Cross-posted to: https://sh.itjust.works/post/15859195

From other conversations that I’ve read through, people usually say “Yes, because it’s easy on Windows”, or “Yes, because they simply don’t trust the webcam”. But neither of these arguments are enough for me. The former I feel is irrelevent when one is talking about Linux, and the latter is just doing something for the sake of doing it which is not exactly a rational argument.

Specifically for Linux (although, I suppose this partially also depends on the distro, and, of course, vulnerabilites in whatever software that you might be using), how vulnerable is the device to having its webcam exploited? If you trust the software that you have running on your computer, and you utilize firewalls (application layer, network layer, etc.), you should be resistant to such types of exploits, no? A parallel question would also be: How vulnerable is a Linux device if you don’t take extra precautions like firewalls.

If this is the case, what makes Windows so much more vulnerable?

  • memfree
    5•9 months ago

    If you trust this source, it turns out that it is pretty easy to see your camera feed even if your camera is off: https://techxplore.com/news/2024-02-camera-hackers-spy-cameras-walls.html

    I read about it on lemmy, too. I guess I – or one of us – should have cross posted it here from its .world source: https://lemmy.world/post/12081766

    Edit to add excerpts:

    Results vary on how far away someone would have to be in order to eavesdrop on these different devices. For some, a peeping Tom would have to be less than 1 foot away; for others, they could be as far away as 16 feet.

    For consumers, Fu says a plastic lens cover might not be guaranteed to protect you—infrared signals can still get through them––but it is a good first step to battling this kind of cyberthreat.