I would like to know if the activity of a webcam (date and hour when it was on, etc.) is stored somewhere in the operating system.
Webcam to which I refer can be integrated or USB camera and the OS I'm interested are Windows and Linux.
Thanks!
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Hmm it might be possible if you look to logs from system that logs what is running and if look very carefull you may see something but if you are concerned about the webcam just let it unplugged while you don't use or tap it with something adhesive and remove when you want to use it or if you going really paranoid physically remove the webcam and microphones– FreedoCommented Jan 28, 2015 at 16:40
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2 Answers
No. It would be theoretically possible to write/hook/query a webcam driver and log this information, or an app using it could log its own camera usage, but by default such functionality is not present.
answered Jan 28, 2015 at 15:56
Normally, no. You can sometimes find some information. For example if you power cycle an USB cam on Linux, the USB handshake will appear in the system log. Something similar (WIA) might appear on the Application Event Log with Windows Event Viewer, depending on configuration.
By the same token, if the Linux system is a home system and possibly the gateway for the whole network, you might see the DHCP activity of the camera both at power on, on soft shutdown, and periodically upon DHCP renewal.
Also, some cameras (e.g. my DLink-942) generate SMTP traffic upon alert conditions. Others have a syslog facility. Traces of all this might be found on the gateway.
