace a UART in a cheap pair of headphones instead of replacing them. If I still ran linux or a bsd I would pay more attention, but running a commercial OS is already being at such a disadvantage that the effort doesn't justify the results. Instead, there is a room or a box that electronics go in when they aren't being used.

Software security controls are a speedbump for the threat actors most of us deal with. If they want to get you, they will. Cam covers and physical controls are the best possible controls because they do what they are. The same cannot be said for software.

I use a camera cover for my work computers since I don't have full control over the devices. It has saved me from default broadcasts in conferencing software several times.

Added benefit of webcam covers: if your office has mandatory cameras on, you can always turn on the video feed with the camera covered and just pretend you don't know why it isn't working.

Note for people who want to put a third party slidable webcam covers: make sure that the tolerances of your Laptop or other device will allow you to put the webcam cover without damaging your screen or other components. Instead as directed above use a Post it note. Another strategy would be to compartmentalize your activities using separate computers but this is a much higher cost (get a separate laptop for home use).

Yay, I use a point and shoot (Sony ZV-1) as Webcam. Not only it provides a stellar picture but i need to actually turn it on to do so. Win/Win.

There's something to be said for the more recent thinkpads that have physical sliders built into the laptop.

My laptop camera is permanently covered with black electrical tape, but if it was uncovered there would really not be much to see except my bleary eyeballs and my pandemic-necessitated mad-scientist-looking self-inflicted haircut.

I worry much more about the microphone, not just in my laptop, but in my phone, and in who knows what other devices that have the insidious things hidden away. I wish there was a way to block microphones with tape to kill any audio pickup when not wanted. It's harder to manage than cameras, making camera covers something like privacy theater if the microphones are going to be left unblocked.

Yeah I know about the Pinephone with its microphone kill switch, but that switch is apparently quite a pain to operate. If I get a Pinephone I'm likely to leave the mic permanently shut off, and simply use an external or bluetooth mic if I want to make a voice call.

I like the anime girl that's included on every page. He explains Rubi the mascot here: https://rubenerd.com/about/#mascot

I’d be way more worried about someone putting a keylogger on my laptop versus them taking control of the webcam.

It’s also a good idea to disable the camera/mic in BIOS if you never use them.

I cringe when I see a sliding cover stuck on over a web cam, and you can see stress cracks on the laptop screen