How paranoid should I be? i have a bandaid over the camera and mic of my lap top. Is this crazy?

[Hay Dude]

Yes: related to research and development, and sweet contracts for supplies and services. But anyone on this site who thinks that someone in government has an interest in watching them has an inflated sense of their importance.

Couldn’t disagree more. Government is watching us all the time. Patriot Act comes to mind. I’d doubt theyre watching you or me per se, but I bet theyre monitoring millions of Americans and millions of foreign nationals.
Hopefully for good reason, but that kind of power and authority can invite corruption.

 

[herm0016]

when the people that work for google put tape over there cameras, so do I. Mine has a convenient metal slide shutter built in!

 

[jyoutz]

Couldn’t disagree more. Government is watching us all the time. Patriot Act comes to mind. I’d doubt theyre watching you or me per se, but I bet theyre monitoring millions of Americans and millions of foreign nationals.
Hopefully for good reason, but that kind of power and authority can invite corruption.

Yes, there are organizations and individuals associated with terroir and espionage being monitored. I’m glad that is happening. And it’s very doubtful that it’s millions. And monitoring is nothing without follow up actions. Follow up actions are rare and do follow policies, procedures, and laws. And are not autonomous of the court system. I sleep easy and have hundreds of more pressing activities to worry about. If someone thinks the government is watching them, they are either a legitimately bad actor, or have an inflated since of how interesting they are.

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

Except you don't. You may think you do but there is enough bits and bytes to figure out some interesting stuff.

I don't care about what little they do find. Fellas I haven't even had a bank account in over 20 years. Of course they are making it harder.

 

[LouNY]

Between Goggle and other "that shall not be named" snooping around everything we do there is reason to be paranoid.
Nothing is private anymore and in the PC "Politically Correct" world that we live in where something you might have said 50-60
years ago can be used in todays world to make you seem to be a royal a hole there is reason to be wary.
My laptop has a sliding lenses cover on the camera it got closed the day I bought it and has never been opened.

 

[JasperFrank]

Three Horse Ranch, I had the same thing happen. I know with certainty that I had done no searches online. I was just talking about pergolas with my wife, before going on-line and looking for vendors. Maybe she did searches, but I didn't. And maybe I had talked to other people, just face to face, or in email correspondence, but I know I didn't do any online searching. And the next time I'm on Facebot, there are ads for pergolas. Wife doesn't have a facebook account. Very strange case happened while I was getting new tires for my car. I had called and made an appointment, did no lookup on the internet cause i had a long time deal with a local shop to get me 12 inch tires. Which they had found some. And just after swiping my C-Card, and while the tires were being installed, my ad stream is filled with 12 inch tire sales. I had to laugh cause what purpose was there for the algorithm to try and sell me tires I had just bought. I've explored this in a strange way, just by picking something I really have no interest in. And just talk about it near the phone or the computer, and then see that it does indeed show up in an ad stream.

 

[sea2summit]

Yes: related to research and development, and sweet contracts for supplies and services. But anyone on this site who thinks that someone in government has an interest in watching them has an inflated sense of their importance.

They may not be now, the problem is the data is stored out there for the asking. If they ask, they have info I don't think many of us would believe. Heck, just look at apple's disclosure of data collected on their site. That doesn't include all the little widgets and apps everyone adds which spy even further.

 

[sea2summit]

Couldn’t disagree more. Government is watching us all the time. Patriot Act comes to mind. I’d doubt theyre watching you or me per se, but I bet theyre monitoring millions of Americans and millions of foreign nationals.
Hopefully for good reason, but that kind of power and authority can invite corruption.

Something about absolute power absolutely corrupting or something. Some British dude.

 

[sea2summit]

Yes, there are organizations and individuals associated with terroir and espionage being monitored. I’m glad that is happening. And it’s very doubtful that it’s millions. And monitoring is nothing without follow up actions. Follow up actions are rare and do follow policies, procedures, and laws. And are not autonomous of the court system. I sleep easy and have hundreds of more pressing activities to worry about. If someone thinks the government is watching them, they are either a legitimately bad actor, or have an inflated since of how interesting they are.

No, actually the patriot act specifically provided a work around for a lot of requirements previously from courts. Specifically as they applies to US citizens and collecting intelligence on them.

 

[Fixastuff]

It's simple, don't do stuff you don't want people to know about and don't say stuff you don't want people to hear. If you do it or say be proud and back it up. Living in fear of technology you bought with your own free will is humorous!(smash it and go back to a landline)