UK spy agency intercepted webcam images of millions of Yahoo users

Amp34

Amp34

Amp34

Caporegime
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Britain's surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the National Security Agency, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal.
GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 explicitly state that a surveillance program codenamed Optic Nerve collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and saved them to agency databases, regardless of whether individual users were an intelligence target or not.
In one six-month period in 2008 alone, the agency collected webcam imagery – including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications – from more than 1.8 million Yahoo user accounts globally.
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http://gu.com/p/3n57z

Just... Wow...

It's one thing to intercept metadata and text messages, a whole nother level to spy on webcams, even if it's actually in programs rather than directly from the computer.

Maybe now we will have a proper discussion about the extent of the surveillance in this country, like the US and Europe...

Hope none of you guys were doing anything naughty on Yahoo... ;)
 
Is it wrong that I'm no longer surprised? 'Normal' people around me still generally glaze over and think I'm a nerd because I use and recommend encryption for everything using open standards (PCs, tablets, phones etc), and use encrypted chat and call apps where possible. I know there's been a rather large backlash over the data collection debacle but Average Joe still doesn't seem to 'get it'.
 
Amp34 said:
http://gu.com/p/3n57z

Maybe now we will have a proper discussion about the extent of the surveillance in this country, like the US and Europe...
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Nope, not a chance. There's far too many vested interests that will prevent this happening.

And even with a small percentage that do care about such things, most average people will be conned / convinced that they were "only looking for terrorists" - which seems plausible.

Maybe if they found someone with a beard they put them under surveillance? :confused:
 
With any luck they'll have Angela Merkel doing a striptease and then we can blackmail Germany any time we like. Goodbye democracies of the world.
 
The document estimates that between 3% and 11% of the Yahoo webcam imagery harvested by GCHQ contains "undesirable nudity".
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I'd have guessed that figure as being more like 30% to 100% :p

What else are webcams used for again?
 
matt_fsr said:
Nope, not a chance. There's far too many vested interests that will prevent this happening.

And even with a small percentage that do care about such things, most average people will be conned / convinced that they were "only looking for terrorists" - which seems plausible.

Maybe if they found someone with a beard they put them under surveillance? :confused:
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Perhaps someone needs to acquire the actual images in question and release them (with searchable email addresses.). I'm sure when people realise just how much information they have, and how personal it is there will be a much bigger uproar. I'm sure many people would not be happy if they realise they really were captured by a third party when they were having a long distance thing with their other half!
 
This is happening with peoples' mobile phones NOW.

Only when it is revealed in the papers will people believe it. But as I said in an earlier thread, they are recording/photographing/videoing you through your phones all the time. That front-facing camera is not for 'your' convenience.

People will say lolsander and tin foil hat, but how much more evidence do we need on the back of this and Snowden's revelations?
 
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I have just come to accept that my every move is probably being logged somewhere, and if I took every possible precaution to prevent it from happening it would negatively impact my quality of life.

So I just choose to let them get on with it. At this point I'm resigned to it.
 
I wonder what would happen if you made a fake call to your friend and kept saying you were going to plant a bomb on oxford street next saturday at 13:00

Then actually walked down Oxford street with your phone

Do you think the police would be out watching you? You could then say you were chatting over a book you were writing about terrorists
 
I really don't see the big fuss about any of these stories tbh...

It's probably quite useful for GCHQ to have these capabilities... their whole remit is collecting signals intelligence, electronic intelligence etc... yet people are moaning when it turns out that is exactly what they do and that they're very capable at it. It doesn't affect the ordinary man in the street... unless you regularly communicate with someone who is a terror suspect, radical left winger, fachist, communist, animal rights nutter etc... in which case it's probably a good thing they do check...
 
dowie said:
I really don't see the big fuss about any of these stories tbh...

It's probably quite useful for GCHQ to have these capabilities... their whole remit is collecting signals intelligence, electronic intelligence etc... yet people are moaning when it turns out that is exactly what they do and that they're very capable at it. It doesn't affect the ordinary man in the street... unless you regularly communicate with someone who is a terror suspect, radical left winger, fachist, communist, animal rights nutter etc... in which case it's probably a good thing they do check...
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Again, I'll quote this from Snowden in a recent interview. It answers your point exactly, and anyone who says they have nothing to hide/it's just Intelligence's job:

"Even if you're not doing anything wrong you're being watched and recorded and the storage capabilities of these systems increases every year consistently by orders of magnitude, to the point where you don't have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody - even by a wrong [phone] call - and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinise every decision you've ever made, every friend you've ever discussed something with and attack you on that basis to derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer."
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And they would do that why? Seriously, what value would the UK government get from smearing me or painting me as a terrorist? If I were a powerful mogul or some such I might be concerned but I can't see them bothering with someone of my lowly rank in the world. Hell, I'm more worried about getting in trouble with my wife than with the governement and mysterious intelligence services.

I am amused that people love it when info is used to track terrorists in films but frak out when they might (and I stess, might) have had info recorded and logged.
 
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Digital age, can't understand why any one is surprised by this type of news any more..

Humans are voyeurs by nature, If people have the ability to do it they will and that includes Government's..
 
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