Webcam privacy concerns

[roswell1329]

Hey all, it's been a while since I posted here, and it's nice to see so many familiar posters on the main page as well as a bevy of new ones! Anyway, on to brass tacks:

My question is about webcam privacy. Several IM networks are now offering the ability for simple web conferences with individuals, or video chats as some call them. I can't find any literature that speaks to the security of that, though (even a search here pulled up very few related posts). I imagine it's possible to snag a video stream of the wire, but I don't know if there's currently any simple way of decoding it to get a picture. I do know that at least 1 IM network (Yahoo!) usually establishes a direct peer-to-peer connection for video-chats (probably to alleviate throughput on their network), which would make the transmission a little less "public". However, if there is a way to decode a video stream, are there any applications that you're aware of that can encrypt such video streams? Would the encryption process drastically reduce frame rate?

Additionally, I wonder if streamed video from the web can ever be cached locally by an application, or if it's simply just discarded. I would imagine any kind of cache would have to be an actively rolling cache so the file wouldn't get too big, but I'm kinda new to the area of webcams and I don't know for sure.

Any information anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[RoadClosed]

The reason there is a new generation of motivated hackers???? Web Cams.

[roswell1329]

Well, after some more research, I found a plugin for Skype called video4IM. It's still in beta, but it offers 128-bit end-to-end encryption for video communication. Sounds good to me.

Still looking for any answers on the streaming video question. Can streaming video be cached?

[phishphreek]

Still looking for any answers on the streaming video question. Can streaming video be cached?

Yes. Take a look at youtube, or any popular torrent site. You'll find all kinds of "private webcam" sessions on there.

[bagggi]

talk about privacy

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...ebcam+cheating


cheers

[acidtone]

talk about privacy

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...ebcam+cheating


cheers

lol that kind of looked as though it's was staged for some commercial or something..

kind of reminded me off that whole lonelygirl15 stunt that was pulled on youtube not that long ago

[RoadClosed]

I still want to slap the **** out of her. Not that I cared about her original video.

I like youtube. There are a lot of cool DIY videos on there and the stuff Tommy Chong posts is hilarious.