Can anybody see you through your Laptop or cellphone front camera?
By kixsh101
@kixsh101 (2105)
Philippines
August 25, 2015 8:17pm CST
I saw my previous boss again today doing something using her laptop. I am shocked on why she had lots of stickers on her screen and I had noticed that she had also sticked a sticker on the camera. I can't contain myself so I asked her. She explained that someone, somewhere might be seeing her through that camera of course when it is connected to the internet. She added that hackers might be seeing her all day. It seems and sounds creepy to me and I think it is not impossible.
Do you believe it? Any encounter?
5 people like this
8 responses
@owlwings (43910)
• Cambridge, England
26 Aug 15
Yes, it's possible for someone to install software on your laptop or PC (or even your smartphone) so that they can see what your camera sees remotely. Of course, your laptop needs to be connected to the Internet for it to work.
The way to protect against this is to have a good and up-to-date antivirus program and firewall and to make sure that nobody has access to your device while you are not using it. The best way of doing this is to make sure that you change the Admin password, and set up a separate account (also with a password) with only ordinary user rights. All of these things are things you should do anyway to protect your data and to keep your machine healthy and free from trojans and viruses.
Having said this, your boss may be over-reacting. It is not really very common for anyone to bother installing this kind of spy software, though you will see 'scare stories' about it happening. Nearly always it is someone known to the person affected and nearly always the hacker has had physical access to the machine.
2 people like this
@yukimori (10145)
• United States
26 Aug 15
My mother is so paranoid about it happening to her computer that she made me disable her webcam. Manually, by unplugging the connector in the computer.
A couple months later, she calls me because she can't get the webcam on her laptop to work... 
1 person likes this
@AbbyGreenhill (45494)
• United States
9 Sep 15
I put a small piece of paper over the camera lens on my laptop years ago.
@vathsala30 (3732)
• India
26 Aug 15
I do not think it is possible for anyone to see us in the cam without our permission..Unless we invite anyone for a video chat or accept their invitation for the same, it is impossible to view our image in the cam
