While I was at the aerodrome the other day awaiting entry into my stasis pod for a short day trip to LaLaLand, I overheard a fellow traveler sanctimoniously admonishing another passenger over the fact that she wasn’t covering her laptop camera with some tape or such.

She informed him that if someone got into her computer, the webcam was the least of her problems. Moreover, she said, she didn’t use the laptop while indelicately dressed, or have confidential stuff around while computing.

It wasn’t enough for him.

I tried to MMOB, but the guy was relentless.

He then brought up the fact that “[Facebook’s] Mark Zuckerberg covers his laptop webcam..”.

At this point, you just know I had to step in.

“Sir,” I said, (actually, I didn’t say ‘sir’, and didn’t want to ), “do you have all webcams in all of your devices covered?”

“Yes”, he replied.

Excellent, I told him. Because some people only think of their laptops.

He agreed with me on that.

Then, I slipped in a plastic spork between his ribs: “I assume, you have that done on your iPads or tablets too?”, I asked.

No, he didn’t.

“You must be joking, I exclaimed!

Then, and only, then, with his mouth slightly agape from the virtual bleeding caused by the shock of the spork wound, I decided to mercifully administer the coup de grâce, hitting him with virtual flensing knives: “Please don’t tell me you do not have the cameras on your phone, both rear and front-facing, covered for security purposes as well?”, I asked, with an Oscar-class performance of a completely aghast countenance on my melon.

He didn’t.

I don’t.

Neither do you.

People, stop this bullschtako.

I can understand operatives at TLA security organs covering up their webcams, and being mungo paranoid. It’s their job to be so.

Not you.

Not me.

They have hardened devices.

With which they are extremely careful.

Our Smartphones
Our smartphones are the most intimate devices we own.

We take them everywhere.

Everywhere. Bedrooms, boardrooms, bathrooms. Heck, some people even take them into the shi**er and orinatoio. Not me, but, to each his/her own.

Without the cameras being covered!

See where I’m going here?

If, your laptop, which generally has a single, weak, low-resolution user-facing camera, warrants the extra security measure of you taping over that camera’s lenses for privacy and whatnot, what about your smartphone?

Yes, your smartphone, which almost always dual high resolution cameras that are pointed in two opposite directions for near 360⁰ coverage?

That smartphone?

Isn’t the covering-up-the-webcam practice a security placebo?

Y’all have a good day now, bokay?

© 2002 – 2017, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited

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