Should I glue the camera on my laptop with duct tape?

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We will tell you how to protect your data and take care of your privacy. Do I need to cover the camera on my laptop or smartphone with duct tape? How useful will this method be for ordinary users, or is it the prerogative of famous people?

Big brother is watching you

Privacy in the modern world is quite tense. So much so that people are ready, armed with electrical tape, to glue all the inputs and outputs on the computer, so that personal information does not get to the intruders. "Big Brother is watching you" - a phrase from George Orwell's dystopia perfectly personifies the modern world. Hackers periodically steal users' personal data, photos, passwords, and so on.

Unsurprisingly, in a picture recently posted by Mark Zuckerberg, his laptop poses with a taped-up camera and microphone. You involuntarily wonder, maybe it really is worth taking care of your safety, covering your webcam and making passwords more difficult to come up with.

Hackers don't care about me

And you can't argue with that. Unless you are a major entrepreneur, politician, or celebrity, no one will purposefully follow you. But don't forget about viruses that anyone can pick up. And if such an infection gets on your computer, the hacker will gain access to it, and at the same time to the devices connected to the computer. I think very few people will be happy with such a prospect. Owners of Windows PCs on board are most at risk. They should get an antivirus and not download any rubbish like MediaGet, since viruses spread through 90% of such programs.

In this regard, Mac users are more fortunate, since there are fewer viruses, and it is more difficult to access the camera without the owner's knowledge.

Yes please I have nothing to hide

Believe me, a hacker is also not interested in looking at your bored face sticking into a monitor. But he can still harm. Remember at least the case in April 2016. Then the user "Dvacha", having access to several hundred computers, staged a whole online show. He openly trolled people, turned on gay porn, music in the browser, and lit up the VKontakte page. The main thing is that the identity of the pest has not been established. Or remember the story of an unlucky Briton who followed the sex life of his friends via webcams. However, he was quickly tracked down and put behind bars.

Why am I all this? Tracking cases are not isolated, so you shouldn't think of it as something distant that will never happen to you. In addition, in addition to hackers, special services are engaged in surveillance, Snowden spoke about this back in 2014. The NSA is quite capable of getting your smartphone to spy on you by turning on the camera and microphone. And you won't even know about it. But, as I wrote above, if you are an ordinary person, the special services are not interested in you. Bye.

Therefore, do not rush to wrap all the equipment in the house with electrical tape, elementary precautions are enough. But in the case of Zuckerberg and other eminent personalities, duct tape is a completely justified step. More precisely, one of the many steps to safety.

It's fashionable to be afraid

It's worth thinking about your safety, but everything should be within reason. Fear of surveillance, many companies began to cash in, releasing various curtains and films for cameras. They talk about surveillance on TV screens, in movies, TV shows. And here it is important not to lose your head, otherwise the next step will be a foil hat.

So how do you fight?

You can, of course, glue the camera and microphone, but if you are an ordinary person, you do not need electrical tape. Get yourself an antivirus, install only proven software and, of course, do not post all your ins and outs on social networks. Nowadays, various services can tell a lot more about you than a webcam. Therefore, it is worth thinking about privacy and a password more difficult than your birthday.