NSA & GCHQ using webcams and Xbone camera to spy into homes

[Canadish]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo

A lot of information, so I'm not going to repost it into this thread. There is quite it bit there, so make sure you've got some time for a proper read of all the information.

It seems that a lot of our privacy concerns for the Xbox One were well founded sadly and the information being gathered is already extensive. I really don't have words to describe disgust I feel for the abuse of their position.

I know most of the guys probably don't care much about themselves, but a lot of the imagery was sexual in nature from what we know, so some of the ladies here might want to be careful about where they leave their webcam, it seems hackers aren't the biggest concern.

Anyway, just throwing it up for discussion until the Escapist gets a hold of it and details are hammered out. They did say Politics are on-subject around here now right?

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Well, guess it sucks to be yahoo even more now doesn't it? I wonder if they can sue the British government over this, because it's sure to lose them a lot of users.

 

[Esotera]

I find it more worrying that they have programmes to crush political dissent
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/ in hacktivist groups...sure, some of the politically motivated things Anonymous does such as DDOSing are technically illegal, but that doesn't warrant a spy agency attacking them. Also it's very worrying that most of the mainstream media aren't really reporting this so it's hard to know how far these leaks have actually penetrated. It's safe to assume that pretty much everything we do is being recorded by NSA/GCHQ, so I can't say the webcam spying surprises me (although it outrages me).

Anyway, if anyone would like to learn more about the leaks I'd highly recommend checking out firstlook.org, it's a new site by Glenn Greenwald that is more or less dedicated to this sort of news.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I know most of the guys probably don't care much about themselves, but a lot of the imagery was sexual in nature from what we know, so some of the ladies here might want to be careful about where they leave their webcam, it seems hackers aren't the biggest concern.

Er, no...they are watching people using their webcams to send images of themselves. If you aren't sending to anyone, there's no issue.

There is a massive problem with snooping on people sexting, but they aren't voyeuristically watching people get dressed or something.

 

[Thaluikhain]

im older than most on this site at 40 years old and while alot of younger people dont bat an eyelid at things like a game console in their living room with a camera, or joke that they dont care that the government watches them wank. to me its creepy and not long ago it was unthinkable anyone would want a camera in their lounge room 24/7 as it was something you would see in a dystopian nightmare.

skip forward and we have these news releases and and all the paranoid ramblings on government surveillnace actually turn out to be on the ball.

Excepting that these agencies are only eavesdropping on stuff that's deliberately being sent. The people they are watching know that they are on camera, just not that the surveillance agencies are watching along with whoever they are sending the footage to.

This is very wrong, but not the same as turning every webcam, into a spy camera.

 

[CriticalMiss]

The bits relevant to consoles for those who don't want to read all of it:

While the documents do not detail efforts as widescale as those against Yahoo users, one presentation discusses with interest the potential and capabilities of the Xbox 360's Kinect camera, saying it generated "fairly normal webcam traffic" and was being evaluated as part of a wider program.

Documents previously revealed in the Guardian showed the NSA were exploring the video capabilities of game consoles for surveillance purposes.

Microsoft, the maker of Xbox, faced a privacy backlash last year when details emerged that the camera bundled with its new console, the Xbox One, would be always-on by default.

I'm not entirely suprised and I think that Microsoft are probably shitting themselves since this happened before the release of Titanfall and they don't want people to have an excuse to not buy an Xbone (as if they needed another).

I thought this part was great though:

Spoiler: Suprising revelation

Is it really suprising that people use webcams to do sexy things? I'm actually suprised it was only around 7%

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Apparently OP can't read news stories in full. The most it says about ANY version of the Kinect is that they were talking about using the 360's Kinect for data gathering. That's it. And I'm sure that most people don't even use a Kinect 1.0 anymore anyway. So ultimately, this confirms nothing in terms of the XOne.

 

[Esotera]

Apparently OP can't read news stories in full. The most it says about ANY version of the Kinect is that they were talking about using the 360's Kinect for data gathering. That's it. And I'm sure that most people don't even use a Kinect 1.0 anymore anyway. So ultimately, this confirms nothing in terms of the XOne.

It's a reasonable assumption given that all skype calls are recorded (along with other microsoft services), and that Microsoft made Kinect mandatory for the console. Also the leaked material pre-dates the Xbone release so any surveillance program for the Xbone probably wouldn't be setup back then.