Is Internet Privacy Dead? This Creepy Website Could Be Streaming Footage Of You
Internet privacy could be a thing of the past, as revealed by a website which streams live footage from thousands of sources. This website, Insecam, could be watching you as well and you wouldn’t even know it.
The NSA could be secretly collecting your personal information without you knowing it, but this isn’t the NSA exploiting a weakness in your webcam security. Insecam is attempting to make a point of simply collecting data from non-secured cameras around the world to show us how important passwords are.
With the release of the Xbox One, fears escalated over how much we are being watched when Microsoft announced the latest Kinect. This was a high-tech camera with the ability to determine who is in front of it so nobody else can log in to your account. The fears of internet privacy came along when we realized it had to be on all the time.
Ubisoft’s release of the game Watch Dogs capitalized on the idea that anything can be hacked, by giving you a playable character who could do just that.
It seems that Ubisoft wasn’t far off when it came to camera hacking. Insecam has been discovered streaming footage from over 73,000 cameras around the world, including 11,000 in the U.S. alone.
The site claims to be making a statement about webcams, and the fact that so many owners fail to change their default passwords. It gives you a link to the vast number of cameras it has access to, along with serial numbers, passwords, and even where they can be located. The location is given as latitude and longitude coordinates you can check on Google Maps.
If you happen to find your own home being watched on Insecam, the site claims the solution is simple. Change your camera’s password and you’ll no longer be the potential victim of failed internet privacy as strangers around the world watch you without your knowledge.
Insecam Displays Insecure Webcams From Around The World http://t.co/cyTb4r0E8L
— CottonDocker (@CottonDocker) November 7, 2014
Even though the site’s intentions appear to be innocent enough, U.S. attorney Jay Leiderman told Motherboard “it is a stunningly clear violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.”
While the cause of the problem apparently lies in the hands of users who fail to change their default password, the solution without bothering the user appears to be more complicated. Insecam is being hosted on GoDaddy, with an IP address pointing to Moscow, in Russia, while reporters claim the site was previously hosted in Moldova.
Insecam could be moving every time investigators find its source, and a U.S. authority moving in on Moscow could make things much worse.
Is internet privacy officially dead, or are webcam users simply getting lazy with their passwords?
[Image via Wiki Commons]
