Sextortion with a twist: Spyware takes webcam pics of users watching porn (arstechnica.com)
from return2ozma@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 05 Sep 18:46
https://lemmy.world/post/35495636

#technology

threaded - newest

devfuuu@lemmy.world on 05 Sep 20:11 next collapse

Been receiving emails about this for years now. Finally can trust those messages.

tidderuuf@lemmy.world on 05 Sep 20:15 collapse

I’ve been trusting them for years. It’s a miracle that they were able to setup a webcam I’ve never owned in my life and have it filming where I always go to spank one out.

zerofk@lemmy.zip on 06 Sep 14:36 collapse

They did the same to me. I think they’ve got cameras set up all through my house. So I started walking around naked so they’ll have something nice to look at. I haven’t gotten a thank you yet though.

possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 05 Sep 20:20 next collapse

Damn, they got a picture of some gaffer tape, that’s cool.

RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz on 07 Sep 10:32 collapse

Weird kink but okay

cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 05 Sep 20:23 next collapse

Black Mirror had an episode about this.

Surprised it took someone this long to actually make it.

I forget the name of the episode. If you’re curious, it’s on Netflix, it’s in season 3, and it’s right before San Junipero. It was bleak AF, which is why the only happy (and arguably the best) Black Mirror episode came right after it.

Aatube@kbin.melroy.org on 05 Sep 20:46 next collapse

It's Shut Up and Dance, my fav

the only

I disagree. For starters there's also

Episodes from the first five seasons with happy endings (the way they're presented, at least), spoilers duh

USS Callister
Hang the DJ
Be Right Back (though the stakes aren't that high either)
Arguably one from Bandersnatch

Also, I don't like San Junipero as much as others do because the final conflict goes way too fast and the way it was resolved felt abrupt. Still nice though

boonhet@sopuli.xyz on 06 Sep 00:11 next collapse

RATs existed for a long time but you needed to manually hit record I think? I’m assuming this is just some extra automation.

CallateCoyote@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 13:44 next collapse

Yeah, with quite a plot twist. The entire time I was practically yelling at the tv “who cares, then let’s them release the video of you jerking off and own it. We all do it!” Then at the end, “… oh.”

cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 06 Sep 14:41 collapse

Right, the part I don’t get is, the video of you isn’t going to include what you’re looking at. And if it does you can say they faked it. They could put anything there. They don’t have a shot that includes both you and the screen. They can get sound though, so they can match sound, but that can be faked too. Strip out the audio. Separate the sounds of what you were really watching from the ambient sounds (and the grunts/moans from you) and then dub those sounds over the new audio and it should be passable.

Also, I just wouldn’t do anything embarrassing with a camera pointed at me. I’d cover the camera or point it away from me. Even sitting on the toilet browsing, back cameras point down at the floor, front camera points up, maybe gets the top of my face? Nothing private is seen by the camera by my best intentions. I just do this naturally. I guess others don’t?

vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org on 07 Sep 07:56 collapse

Yeah, so I have a paranoid (or maybe not) idea that somewhere in 2012 my classmates and teachers played a prank.

That they were insulted by what I said, and decided to check my words (on Silicon Valley people being more noble than Russian elite class). I thought I was talking to them, but they in fact were recording, translating and sending my words to some of those Silicon Valley people (very improbably high-level). And things pretty normal for me to say as almost a compliment (on democracy and meritocracy and freedom and on racism being bad, and MOST of all - on my privacy being more important than their dreams) insulted those people so much that I’ve got a lot of such privacy invasions. So - that in the end, eh, someone of said elite class solved the problem by wasting one of those Silicon Valley people (there was the added insult of that someone being blamed for the thing).

Dunno how to check and whether I should, cause if it happened, I don’t have a nuke.

jordanlund@lemmy.world on 05 Sep 20:33 next collapse

The spam messages have been duly ignored for years. LOL.

“If you have access to my computer, why are you blackmailing me? You could just steal the money from the accounts.”

boonhet@sopuli.xyz on 06 Sep 00:14 collapse

No 2FA for transfers at your bank?

RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz on 07 Sep 10:31 collapse

Just capture the code when they’re doing some actual shit

ieatpwns@lemmy.world on 05 Sep 20:50 next collapse

I haven’t touched a webcam in years but I just touched myself 5 minutes ago

prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works on 06 Sep 02:41 collapse

Lots of folks I’d imagine use their phones, which has cameras on both sides

vaionko@sopuli.xyz on 06 Sep 12:07 collapse

Why the hell can’t I get a phone without a front camera? I never use it and it creates an annoying hole in my screen

teft@piefed.social on 05 Sep 21:01 next collapse

That only works if you're ashamed about rubbing one out.

realitista@piefed.world on 06 Sep 13:48 collapse

Seriously, go ahead and try to give someone that shit. No one would be surprised I watch porn and I don't do it in any sort of interesting way. I'm guessing no one would even want to watch it.

teft@piefed.social on 06 Sep 13:49 collapse

Worst voyeur video ever.

pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 05 Sep 21:16 next collapse

hardware camera disablers.

cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca on 06 Sep 03:49 next collapse

Go on

rapchee@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 12:35 collapse

tape

cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca on 16 Sep 05:15 collapse

Doh.

Tangent5280@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 12:44 next collapse

also called two year old post it note that has never been taken off

ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 07 Sep 18:37 collapse

This, thank you Framework! Mic too!

KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 05 Sep 23:42 next collapse

I’ll reply the same way I do to the scam attempts: Do it bitch.

IllNess@infosec.pub on 06 Sep 04:00 collapse

Also if you are sending my family a copy, send it to my email address too. Thanks.

gnuplusmatt@reddthat.com on 06 Sep 00:18 next collapse

don’t stream, download your porn from usenet like a civilised person

HeyJoe@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 00:27 next collapse

empornium FTW!

rapchee@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 12:33 next collapse

i get how usenet is better than streaming from a popup filled website, but i fail to see how it is better than torrenting
qbittorrent has built-in search as well

FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au on 07 Sep 00:26 next collapse

You don’t understand the difference between Usenet and torrents.

rapchee@lemmy.world on 07 Sep 03:59 collapse

i haven’t used it, only read some available documentation, but it seems like a subscription service to access a server with stuff of dubious legality on it, but please correct me if i’m wrong. i kinda want to get into it but, as i was saying, i fail to see how it is better than torrenting

FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au on 07 Sep 04:43 collapse

It’s better because it basically has everything that torrent sites have, since the same groups upload everything to both, but it’s all done over SSL encrypted connections so your ISP can’t see what you’re downloading, so you don’t need a VPN and you are downloading directly from servers so it’s much faster and you don’t have to worry about the number of seeders, nor do you have to seed yourself. You have many different providers you can sign up to, and many different indexers to help find what you are looking for. It also can download parts of the same content from different sources and combine them to make a whole.

Once you’ve tried it, torrenting feels so amateur and insecure and outdated. Ideally you just set up both, which is what I have done with transmission running in a docker container with a built in VPN, but the torrents are the “last resort” when the content I want can’t be found on Usenet - which is very rarely.

pmk@lemmy.sdf.org on 07 Sep 06:14 next collapse

Doesn’t this also mean that the server can be a single point of failure? Whereas in a torrent swarm it’s distributed and more resilient?

FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au on 08 Sep 04:59 collapse

It’s not like it’s just some server in some persons house. They’re hosted by companies on server farms that have guaranteed uptime figures and most have 2000+ day retention of data. I’ve been using it for 10+ years and have never had any server failure type issues.

pmk@lemmy.sdf.org on 08 Sep 11:23 collapse

I was thinking more about legal actions. But then again torrents need trackers and search sites. It seems like it’s hard to shut down pirate bay though. I just have a feeling that usenet flies under the radar a bit, but if it became mainstream, it might be easier to shut down a server than a shifting swarm of peers?

vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org on 07 Sep 07:27 collapse

It’s also a fscking mess to set up a Usenet downloader, especially since it’d be a bunch of buggy weird stuff ending with -arr in the names and web UIs.

And no, torrenting isn’t outdated and isn’t amateur. In Usenet messages are replicated over all services offering that newsgroup. I hope the downsides are clear.

Some kind of Usenet with global identifiers of messages and posters, and with something like Kademlia to find sources for a specific newsgroup(to get all the other side has in it)/post(to get it specifically)/person(their public key), would be much better than just replicating each message everywhere with a local identifier.

ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 07 Sep 17:49 next collapse

Well you could use the -arr stack but you could also just set up SABnzbd which is the same difficulty to set up as qbit/jackett.

I haven’t touched the -arrs myself, just go to my indexer, click download, it goes into the correct folder which sabnzbd automatically picks up and starts a-downloadin’, then it transfers the complete files to another folder.

But I use both, and slsk, and ytdl. Why limit myself?

vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org on 08 Sep 11:10 collapse

OK, I’ll try it.

FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au on 08 Sep 05:08 collapse

It’s also a fscking mess to set up a Usenet downloader, especially since it’d be a bunch of buggy weird stuff ending with -arr in the names and web UIs.

It’s really not. You pretty much need to just put in some api keys for your indexer, downloader, and provider, and away you go.

In Usenet messages are replicated over all services offering that newsgroup. I hope the downsides are clear.

What downsides are you talking about in regards to downloading content from usenet?

vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org on 08 Sep 11:11 collapse

Centralization, need to have a big commercial provider which you can pay (as someone in Russia …).

FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au on 08 Sep 23:19 collapse

How does that apply to this comment of yours?

In Usenet messages are replicated over all services offering that newsgroup. I hope the downsides are clear.

That’s not centralization - unless you also consider the fediverse centralized?

vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org on 09 Sep 06:26 collapse

That puts limits on scaling it. Fediverse - honestly too centralized for my taste.

ripcord@lemmy.world on 07 Sep 10:07 collapse

Popups? In 2025?

Korhaka@sopuli.xyz on 07 Sep 10:24 next collapse

In my day the popular kids would share it over bluetooth.

IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world on 07 Sep 18:33 collapse

Bluetooth? I got mine from a dial-up BBS via a 1200 baud modem.

Theoriginalthon@lemmy.world on 07 Sep 12:23 collapse

You could but you know there is nsfw content right here on Lemmy

stickly@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 01:42 next collapse

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5797c21a-f14c-46ef-a638-46b5938fd588.jpeg">

buddascrayon@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 03:22 next collapse

Why am I not surprised that this shit’s freely available on GitHub.

cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone on 06 Sep 03:50 next collapse

well i hope they like ineffable husbands

muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works on 06 Sep 03:50 next collapse

Let them watch. Bwahahaha

meejle@lemmy.world on 06 Sep 14:59 next collapse

Surprised the UK age verification selfies haven’t been used to extort people yet. It’d be so easy (and is such an obvious reason why the law is bullshit).

SecurAge🛡️
“Log in with Google to verify your age.”

“Sorry, we weren’t able to verify you using your Google Account. Please take a selfie for verification.”

“Now give us £1000, or we’ll send your picture and details of the porn you were trying to access to everyone in your contacts.”

6stringringer@lemmy.zip on 07 Sep 04:26 next collapse

This is what they would see if I was being targeted. <img alt="" src="https://lemmy.zip/pictrs/image/0dc91236-2272-4287-88fc-76ebc7b43cef.webp">

fodor@lemmy.zip on 07 Sep 06:47 next collapse

These days it’s pretty weak blackmail shit. A little AI doctoring can create the same videos… So even if it’s possible, that doesn’t mean it’s plausible, and nobody cares what you do in your bedroom by yourself.

Squizzy@lemmy.world on 07 Sep 21:22 collapse

A friend of mine had this happen to him and he just told them to release it, nothing happened. He was willing to take the embarrassment if it did though is the crucial thing.

GreenKnight23@lemmy.world on 07 Sep 09:11 next collapse

<img alt="1000001986" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/99481f6f-4c23-4006-bde8-f3fb1f299e19.jpeg">

Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club on 07 Sep 09:40 next collapse

“Reaction videos” are already too common.

Passerby6497@lemmy.world on 07 Sep 23:18 collapse

Is this a new thing? I remember hearing about this like a decade ago