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Jokes on them, I have electrical tape on my camera lens. Something I learned from Facebook's CEO, ironically.
by anonytrary 8y ago
Jokes on them, I have electrical tape on my camera lens. Something I learned from Facebook's CEO, ironically.
- nixpulvis 8y agoI'd love to see people spending >$1,000 on a new iPhone "for the camera", only to cover it with electrical tape. This sounds like something out of Silicon Valley.
- paulryanrogers 8y agoIt is rather amazing that smartphone cameras are so feature packed, yet still lack a lens cover. Something as old as cameras themselves.
- nixpulvis 8y agoOld cameras didn't exactly fit in your pocket, and didn't have sapphire glass... Though I do think it would be nice to have a hardware (iris?) way to close off the camera. Some laptops have this, though I'm sad mine doesn't.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- walterbell 8y agoThey are available for phones and laptops, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B66VZ97/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B66VZ97/
- sky_rw 8y ago+1 these are awesome. I have them on all my devices.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y agoThat's pretty nice. I'll have to see if I can find some designed for ThinkPads and Samsung phones.
- erklik 8y agoShould work on all Laptops, not sure what's different about ThinkPads. Probably won't work on Samsung phones though.
- Finnucane 8y ago“Is that a Hasselblad in your pocket, or are just having a really bad day?”
- baddox 8y agoYes, it would be absurd for any one person to do both of those things, but I highly doubt that has occurred.
- paulcole 8y agoBut then can’t they just tell it’s you by the tape on the lens?
- bitL 8y agoThat can be potentially even easier; if you have a few specks of dust on the camera and your tape leaks a bit of light, they would have a perfect pattern to detect your lens - the specks aren't moving and there will be only speck effects recognizable on any video frame they capture when they max out contrast.
- baddox 8y agoFacebook is using images that people uploaded, and I doubt parent commenter is taking and uploading many pictures with tape over the lens.
- cherrygarcia 8y agoSame, but I like gaff tape because it peels off easy and re-sticks well without leaving a gummy residue
- peteretep 8y agoI use my laptop camera every day. I have a neat little plastic thing that can be easily slid back and forth and I am happy with
- analog31 8y agoThe image that's gathered when the camera is completely in the dark, is a unique fingerprint of the camera chip. This is something called "fixed pattern noise."
- Laforet 8y agoIn that case just put on a few more layers. Shot noise is fairly random.
- analog31 8y agoTrue. But if you share enough images from the same chip, eventually the fixed pattern noise can be computed to a decent enough accuracy to use it as a fingerprint. Now, you could measure the fixed pattern noise and subtract it from subsequent images. This is a widespread practice in scientific imaging. I'm not devious enough to think of how this could be defeated by someone who really wants to use your camera chip as a fingerprint, but it might be enough to defeat an amateur.
- angry_octet 8y agoDark-Signal Non Uniformity (DSNU): https://harvestimaging.com/blog/?p=814 https://harvestimaging.com/blog/?p=814 So likely to provide a few bits of entropy.
- angry_octet 8y agoYou learn some great things on HN! 2006: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3455253_Digital_Camera_Identification_From_Sensor_Pattern_Noise https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3455253_Digital_Cam... Notes (by El Gamal of FPGA fame, not cryptography fame): http://isl.stanford.edu/~abbas/ee392b/lect07.pdf http://isl.stanford.edu/~abbas/ee392b/lect07.pdf Forensics: https://www.mobiledit.com/camera-ballistics https://www.mobiledit.com/camera-ballistics Anti-forensics (counter-measures/imitation): https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.07795v1 https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.07795v1 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305181626_Removing_camera_fingerprint_to_disguise_photograph_source https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305181626_Removing_...
- justinph 8y agoThese make a pretty good cover _and_ support the EFF: https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set
- skizm 8y agoFYI: If you cover it with scotch tape some light gets through and the phone/laptop can still use the auto-brighten feature.