Remember that song in the 80s? I always feel like, somebody’s watching me. It had a funny music video. I still hear it on the radio around Halloween. When I’m in the shower, I’m afraid to wash my hair. I might open my eyes, and find someone standing there.
Lately, I’ve begun to wonder this about laptop cameras. They are sneaky little critters. I’ve seen hacker hackers (those good hackers who bust bad hackers) watch hackers through their webcams, which we the audience also get to watch. If even the hackers forget the camera is there and on, you know us normies will forget, especially in this age of Zoom and webinars.
I once saw a Shark Tank episode where the candidates were pitching a tiny plastic clip that slides over the webcam on laptop lids. The sharks were like, “Why can’t we just stick a Post-it over it?”
I never did see that cute little plastic cover show up at Staples. However, I certainly got a lesson. Why aren’t we sticking a Post-it over our web cam? Why is it so darn hard to find the off button for that thing? What gives, Microsoft? Apple? How is it that I have VCR buttons on my 2019 laptop, but no camera switch?
Instead, we must travel over the river and through the woods to literally DISABLE the thing in the neverland of Device Manager. This one tech writer went so far as to recommend duct tape!
Honestly, the most likely eyes peering through our webcam are the tech giants who install those things and keep the controls obscured like a doctor’s handwritten prescription. I doubt those tech giants would risk their entire enterprise by assigning a human to look through webcams. But Art the A.I. bot, he’s probably sitting there tallying all kinds of demographics and semantics. More power to him. We like facts and figures.
But what if Henry Hacker finds a way to see through it? Hm. Does it even matter?
Ironically, I use my webcam as a security feature. My laptop won’t boot up if it doesn’t recognize my face through the camera. I sure hope that was active when my last laptop got stolen. So… hello Art. How are you today? Henry, too, if you’re there.
If this article has freaked you out enough to cover the webcam, please don’t use duct tape. That stuff will still be there after the Apocalypse.
This article was originally published in the South Ponte Vedra Civic Association newsletter on 10/1/2022.