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

LouNY · Feb 11, 2022

I just love the naming of some of these things, the patriot act about the most unpatriot thing concieved.
The so called safe act and another oxymoron and our world is filled with them.

mjonesnh · Feb 11, 2022

In Feb 21 I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Was given prescriptions for oral medication and a short term prescription for insulin to help me get my glucose down quickly. Talked with my wife about my treatment and did no searches on phone or computer. That night I logged on my laptop and there was ads touting various diabetes medications including my insulin brand. Never had seen any ads for diabetes till that night. Just insane!

Dftodd · Feb 11, 2022

MikePA said:
Removed political posts by Dftodd and etpm. Please have the integrity to abide by the rules you agreed to when you registered.

I would have thought folks would get enough politics from TV, newspapers, Twitter, Facebook, ad nauseam, that, in addition to being against the Terms Of Service, TBN would be an oasis from all those contentious discussions. Clearly I was wrong

You mind reminding me what I wrote that was political or send it to me in a message with a screen shot??? I'm a little confused here.

Or was it because I mention that my nutter neighbor was being watched while "he who shall not be named visited" the town I lived in.

I really don't see how that was political. But did set the reason why the fuzz was hanging out in my hood

Or are we removing posts because we mention a president visited an area??

JasperFrank · Feb 11, 2022

A nephew gave us a google nest for x-mas. It immediately, and unopened, was re-gifted.

I do wonder why laptops don't have manual caps or slides for their cameras and mics. Some do, but most don't.

Once every year or so, I will hire myself to do a digital inventory of what Jasperfrank's real name has out there, and each time I am a bit shocked at how accurate, and extensive some of it is. I also find, ransoms that have been created. Well, they were created as I was doing the searching, just to target me. Some true and some entirely made up. Its the made up stuff that truly bothers me. I in a sense, created these made up ransoms. Just by doing the self search. The self search initiated a Bot to make the fake Ransom pages. This is pure evil. For some of the things I do, I have to allow a background check. And these things show up. Fortunately most the checkers are aware of these scams and know the players. Still its the denied job, that they never got back to you, that you have to wonder about. Did they not know these things were faked? And for the techies out there... I intentionally do not use a VPN for self searching.

MikePA · Feb 11, 2022

Dftodd said:
You mind reminding me what I wrote that was political or send it to me in a message with a screen shot??? I'm a little confused here.

PM Muhammad. I he disagrees with removing it, he can reinstate it.

kenmbz · Feb 11, 2022

MikePA said:
PM Muhammad. I he disagrees with removing it, he can reinstate it.

While not saying it should or should not have been removed.
I am very happy you gave your reasons and let them know about the removal.

Hay Dude · Feb 11, 2022

Is talking about “government“ in general terms considered “political“?
I’m not upset or pointing any fingers here, but I feel like talking about government is not necessarily “political”.

Is it ok to talk about our government and it’s policies or regulations without stumbling into a time out?

Root Cause · Feb 11, 2022

I recently saw an article about how our phones are helping us live better. It sent off alarm bells in my head even though the author loved what it was doing. "You might want to check yours out to see what data is being collected without your knowledge.

I went to settings / health and started poking around, and it took a while to find all the pages.
It was set to monitor my steps, my sleep habits, how many flights of stairs I climb/day, and I could not scroll down to see how many days this went back.

The real kicker was that it could tell if I was walking 'wonky'. So it was collecting data for I don't know, if I was drunk, had a stroke or recently fell down.

I don't have echo or use siri. I know my TV brand got sued by the US gov't for listening in. I figure that had to really be bad for them to actually do something. The worst was kids toys listening while they play.

JasperFrank · Feb 11, 2022

Bill G, I've been doing computer stuff for 40 years. It is a fact that a major anti virus company included a key logger in an update. They didn't know, how it happened, admitted it, and it was very quickly corrected. Its a fact that a certain product, which for awhile was a requirement to do video and audio, by another well known company was hacked, and everyone was using it, and it could be turned on remotely with out the user knowing. These are known things. Things that have been demonstrated, and things I have personally seen and not just gossip. Mind Spark was a bear to deal with in 2016. I'm glad I'm out of computer repair business now. I can't help people if the info got to the/a cloud before they brought me the machine. Its there forever. Even if it is innocent stuff, it can be framed in a bad way. This is a future I see. Encrypting files seems to be the old way. Now its straight up, here's a pic of you naked with a very suggestive caption. Pay them in Bitcoin and they say they will take it down. But they don't.

Midniteoyl · Feb 11, 2022

JasperFrank said:
Doing computer repair, lots of people got hacked. Had a pic of them doing something private, both visual and on the mics. And some one held ransom, so as not to become public. I can clear the machine, but I can't clear what the ransom person can do. That will always be out there and I can't help the customer on this. If it was child ****, then I would have reported them, but fortunately I never had to do that. People for some reason leave their machines on. Which can be turned on remotely to see and hear what they are doing. My known victims of this, are good people. What they are into, is none of my business as consenting adults. But I see that many people can have their entire life destroyed by Smart Tvs, laptops, and the new world of Internet connected servants like those presented by MS and Amazon that call home. I... and only opinion. Think all these things are tearing us apart. You don't want to be famous, and you don't want to be recognized, any more. And and all the social media will never let that go. Every thing, will be there, Forever.

Dude, even Zuckerburg covers his laptop camera: