While Barack Obama has selected key members of his national security team—Defense Secretary, National Security Adviser and Secretary of State—there are calls for the president-elect to make another security appointment. The bipartisan Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency suggests that there is a dire need to create a National Office for Cyberspace to protect our nation’s most sensitive computer networks. The need for national cyberspace security is a no-brainer, but who is going to protect us from the digital devices that organize our lives and leaves personal information vulnerable to theft? Here, a behind-the-scenes look at how hackers are unearthing the private details of our lives by attacking our web browsers, cell phones, and personal electronics.
Marisel Garcia first suspected something was amiss with her laptop when she noticed that the tiny activity light above the built-in camera flickered whenever she was in front of it. The Hialeah, Fla., resident also thought the PC’s battery was draining faster than normal. When she brought her laptop to a friend who worked in technology, he found that someone had installed software that allowed the computer to be controlled remotely. What’s worse, that person had been taking photos through her webcam.
Investigators say the spyware was created and installed by Craig Matthew Feigin, a 23-year-old student at the University of Florida who had previously offered to fix a problem with Garcia’s computer. Police arrested Feigin, who now faces a federal charge for computer tampering, to which he has pleaded not guilty. In his statement to police, Feigin described how he had configured the software to take snapshots of anyone who moved in front of the webcam. He eventually amassed more than 20,000 images of Garcia, her boyfriend and other friends, and sent snapshots of their most private moments over the Internet to contacts in Eastern Europe. Considered tech-savvy around campus, Feigin was often approached by students who needed help with their computers, and Garcia was in town visiting friends when she asked for his help to make her PC run faster. He admitted to investigators that he had installed the same software on PCs belonging to more than half a dozen other women.
According to court records, Garcia used her laptop the way many people do today—as a communications link that’s always online and carried from room to room for e-mailing, instant messaging and shopping. This type of open digital pipeline connecting private space and the public Internet is swiftly becoming the norm in America. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, more than half of the adult population in America now use broadband Internet. Plus, almost 30 percent of Americans have 3G-capable phones. These are the twin pillars of our digitally connected modern society: High-speed DSL and cable broadband connections have transformed the way people use the Internet at home, while 3G cellular networks have allowed us to take that digital connection on the road.
As these powerful networks have evolved, so have the devices we use to access them. Personal computers, once self-contained processing machines, have become permanently connected devices. Most software also requires an Internet link to work properly; in fact, the latest trend in “cloud computing” moves software off the computer altogether. The evolution in cellphones has been even more dramatic. These were once analog devices designed exclusively for making phone calls; now they are data-centric mini-computers with integrated satellite-tracking capability. With each new gadget we buy and use, we make a choice to further integrate our lives into the public Internet. That decision has enormous implications for our conventional understanding of privacy and personal space.
Our digital tools provide an open window to our lives, and a long list of curious characters—hacker peeping Toms, corporate marketers, jealous jilted lovers, snooping government agencies—are eager to look inside. And the digital portrait they see is more detailed than ever. According to market research firm IDC, the average person has an online digital presence of 45 GB—about half of which is created by outside sources. This digital shadow of our lives is colored in with e-mails, photo posts, password hints, Facebook friend requests and location-based queries flowing fluidly in and out of the electronic devices we bring with us everywhere.
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A camera being used on a laptop is one thing. What about all of the other items in the world that have added features for our benefit that people can tap for hacking and tracking purposes? Cell phones, Digital Cameras with wifi photo cards, bluetooth ANYTHING, cameras on building and houses that point into neighbor’s yards… And believe me, my neighbor actually does THIS!!!!!
This is all crazy stuff and it has only just begun. Read on by clicking below to see how you can even be tracked by your cell phone and what that means for the future of the judiciary system!
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