Wednesday, March 20, 2013

On Indiscretion

Open and Closed, 2013

Do you ever look into that tiny camera lens at the top of your laptop and wonder if it could be controlled from a remote location?  Do you then ponder how what you formerly believed to be your private indiscretions might be television or data collected for marketing purposes?

Your Lucky Charms.  Your unmade bed.  Your Lion Cat hair.  They could be recording each phone call you make, every snack you smear with peanut butter, and your looking in the hall mirror as you dance alone to the songs that require it.

I went down this path recently.  I knew it was ridiculous, but then I didn't.  So I stuck a small blue post-it note over the lens in question.

33 comments:

  1. I understand! It's a rather unnerving road. When I bought my laptop, I requested that there be no camera... had there been I'd put a post it on it too. Strange and funny all of this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For me it is not all bad. I like to use FaceTime when Chris is out of town.

      Delete
  2. camera? what camera? i can't find it. i must investigate.

    there are shades in my house i never close, so the neighbors probably see me dancing (like popeye), taking a snooze in the afternoon, and letting my cat sit on the table while i eat.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You don't have one? This darn MacBook Air... Enjoy your free way of life. Good light should trump privacy, right?

      Delete
  3. I have a small pink post-it covering mine.

    ReplyDelete
  4. i think they would be bored out of their minds to stare at me work work work... sitting in front of that blue dot. My real life happens away from the computer room. But yes, "big brother" is an issue...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Living in such a small place is my issue, well, part of it. I should simply shut this laptop when I'm not typing. But then I cannot listen to Pandora... Hmmm.

      Delete
  5. For anyone curious, I've added a link to Lion Cat.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I know why I don't have the camera. I have a dell (PC) laptop from the Stone Age, just like my cell phone which is simply a cell phone and hardly even that. It tells time and sometimes connects. My neighbor told me my technology "is so 2003". Oh well ;^)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh... I'm having the worst time with this comment. I'm pretty sure my cell phone is pre-2003. I've had it for so long I cannot recall how long we've been together.

      More about my cell phone:
      http://chezdanisse.blogspot.com/2012/03/im-not-embarrassed.html

      Delete
  7. So every night my son makes sure to power down his ipod on the dock on his desk - because maybe someone could be watching him sleep otherwise. And he turns away the camera on his laptop.

    He'll be glad to hear he's not alone.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I read this to my husband and he laughed too. Then I closed my computer because I was broiling cinnamon toast bagels to go with my evening tea and I didn't want the carb police to see me. Shhh...

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh that's too funny - but it got me thinking....and now I'm not only conscious of what kind of 'profile' someone is building on me based on my web activity...but they could be watching me....yikes!

    ReplyDelete
  10. hee hee....
    i think we are watched in unfathomable ways. the universe breathes voyeurism.
    ever bumped into a flemish commuter?
    ;))) n♥

    ReplyDelete
  11. Will get a post it in pink, so it brights up my days :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. After police visited my kids' middle school, and talked to warn about identity theft and Facebook, etc., I noticed a Band-aid over the computer's camera. You're not alone, Denise. (And as soon as I wrote that, I realized that sentence could be read as either a comfort or a warning!)

    ReplyDelete
  13. No, I have never thought of this, but now I will. Thanks. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Mine has been covered for some time with a spiderman sticker and I often wonder if this is calm discretion or desperate paranoia. I wonder sometimes if I flatter myself, thinking there would be any need for whatever data my life can provide, but I suppose the capitalism that surrounds us has shown time and again that it has no shame or limits. So Spiderman saves me from exposure but also reminds me often about the world I live in...

    ReplyDelete
  15. This whole interconnectivity thing is so full of paradoxes. We can meet and see and expand our lives through technology but at the same time it makes us feel exposed and vulnerable. Its the old individual versus group dichotomy that we are always struggling with, magnified by the huge size and unknown elements of the possible group to whom we are being shown. I am with Mina B. in distrusting capitalism with "no shame and no limits" but George Orwell's 1984 and the surveillance methods of the East German Stasi are chilling reminders of the controlling tendencies of government as well. I think we are wise to consider the possible unsavory and manipulative uses our information could be put to at the same time we rejoice in the possibilities a larger world offers to us. Just being aware of our own uneasiness keeps us vigilant and post-its of any color sound reasonable to me, as long as we can still connect with each other when we want to.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I have actually never thought about it... but I usuall close mine when not in use... ...subconsciousness?

    ReplyDelete
  17. I've heard of the camera being used before, I think via laptops that were school property, or something? My husband keeps a post-it over his...

    ReplyDelete
  18. A minute before I read your post, I hadn't thought of the little camera. Now I do. It's staring me in the face, and my eyes are looking for a Post-It.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Oh this hadn't crossed my mind! But now that little circle is making me rather self-conscious. I've just smoothed my hair a little :) I shiver to think of what thoughtless inanities 'they' may have seen. And then I think it serves them right... Thanks for the lion cat hair - worth the paranoia!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Yes, I have gone down that path my self...and then retreated, and then went down the path again,and then retreated my steps, and then I read your post...haha. At least we know we are not alone.;-))

    ReplyDelete
  21. Ha ha!
    very good, Denise. I never use the camera on my laptop---and it projects such an unflattering image of me (bad angle and lighting) that you just gave the best reason to put a sticker over it!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Ha - I always wonder just that!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Hee hee. I turn mine up to the roof. It just creeps me out a bit when it's looking at me.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I'm not the only one! Wonderful news. I haven't had that post-it up there for quite some time now. Maybe I should put it back ;)

    ReplyDelete
  25. Oh, yea, I have good company then - I too have a small yellow post-it note over mine.

    ReplyDelete