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You are here: Home / I Always Feel Like

I Always Feel Like

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Somebody’s watching me:

Britain’s surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the US 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.

Yahoo reacted furiously to the webcam interception when approached by the Guardian. The company denied any prior knowledge of the program, accusing the agencies of “a whole new level of violation of our users’ privacy”.

This story is for everyone who has laughed at me the last decade or so because I always cover the camera on my laptops with tape.

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  1. 1.

    Lee

    This story is for everyone who has laughed at me the last decade or so because I always cover the camera on my laptops with tape.

    I’m glad you qualified that statement because there are so many reasons to laugh :)

    /internet hug

  2. 2.

    Calouste

    We can still laugh at you because it looks like GHCQ was only collecting images when the users were actively using their webcams.

  3. 3.

    brettvk

    “I always cover the camera on my laptops with tape.”
    Me too. I found electrical tape worked best.

  4. 4.

    Big R

    You know what this story doesn’t say? That GCHQ had the capability to turn on your webcam remotely and without the telltale light showing. So…why exactly were you covering your computer camera with tape?

    ETA: Dammit Calouste! One bloody minute too late.

  5. 5.

    brettvk

    @Calouste: Well, I went for the electrical tape when I read somewhere about a program that could turn on your webcam remotely. Not that I’m important or even photogenic — I don’t want to have to dress up to surf.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    FWIW, this is what the article says about the NSA’s involvement.

    Optic Nerve was based on collecting information from GCHQ’s huge network of internet cable taps, which was then processed and fed into systems provided by the NSA. Webcam information was fed into NSA’s XKeyscore search tool, and NSA research was used to build the tool which identified Yahoo’s webcam traffic.
    …
    Unlike the NSA, GCHQ is not required by UK law to “minimize”, or remove, domestic citizens’ information from its databases.
    …
    It is not fully clear from the documents how much access the NSA has to the Yahoo webcam trove itself, though all of the policy documents were available to NSA analysts through their routine information-sharing.

    This is just funny:

    Sexually explicit webcam material proved to be a particular problem for GCHQ, as one document delicately put it: “Unfortunately … it would appear that a surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person.

  7. 7.

    Lavocat

    Same here, dude.

    Whatever the Kinks may think, paranoia will NOT destroy ya.

    It just might save yer ass.

  8. 8.

    David in NY

    GHCQ was only collecting images when the users were actively using their webcams.

    Apparently true, but not essential. Remember the public school that gave all the kids laptops and then spied on them with the camera? That could be happening too.

  9. 9.

    jl

    @Calouste:

    ” We can still laugh at you because it looks like GHCQ was only collecting images when the users were actively using their webcams. ”

    I thought Cole meant that he was playing kinky sexytime bondage games with his computer. He’s into weird computer gaming, right?

  10. 10.

    JGabriel

    The Guardian:

    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.

    I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: the best, the most just and torturous, punishment would be to make the people who collected these communications watch/read/listen to every single one of them for the rest of their lives.

  11. 11.

    Cervantes

    @Baud:

    Not really funny considering I can see what you’re wearing right now.

    Would you mind turning to your right a little?

  14. 14.

    RSR

    @David in NY: I just referenced that school case, but I think my comment went to moderation purgatory.

    It was Lower Merion School District, just outside Philadelphia.

    Between that and the judge taking bribes to send kids to prison camps, we’re not exactly sterling examples here in the Commonwealth.

  15. 15.

    Betty Cracker

    I’ve always covered my webcam lens with electrical tape too. I believe the FBI recently copped to the ability to spy on people via the webcam without the user activating it and without activating the indicator light?

    Anyone who monitored my activities would quickly perish of boredom, but still: I feel better having that little square piece of tape there.

  19. 19.

    Keith G

    Today, information is like the nukes of a previous era. No bureaucrat wants to say “No” to getting more… just in case.

  23. 23.

    kc

    @Big R:

    You know what this story doesn’t say? That GCHQ had the capability to turn on your webcam remotely and without the telltale light showing. So…why exactly were you covering your computer camera with tape?

    Because they could turn it on remotely?

  25. 25.

    Ben Franklin

    @Baud:

    If you turn far enough right, you’re left again, so avoid the move at all costs. Your surveillance-state protectors ask that you just remain quiet and still.

  26. 26.

    Cervantes

    @Belafon:

    I couldn’t find where the NSA was actually helping.

    No? Maybe here:

    Optic Nerve was based on collecting information from GCHQ’s huge network of internet cable taps, which was then processed and fed into systems provided by the NSA. Webcam information was fed into NSA’s XKeyscore search tool, and NSA research was used to build the tool which identified Yahoo’s webcam traffic.

  29. 29.

    cathyx

    Here is what most don’t seem to get. It’s not about you per se, but about the fact that they can turn on webcams and record anything on a computer owned by someone who they may want to control and discredit, like politicians, law enforcement, or journalists. If they can do it to us, they can do it to anyone.

  30. 30.

    Belafon

    @Cervantes: Yeah, but that doesn’t match the implication, to me at least, that the NSA was helping collect the data. The closest I could get was that they were using NSA supplied software to analyze the data.

  31. 31.

    jl

    Does this spying system work on a person too cheap to buy a new computer until the old one without a webcam totally falls apart? Or somebody so butt lazy and afraid of hassles they will go several clicks out of the way to avoid installing the device drivers to anything they don’t absolutely need?

    I’m asking for a friend.

  32. 32.

    Belafon

    All of this also makes me wonder just how much of our internet traffic is spying. Is it anywhere close to spam and Netflix?

  33. 33.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cervantes:

    So selling a software tool is exactly the same thing as gathering and using the information yourself?

    If I were British, I’d be extremely pissed off at my government right now, but I’m still not seeing any evidence that this was done in the US by the US government to US citizens.

  34. 34.

    catclub

    ” intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing”
    But how would they know until they had looked at the images to decide?

    Now, they can email those people and tell them ‘ur doing it rong’

  37. 37.

    pamelabrown53

    @Betty Cracker: Betty, my heartfelt condolences: love and light.

    I have masking tape over my camera aperture, since masking tape poses little damage. However, I have it triple rolled over the camera itself. Hope it’s enough? We carve out what little privacy we can in this “Brave New (Technological) World” and I only want to be spied upon if I’m ready for my “Glamor Shot”!

  39. 39.

    Xantar

    They definitely have the capability to knock down my door and shoot me dead where I sit. They are definitely going to do it.

    I could be dead by the time I finish writing this comment.

    Any minute now.

  41. 41.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cervantes:

    So if I use Microsoft Access to maintain a database of customers who buy drugs from me, the cops can arrest Microsoft for aiding and abetting my crimes by selling me the software I used to commit them?

    (Note to the NSA: this is a hypothetical situation.)

  42. 42.

    jl

    @Mnemosyne: I’m sure they’d rush ahead and seize the microsoft assets asap, just like they do some hapless landlord who unknowingly has some pothead tenants growing some plants. All are equal under the law, right?

  43. 43.

    ericblair

    @jl:

    I’m sure they’d rush ahead and seize the microsoft assets asap, just like they do some hapless landlord who unknowingly has some pothead tenants growing some plants. All are equal under the law, right?

    That would be a nice quick way to get asset forfeiture laws unpassed.

  46. 46.

    NonyNony

    @Baud:

    Sexually explicit webcam material proved to be a particular problem for GCHQ, as one document delicately put it: “Unfortunately … it would appear that a surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person.

    So … what you’re telling me is that if you indiscriminately collect webcam info from random people on the internet, you’re going to get a lot of dick shots? I’m utterly unsurprised.

    Next thing you’re going to tell me is that the feeds collected from the possibly mythical “turn on the webcam without you knowing it” feed are thousands of hours of people masturbating to internet porn.

    I can believe that governments do this kind of shit, but honestly – it’s so damn stupid. I’m much more concerned about the ability to target people like activists and politicians than I am this blanket data mining stupidity that seems to be all of the rage lately.

  47. 47.

    Cervantes

    @Mnemosyne:

    So if I use Microsoft Access to maintain a database of customers who buy drugs from me, the cops can arrest Microsoft for aiding and abetting my crimes by selling me the software I used to commit them? (Note to the NSA: this is a hypothetical situation.)

    It’s conceivable that you’re referring to something real here — but I have no idea what.

  48. 48.

    Cervantes

    @Mnemosyne:

    So selling a software tool is exactly the same thing as gathering and using the information yourself?

    Someone said that?

    And it has some connection to the Guardian article?

  51. 51.

    Bill Arnold

    @Baud:
    There is apparently some concern that some of the material gathered is technically child porn. Strict laws in the UK.

  52. 52.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cervantes:

    Good, so you agree with me that, while Britons have a perfect right to be pissed off at this story, it really has nothing to do with the NSA except as the seller of the software that GCHQ used to spy on British citizens. I’m glad that’s cleared up.

    @cathyx:

    If the NSA has the software, don’t you think they’ve been using it on us?

    Not really, no. As people point out every single time the actions of the GCHQ comes up, the laws in Great Britain are very different than the laws in the US. Right now, it’s perfectly legal for GCHQ to be spying on British citizens in Britain like that.

    However, it is NOT legal to do that in the US. So we’re supposed to take evidence of creepy-but-legal spying in Great Britain as proof positive that illegal spying is going on here?

  54. 54.

    Cervantes

    @Mnemosyne:

    Good, so you agree with me that, while Britons have a perfect right to be pissed off at this story, it really has nothing to do with the NSA except as the seller of the software that GCHQ used to spy on British citizens. I’m glad that’s cleared up.

    No, I’m not saying any of that, either. You are.

  55. 55.

    Tone in DC

    @RSR:

    As I recall, there were two judges on the take.

    Anyway, at least you don’t have Cooch/Torquemada, Bob McDonnell and Mrs. McDonnell in your commonwealth.

  56. 56.

    ruemara

    This has also been happening with hackers breaking into the webcams of laptops and surreptitiously filming women and saving the footage to trade with each other.

  57. 57.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cervantes:

    No, I’m not saying any of that, either. You are.

    Then what are you saying? In clear language.

    @cathyx:

    I’m not the one saying that legal behavior by an agency in one country is proof positive of illegal behavior by a similar agency in another country. You are.

    I don’t think the behavior should be legal in Great Britain but, right now, it is. If the people of Great Britain want to change that, they need to have a word with their government, but I’m not a British citizen, so I don’t get to tell them what to do.

  58. 58.

    NotMax

    No cameras on any of my machinery, but if there were would paint over the lens with several layers of nail polish or something similar.

    Have always had a deep detestation for cameras.

    Other than being in a group shot at a step-sibling’s wedding (half-hidden, in the back), the last photograph I know of taken of me dates back to the time of the Nixon administration (and agreed to that one being snapped only after prolonged duress).

    (Yes, there are security cams everywhere, but they are unavoidable and have always tended to walk with the eyes looking downwards.)

  64. 64.

    Shinobi

    What I find surprising about this article is:

    1. How did they not know that there would be naked people on these webcams? What internet are THEY on? Have they not heard of chat roulette?
    2. How low the percentages of naked people reported are.

  68. 68.

    Keith G

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m not the one saying that legal behavior by an agency in one country is proof positive of illegal behavior by a similar agency in another country.

    What a turnip-like view.

    Remember when our govt. had a limit to how many brown ones it would torture in a year (snark), so they would ship some lucky ones off to Egypt etc.? Hey…our hands were clean…we didn’t skin them alive. No mam it warn’t us.

    The UK did this reported activity globally. How could one be surprised if the two intel agencies of the world’s two closest allies shared a little dark-gotten info on US residents? No mam, we didn’t do that.It warn’t us.

    If they don’t think there will be consequences, trusting Intel agencies to do the morally or legally correct thing is a mugs game.

  69. 69.

    jayjaybear

    Jesus Christ, this place is gradually turning into Dudebro Central. When does Greenwald visit to get his ass kissed?

  70. 70.

    Mnemosyne

    @Keith G:

    Remember when our govt. had a limit to how many brown ones it would torture in a year (snark), so they would ship some lucky ones off to Egypt etc.? Hey…our hands were clean…we didn’t skin them alive. No mam it warn’t us.

    The UK did this reported activity globally. How could one be surprised if the two intel agencies of the world’s two closest allies shared a little dark-gotten info on US residents? No mam, we didn’t do that.It warn’t us.

    So, again, the fact that the US government systematically did shady but technically legal things like extraordinary rendition is proof positive that they’re systematically doing illegal things because shut up, that’s why.

    ETA:

    If they don’t think there will be consequences, trusting Intel agencies to do the morally or legally correct thing is a mugs game.

    Intel agencies know there are consequences to doing illegal things — like getting their cases thrown out of court — which is why there have been accusations of the NSA and DEA trying to skirt the law by having the NSA tell the DEA they should just happen to check out a particular car at a particular time.

    Counting on intel agencies to do the moral thing when the immoral thing is perfectly legal is insane. Only a fool would expect that.

  71. 71.

    David in NY

    @Mnemosyne:

    So if I use Microsoft Access to maintain a database of customers who buy drugs from me, the cops can arrest Microsoft for aiding and abetting my crimes by selling me the software I used to commit them?

    I have no idea what you think you’re getting at. But the answer may well depend on how much MS knows about what you’re doing. There’s a couple of old Supreme Court cases from the prohibition era in which the enablers of the day (sugar, not software, suppliers) got charged with conspiracy to make illegal booze after selling sugar to a bootlegger. In one the sugar daddy got off, in the other, got convicted. So the answer to your probably irrelevant question is a firm “maybe”.

  72. 72.

    Cervantes

    @Keith G: Turnips have their redeeming features. They are high in Vitamin C and carotenoids. Turnip plants have been feeding humans for at least 4000 years.

  74. 74.

    Cervantes

    @David in NY: Are you thinking of U. S. v. Direct Sales and U. S. v. Falcone?

    They are often discussed together (or were), but Direct Sales is not about sugar, so maybe you’re thinking of a different case.

  75. 75.

    Cervantes

    @NotMax:

    Analogous to bringing charges against GM if a Chevy is used in commission of a crime.

    Really? Can you elaborate this analogy? (Thanks.)

  76. 76.

    NotMax

    @Cervantes

    Doesn’t strike me as needing any elaboration beyond saying it is a personal opinion. Am not a lawyer (and do not play one on TV).

    But will posit another: even when the feds seize a computer and successfully prosecute, they don’t follow up with charges against Dell (or whomever).

  77. 77.

    Cervantes

    @NotMax: Well, I appreciate your response.

    Curious to know about two strictly hypothetical cases: (1) Suppose two parties, without an explicit agreement, conspire to create a device that (both know) one of them will then use for breaking the law. And (2) suppose that one party supplies scarce resources that another party uses in a scheme to break the law. Is there any part of these hypotheticals that resembles a real situation or case you know of?

    I assume you and I can posit that (1) and (2) do not exactly mirror the NSA-GCHQ relationship, nor do they resemble the case of GM or Dell blindly selling a stock product to a customer who then does something illegal with it.

  78. 78.

    NotMax

    @Cervantes

    All interesting.

    My original response was geared towards the question posed about someone using a Microsoft program for nefarious purposes making Microsoft liable, though, which I interpreted as in a different category than NSA-GCHQ.

  79. 79.

    Cervantes

    @NotMax:

    My original response was geared towards the question posed about someone using a Microsoft program for nefarious purposes making Microsoft liable, though, which I interpreted as in a different category than NSA-GCHQ.

    Understood.

    Was just exploring your analogy (and your reading of the Guardian piece).

    Thanks.

  80. 80.

    Socoolsofresh

    @Mnemosyne: You always love to derail the conversation to some nit-picking hypothetical question that you feel must be answered by people who are critical of anything NSA related. It is your go to tactic.

  81. 81.

    Cervantes

    @jayjaybear:

    Jesus Christ, this place is gradually turning into Dudebro Central. When does Greenwald visit to get his ass kissed?

    You’re kidding! There’s a place on the Internet where someone does not agree with us about every last thing? Vulgar and inane mockery can make a good first line of defense — or rather, attack — sure! — but what else can we do, Comrade?

  82. 82.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Leaving aside the legalities and whether or not the the NSA was at all central to any of it, this is simply an unbelievable waste of resources. What useful information is likely to be gathered from this?

  83. 83.

    dollared

    It’s still just -weird- that Balloon Juice has this cluster of technically literate, ostensibly liberal people who feel that the government should have unlimited spying rights on our digital activities. Do they think it will never be used to target liberal activists? Do they really think it can’t be misused?

  84. 84.

    Socoolsofresh

    @dollared: They actually are ostensibly Democratic Party people. As in, they are for whatever the Democratic Party is for, regardless of liberal merit. If it makes Democrats look bad, they will defend. If it makes Republicans look bad, they will attack. Simple as that.

  85. 85.

    Cervantes

    @Omnes Omnibus: Well, from the article:

    [The system was] used for experiments in automated [face detection and] facial recognition, to monitor GCHQ’s existing targets, and to discover new targets of interest. Such searches could be used to try to find terror suspects or criminals making use of multiple, anonymous user IDs.

    That’s the internal (or pseudo-internal) justification (or selling point).

  86. 86.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Cervantes: And yet my question remains unanswered. I have trouble seeing any real benefit from this. As a result, even if it were to be legal, it is stupid.

  89. 89.

    dollared

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yup. On top of every legal implication, it’s just a scam. And then we hear that the US has a shortage of software people. Well, how about we free up 50,000 of them? Oh, it would moderate real estate prices in DC. Win-win!

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