Re: "An application want to turn on your camera..."

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 10/04/2025 01:01, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

The Chromium browser was running

 
That is probably the culprit.
 

Can you explain a bit more? Chromium is a popular and sometimes
justified scapegoat, but it's primarily a display process, not a
capture process.

 
Browsers use the camera for video calls - Zoom, Teams, ...
(when you aren't using their dedicated apps)
 
Some websites also use it for taking static photos - eg a bank wants to take
a picture of you and your ID for verification.
 
They shouldn't ask for camera permission unless a website wants it, but
perhaps you went to a website that did.
 

I wasn't doing anything that would justify a photo ID, but it would
make sense to seek a snapshot for future use. But it seems really dumb
to openly ask that a camera be used when no camera is present.

Speaking of chromium, I just noticed the latest upgrade disabled
ublock-origin. That's scapegoat-worthy. Can apt revert the change?

 
That's a feature (for Google, not for you):
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/google-chrome-disables-ublock-origin-for-some-in-manifest-v3-rollout/
 
Your options are using uBlock Origin Lite, or switch to Firefox. See:
https://ublockorigin.com/
>

Firefox it is. At least for now.

You could find an old version of the Chromium .deb to install and pin it
using apt so it never updates, but that would be missing security updates
and be vulnerable.
>

Agreed, that's a poor solution. Still, there are a number of alternative
browsers (brave, dillo, iridium, opera, vivaldi, palemoon....)
Do any work?

thanks for writing,

bob prohaska