[wplug] Klipmart.com / macromedia , invading my privacy?

[Patrick Wagstrom]

On Thu, 2006-12-14 at 22:05 -0800, Juan Zuluaga wrote:
> When visiting pages like
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061215/ap_on_re_us/polygamist_leader
> a Flash window opens. If I right-click on it, a little
> box opens with the text "Macromedia Flash Player
> Settings. Privacy. Allow klipmart.com to access your
> camera and microphone?" and the options allow and
> deny, deny being the default. 
> 
> wtf? What does this mean?  Are there companies able to
> invade the privacy of my home? 

Juan,

That's an artifact of the Adobe Flash Player.  Flash has some rather
nifty features where advanced flash applications can utilize your camera
and microphone for video conferencing.  I've also seen a few sites that
make more novel use of the webcam, for example
http://en.barcodepedia.com/ is a social barcode site.  Yup, strange, but
it allows you scan your barcodes around the house (movies, dvds, etc)
and keep a database of them.  The place that I've honestly found this
feature most useful is using Macromedia/Adobe Breeze, which is some
really good videoconferencing/presentation software.

If you read the license of Flash Player, you'll see that the default for
ALL sites is to not be able to access your webcam and microphone.  In
fact, it it's a violation of Pennsylvania wiretap law to record audio
without someone's permission, this is one of the reason why filming
audio in public spaces is so difficult.  Video is another story, however
I'd imagine that unauthorized use would be subject to either computer
misuse, or even tresspassing if you got a good lawyer.

Either way, I wouldn't be too concerned about it, at least from flash.

> Using linux, how can I be sure that there is no chance
> that such software will use my microphone or camera,
> if I had them? 

There are a few ways to do this.  The easiest way is just to change the
permissions on the webcam and audio in devices and change them back when
you want to use them.  Another nifty alternative is to cook up an
iNotify hook that prompts the user every time a process wishes to open
up the webcam device.  The latter is potentially an interesting
solution, but I don't know of anyone who has actually done it.

As a final solution, you can do what I do.  Use firefox with adblock
plus and just block all of klipmart.com.  Also blocks annoying flash ads
on Digg too!

--Patrick