Another subject that caught my attention within my module was ethics and technology. Although the tools and services of media can be great and make our lives easier they can also be extremely dangerous, but you don’t need me to tell you that. Every one of us has had a great experiences with cyberspace and most of us have had a bad experience with it. I’m sure at some point in your life there was a time where you wish it had never existed.
When it comes to thinking like this for me it’s the thought of someone hacking into my webcam. I’m not a paranoid person at all but when I see an increase in online articles and news forums dealing with this issue it scares the hell out of me. When there’s people out there like Julian Assange and cases like the Leverson Inquiry that are capable of hacking into huge organizations and companies, what’s to stop a good hacker from spying on little old me?
When I typed ”how to hack into a webcam” in youtube 113,000 results came up. Endless videos on step by step guides and tutorials on how to hack into webcams and iphone camera’s and maybe 1 in 113,00 of those videos could actually work. I read an article by Kim Boatman which featured on the well known Norton Security and Anti-Virus webite. Her article expained the risks of webcams, actual incidents that had happened and ways to prevent hackers from accessing your camera such as not clicking on suspicious attachments, using firewall and anti-virus software and to look for you indicator light. An incident she had mentioned was one of Steven Fox an It security expert.
Here is what it said, ”Steven Fox, an IT security expert, was chatting with friends on his webcam one night when he started receiving some strange emails. Imagine his surprise when he opened one and found images of himself chatting. His webcam had been hacked by a “script kiddie,” a person who uses malware written by someone else to show off their skills at accessing other computer systems, says Fox. He quickly detached the webcam, but he had to re-install his operating system after he found malware installed on his computer. “It was painful, but it was a learning experience,” says Fox, who writes a column for the journal of the Information Systems Security Association.”
Boatmas article: http://us.norton.com/yoursecurityresource/detail.jsp?aid=webcam_hacking
There have been other cases like Stevens but differ in the outcome where some are not as lucky in some cases hackers used the information from their spying to extort their victims. To prevent this I personally think the best way of guaranteed privacy and security is to just cover your lens. To some it may seem like a an extreme measure but with online media there is no such thing as too careful. So get out that little piece of blue-tac and get covering!
(credit for photo: http://chmuzamil.blogspot.ie/ )
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