Beyond blackmail, it is probably close to the psychological equivalent of a stranger just suddenly appearing in your home watching you.
I think that every electronic camera and mic device should have a hard switch/button that physically disables both the camera and mic. Having to use tape or a cover does not keep you from being spied on; it only eliminates the visual spying. The attacker can still listen.
An up-to-date Nexus or iPhone is about the most secure thing you own.
This is all that I hate about stackoverflow.
What he's describing is something that also happened (with far greater, more rage-inducing frequency) on tech forums before SO existed.
What about recognizing keys, credit card details or important information in letters on the desk? Some simple image recognition for these, and a large dragnet-style attack with this seems quite lucrative from a minute or two of thought.
This was a little bit more.
What is the point of this comment? Even if you had some way to know (EDIT: which you (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12506075) point out is the case), why should it matter, especially since no-one else in this thread seems to have brought up gender?
In particular, he was calling attention to all the people that cover up their camera and proudly exclaim "Done! Safe at last", while oblivious to all the other hacks and malware that could already be infecting their computer.
More importantly, there's the fact that the level of access required to take over a webcam implies the ability to do all sorts of other things.
What I took away was that if his system was compromised, an open webcam wouldn't likely be the chosen vector for ruining his life.
As someone who was profiled and eventually experienced an attempted-blackmailed by a company in India (employer details gained among other things) - everything seems inconsequential ("I've done nothing wrong"), until it is used, abused (and lies added to) to threaten you.
It doesn't matter whether things are true or not. What matters is, when someone gains details about you, the story and lies they can spin. The cost, distress, and difficulty in trying to resolve and take control of the story can be incredible.
Your personal details should remain just that.
Don't be complacent.
Is this a well-known thing? I haven't heard of it before. Is there some sort of common pattern that such attacks follow? (E.g. most phishing attacks seem to be categorizable, following a number of set patterns, because the people who do them basically try to run the same attack against a lot of people at once to get one or two victims. Is this similar, or is it a matter of individual targeting?)
A hypothetical, ruthless hacker manages to install malware on a person's computer. Hell they could target certain zip codes. All the information is on the Internet. Hell, they could get a picture of your home. (By the way, Google will blure out you home, if you ask. It tends to reappear, although they claim its permanent. If your house has been sold recently, a thief/criminal has easy access to interior layout through Zillow, and the like.)
They watch you through your cams. A lot can be deduced with that information--valuable information that could be sold.
Maybe I've watched too many movies, or crime shows, but I just picture certain questions being asked, "Does the home look like its worth robbing?" "Are there hostages we could take?" "What times do they leave, we need to install our cams because they might find our malware?" "Do they have a safe, or do they seem like they have money/valuables in the house, bedroom?" "Are they doing anything illegial themselfs?" They could develop psychological profiles for people?
I hate to think like this, but certain people think nothing of doing some horrid crimes. A hacker overseas gains some valuable information, and makes a phone call to the Triads, or Russian mob? Your life becomes a statistic.
It sounds far fetched, but just what if? (And am I going to cover my cams? No, because I don't have a life, and I'm poor.)
the only real solution to this is good insurance and good luck.
Wholesale information theft is another level. Someone in a different state or country has access not only to me, but potentially hundreds of people's details, without ever leaving their home. And then they can leverage a whole community that is doing the same. This is how "The Fappening" occurred. This sort of crowdsourced stalking would be impossible pre-internet.
Obviously there are other reasons to worry about webcam access, but "they could spy on me to set up a robbery" is exceedingly low on my list since it just recreates a pattern that doesn't involve a computer.
For the slightly more technical, you've got frameworks like metasploit which can perform network attacks, but even that is getting much more like a kit these days. Port scan for services, fingerprint them, check database for known vulnerabilities, automatically attempt to exploit known vulnerabilities, deploy payload (the trojan).
Once you've been convicted of something, or even arrested really, you have few legal options to support yourself.
I think a substantial share of those drug dealers who aren't working formal-economy jobs as well are also drug addicts that would not be able to keep such jobs particularly well even if they weren't drug dealers, and/or convicts that wouldn't be likely to be offered such jobs if they chose to pursue them.
How can one blackmail a person with webcam pictures where the person just stares into a screen?
If you mean NSFW pics I don't think they're done with a computer's webcam cam. Nowadays, people use phones for that use case.
There was a case about 5-6 years ago when a guy recorded and streamed his secretly gay roomate having sex in the dorm. The gay roomate committed suicide later.
Work computers can be taken home or to business trips where things can happen in the hotel after the deal is struck.
Serious question: what happens when a deal is struck? They go out to drink? They go back to their hotels? They have sex with their coworkers?
> "because this particular thing does affect me personally, it doesn't matter. And because it doesn't matter to me it doesn't matter at all"
Blackmailing people with pictures taken from webcams is not theoretical. It happens[0] and it's good advice to tape up your cam. It may not affect you personally, but it may affect your wife, daughter, or sister in a much more sinister way. Believe it or not this kind of thing can ruin someone's life.
[0] http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240209018/US-teen-hacker...