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A comment on Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact. Parent comment

Re:Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out ... by shagie on Thursday May 24, 2018 @11:20PM (#17150373)
Back in college, long ago... the Mac 660 AV was state of the art for personal computing. The computer lab I worked in had just updated all the old SEs to these over the summer - I was part of the group that set up and plugged in a few score computers. With the microphones.

Our manager was a bit concerned about if the microphones would get stolen as he looked out over the rows of computers with the microphones on top of each monitor.

I yelled "Computer, Shut down. Yes."

A good chunk of the computers had indeed shut down.

We decided to go back and remove all of the microphones from the computers. Theft was not as a large of a concern as a bored college student with a prankster attitude during finals and the riot that would have ensued.

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Re:Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out ... by vidarh on Friday May 25, 2018 @05:39AM (#17151927)
Our computer lab had a bunch of SGI Indy's, and it was first machines the CS department had with cams on them. It took less than a semester from they were installed until every student had learned that if the camera cover was not in place it was practically an invitation for someone to log in remotely and prank them while using the camera to observe from a safe distance. I like to think that it infused a healthy dose of concern for privacy and security in the student population..
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Re:Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out ... by exikyut on Friday May 25, 2018 @09:47AM (#17153630)
FIRMLY within the spirit of good prank hacks like what has just been commented: a small number of USB webcams' LEDs are user-controllable, such as the random old Logitech C300s I have floating around here. You want webcam-tools from SF.net (other versions will spout obscure errors), then you can do

  $ uvcdynctrl -s 'LED1 Mode' <0..3>
0 is off, 1 is on, 2 makes it flash (and you can even set the flash rate), and 3 is auto.

0, 1 and 2 apply regardless of whether an application has an active video stream coming out of the camera.

Shh. (Hi NSA)

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