“If you hit a camera lens, it’s going to give a blue-ish reflection.”
Marcus Hutchins is a security researcher who has been helping others feel safer by sharing industry secrets on social media.
In his TikTok, he explains, “The first thing you’re going to want to look for is devices conveniently placed where a creeper would want to lurk. Take this fire alarm, for instance, it’s placed right above the bed…”
“One way to see if a device has a camera is to shine a bright light at it. If you hit a camera lens, it’s going to give a blue-ish reflection. You can test this by shining a light at your phone and seeing how the camera looks when placed under a flashlight.”
“Now, this clock is mirrored, but if we shine a bright light at it, we can see through the glass and see there’s a camera there. This technique can also work on two-way mirrors.”
“The camera is USB charged, and the wall charger it’s plugged into is actually also a camera. If we shine a light on it, you can see that little pinhole in the middle with the blue reflection, that is the camera lens.”
“Night vision cameras use infrared LEDs to see and, if we turn off the lights and use the front-facing phone camera, we can actually see these LEDs. The front-facing camera is the only one that tends to work because the back-facing one has an IR filter.”
“Now, you can sort of see the infrared LEDs on this clock already, but if we cover up the main LED, we can actually see them a lot better.”
@malwaretech / tiktok.com
“I wouldn’t rely on this method because people don’t usually shower in the dark. So, if they’re placing cameras in the bathroom, then they’re probably not going to bother with night vision. So, these camera lenses are very small — as you can see here — so they can be hidden in anything, even a hole in the wall.”
“You always wanna check any suspicious devices or holes that are facing the shower, dressing area, or the bed,” he concluded.
BuzzFeed spoke to Marcus, who said he staged the video as an example scenario for illustration purposes. “That situation is not something I have personally encountered,” he said.
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristatorres/hidden-camera-airbnb-tiktok