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Comment by eatitraw | Hacker News Reader

It may be rooted in reality. Not that they can turn on microphone on any phone, but that they were able to hack someone's phone to download firmware, for example.

BTW, there are recent news about FBI secretly activating webcams: https://twitter.com/tinyrevolution/status/409311691088723968...

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Every webcam should have a hardware light that indicates when it is on, as the ones built into Apple laptops do. The light cannot be disabled through software, it's just wired into the power connection to the camera and always comes on when the camera is turned on.

Some don't have a light at all, and as you suggest, some are controlled entirely in software (like the LEDs on the Kinect, for example). How would one go about convincing manufacturers to include mandatory activity indicators in all consumer webcams? Is there a reason why that would be a bad thing?

1) Legislation. 2) No.

1) Legislation.

Legislation is written and enforced by the government, and they're the ones we're trying to stop. I doubt you'll see this approach work.

Somehow the existing wiretapping laws made it into the books.

That's what makes cell phones creepy too.

If you pause and think about it, cell phones don't have in-series recording lights on either front or rear or side or underside cameras.

Few people think "cell phone out" = "camera on" unless somebody is holding the phone "as a camera." It's easy to hack how you hold a phone to get around that.

The argument for switching to a soft-phone only on a laptop looks even stronger now compared to the liability of tracking and interception of cell phones. Convenience is the gotcha.

Rather than a light, every camera should have a lens cover. Some opaque object easy to slide in and out of place. A tiny piece of circular plastic would do. Along with the light which, as you mentioned, should be required to be hard-wired with the camera connection so that the camera cannot work without the light, perhaps the little sliding piece of plastic could work as an on/off switch.

Imagine if every laptop & phone (and now, television) had one of these?

Heck, right now I have countless electronic eyes staring at me ... television, laptop, phones that happen to be in the room. Can I be sure that nobody's watching me remotely? Hell no.

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