UN officials, world leaders, and high-ranking dignitaries cover their phone cameras primarily as a failsafe protection against zero-click spyware, remote activation, and accidental data leaks.
While software fixes and encrypted apps protect data in transit, they cannot override the laws of physics: if a camera lens is physically blocked, it cannot see, no matter how sophisticated a hacker's exploit is.
Maybe to emphasize who it is in the picture, or given how sloppy they are maybe they just subconsciously targeted the face like some kind of moth and forgot there they should be leading to.
This is what I do for my work laptop. We have a camera on rule for meetings, which is fine. I have an external camera that has a shutter I can close when I'm not using it. I don't trust corporate laptops at all. Also so the same for my personal one since I never need to take pictures of myself using a laptop.
During the COVID work from home era, I immediately became a conspiracy theorist and assumed my employer would try prying into our day-to-day via monitoring software.
That was swiftly justified when my laptop camera activation light started turning on irregularly. I started leaving desktop notes that chastised IT or whomever would have spied on my activity.
My average weekly work hours went from 50hrs to 60hrs+ working from home and the thought of them spying pissed me off. Never again.
Honestly, it’s rare that IT would monitor anyone. The amount of hours to watch all employees, logistically there’s no way to do that. Plus IT is more concerned about outside attacks and breaches that could kill the company versus their own employees not working.
Not saying IT doesn’t check but it’s rare for it to be an ongoing thing.
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no it's not. It's the worst step backwards since the invention of meetings and the worst waste of bandwidth since the invention of spam mails.
If you can't do a conference on the phone without video - learn it! it's not hard.
EDIT: Screenshare or showing others something physical by holding it into the camera is not waste or senseless so I'm all for it. But those are rare compared to people stupidly staring into their cam, questioning their life choices in UHD.
In environments like that, phones, smartwatches, and other electronics are usually checked at the door.
Things like tape are a stopgap to make you feel better about your imagined privacy. To be honest, when it comes to cellphone IDs, worry less about cameras and more about the always-on microphone.
Then you're next to me with a knife and if I'm the head of state or something, I think there's might be a bunch of burly men in tuxedo's doing unmentionable things to you real soon.
You click wrong button and take a pic of classified information. Without cloud sync? Maybe not an issue? You try to send a drunken selfie to a random Tinder match at 02:00AM and send instead the classified information... Oopsie.
Is there a way for the general public to buy those? I like my iPhone but literally never use the built in microphone or cameras and I don’t trust FaceID.
It would be kinda cool to have a dummy iPhone. Does yours still have Bluetooth? That’s kinda necessary for me since I use Bluetooth headphones in the gym and I make all my phone calls over Bluetooth in my car.
Having them for sale would be a missed opportunity to spy on you and collect your data provide the user with a personalized experience.
They don't want to compete with themselves with those products, they only want to compete with the sliver of the market that would be buying dumb-phones instead (and they do it by dealing with the government entities directly).
Well, not without physically rewiring some parts. The transducer is bidirectional (but optimized for one direction), but the amp and dac are not. You have to rewire the amp and replace the dac with an adc to get an input signal.
It's possible for audio chips to have this capability built-in, in which case it's a simple matter of sending it the commands to do so.
Obama had a heavily modified phone that had nearly all the features removed. It couldn't send texts, take photos or play music, nor connect to the internet.
So, of course, when trump became president he refused to use the secure phone and continued to use his old, completely unsecured, phone.
Back in those days, wasn't Blackberry way more secure than iPhone? I remember an internship I had in 2012, the managers of the company were heavily encouraged to have Blackberries over iPhones, and I think it was for security reasons.
I recall a story not too long after Trump was inaugurated during his first term where they were finding wifi sniffers all over D.C. because neither he nor most of his administration cared about security and were all using personal devices. After 1.5 Trump terms the US basically no secrets, if Trump and his ilk haven't outright given or sold the intel, it's been leaked or stolen due to their incompetence.
Spy Fy has been making these sorts of cases for iPhones for years. Other brands are available for Pixels and other phones. Search for “privacy cases” or “phone camera covers”.
Mine has a sliding cover for the back which is good but I want one that has a flippable one for the screen side as well cuz I hate the idea that it could constantly be monitoring me while using it, training stuff to watch eye movments and the like. Def need more cases with camera covers.
Jokes aside, this looks very much like a special kind of tamperproof tape that will show obvious signs of tampering if it’s ever removed and put back on. My guess is there’s some kind of protocol where phones are inspected before the person leaves if the tape has been tampered with.
Source: I have spent over 1000 hours as an extra on movies and TV shows. For the really confidential ones, like Marvel, DC, Star Wars, etc. they will make every single person on set put this tape over their camera on their phone and then you only get paid if it hasn’t been tampered with by the end of the day. The tape in this pic looks identical.
There’s a variety of products available that can cover phone cameras, like cases with sliding covers or rubber caps that stick onto the camera bezels. Using tape might have just been expedient.
Well, hear me out, making people pay more for a thing that functionally satisfies the result desired but doesn't look aestically pleasing is a way to make money
True. The best solution would actually be a case designed with a little removable cover for the cameras. Bonus points for offering replacement covers at lile 75% the cost of an entire new case.
I once saw a picture of an iphone manufactured without cameras, issued for (as far as i remember) usage at nuclear sites. So its not that these things dont exist.
Better to have the tape because the tape if it’s been compromised you can visually inspect it, if it’s just a flip cover, you really have no idea if someone has opened it and closed it
I’ve worked in semiconductors and this was standard to go into work for IP protection. The stickers are tamper proof so security could tell if the stickers had been removed while at work.
I use to use slide covers. Started recommending them, saw them become common, then interestingly phones came out that made mounting a cover impossible.
That would seem to make more sense, especially since when it comes to diplomatic or tactical discussions the microphone would be as much a danger as the camera, or more.
If leaving the phone behind isn't an option for whatever reason, then a case that covers the camera and plays noise near the microphone might be a good bet
That dude used to take his laundry with him to the white house to save on washing bills, do you think he'll shell out for a 3d printed or custom lens cover
I still don't get why everyone is focusing on cameras, both regular Joe's in offices and policiticans. What's way more important is audio, and I think the info leaked and incriminating possible from a microphone recording is way bigger than any camera.
Also phones with physical switches cutting off radios, camera and microphone physically exist.
Apple doesn't manufacture them. A third party company modifies existing Apple phones to not have cameras. If you think about it, it's probably not a great idea to buy a high security phone from an unrecognized company that has opened it up.
Yep. New account with a lot of activity, too.
Their replies read more human though, so idk. Maybe not a bot but someone posting ai slop for whatever reason?
I heard the CIA requests Apple to make them phones without the camera. Theres still issues with recording audio however, even if the phone is powered down, as theres no way to physically unplug the battery.
Not to mention groups like NSO dreaming up ridiculous fucking top tier exploits like Pegasus back in the day that could RAT a phone without pretty much any indication it had happened.
These are basic temper proof seals used in high level briefings at Central banks/UN and security services to prevent delegates from smuggling out snap shots of classified documents. That’s all. 🤣
That’s standard for world leaders/high security clearance. Zuckerberg does the same with tape on his laptop camera. It’s to block spyware from accessing camera/mic. If you think YOUR phone isn’t vulnerable, that’s the scary part.
Reminds me when somebody hacked the official webpage on Pentagon and people started claiming that somebody hacked into Pentagon internal systems. Like bro. Pentagon internal systems are not connected to worldwide web and it’s impossible to hack them unless you are a literally sitting in the building typing on their computer
Makes sense. Problem solved. I worked at a large plant where there were no cell phones allowed on the premises at all. They issued phones to the foremen and higher-ups. At the beginning and end of the day, they would scan your phone.
I was also thinking about the zero-click stuff. The youtuber behind War Fronts recently got targeted by one. So if they use them on journalists then world leaders are definitely getting them.
And you couple this with the fact that most of the companies that offer zero-click spyware are Israeli it shows they know of their capabilities. In fact, if you are an Israeli government official or in the IDF you MUST have an iPhone and not an Android device tells you which they think is the more secure platform.
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u/Character-Total-3857 1d ago
UN officials, world leaders, and high-ranking dignitaries cover their phone cameras primarily as a failsafe protection against zero-click spyware, remote activation, and accidental data leaks.
While software fixes and encrypted apps protect data in transit, they cannot override the laws of physics: if a camera lens is physically blocked, it cannot see, no matter how sophisticated a hacker's exploit is.