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A webcam & microphone JS tester library that you can put in front of your WebRTC or MediaRecorder web app to diagnose any possible issues (the presence of getUserMedia, secure context, required devices, policies blocking device access, supported resolutions, etc.). It also primes your users’ OS/browser permissions before they get to the real app.

https://github.com/addpipe/webcam-tester

Live demo @ https://addpipe.com/webcam-tester/


System audio (i.e. Zoom calls) can be captured only on Chromium browsers on Windows and ChromeOS when sharing the entire screen; tab audio has wider OS support; Safari and Firefox do not support system or tab audio capture https://addpipe.com/docs/recording-client/screen-recording/#...

The MDN support table does not differentiate in this regard. (le: it actually does if you click to see the implementation notes)


That seems overkill. @levelsio ran his $1M business on "FTP" https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1327451757975375874


I remember the tool. Saved me many times during my heavy Flash development years!


It's not free even if you put in just your time. In a startup, everything competes for your time. You could spend it on your product or other growth channels.


Actually, under the GDPR, as a general rule, you can't just keep personal data on your servers forever so GDPR might be involved but for personal data cleanup reasons/requirements.


Kudos to GDPR obliging companies to allow users to delete their personal data.


People say that but my paranoid side is convinced that no real deletion happens :-/


Its likely not deleted in backups is my suspicion. I dont know what policies some companies have in regards to backups.

Also some companies always had the option for years.

One good test might be to create Facebook and instagram accounts, then upload images, save direct links to those images. Delete the accounts and see.... If the links work after clearing cache / a few days / weeks / months... Then yeah they just keep your data but detach it from friends and your email / password.


Indeed it isn't deleted from backups. And according to [1] it doesn't have to be. In the company I work for it's handled the way that we have a list of subjects (their id in database) who requested deletion and after restoring any backup the subjects' data from the list is deleted again.

[1]: https://www.itgovernance.eu/blog/en/the-gdpr-how-the-right-t...


So do those records get deleted eventually? Or do they live on forever like some kind of ghost?


I think I am okay with this. So long as nobody is doing analysis on the data, it should be ok.


Direct links probably end up in their caches. If they stop being visited then you're fine and they'll be evicted, but intentionally evicting data that's been deleted is one of the hardest parts of implementing full deletion.


GDPR lawyers told me it should be deleted from backups if it is doable without breaking the integrity of the backup copy. If it could break the integrity or is technically impossible, then the company should have a list of all records to be deleted after restoring a backup and ensure that this list will be processed on each backup restore.


Subpoena their records for a lawsuit and see what they really have. My prediction is that at major tech companies (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc) your data is actually deleted when you say "delete" while startups tend to start with soft deletions (less worried about being sued).


It could be that they store your data all encrypted, and when you want it deleted they just delete the encryption key from a few well defined places. That way there is less need to mess with backups, etc.


    update account set date_deleted = now() where account_id = 123


https://joindeleteme.com/help/diy-free-opt-out-guide/

why is a backgroundcheck company the right sponsor for a deletion directory?


I'm not worried that much about the technical side though, it is the data hoarding tendencies most sites have that i'm worried about.


Some years ago on a large though not especially well-known social network the task of deleting certain image files which it proved problematic to possess fell in my lap.

The list had been curated by ... some process not fully explained to me. A small number of spot checks convinced me that I didn't want to run any further validations myself, and I've rarely shredded any files harder.

The total set of images numbered in the millions, with each source image resulting in numerous thumbnail and preview sizes, as well as differing versions of the service app resulting in different naming patterns, paths, and locations. All of which were fronted by a CDN that had its own deletion mechanisms which I had to learn and adapt. The project involved conferences with the CDN's engineers.

I rapdily got the sense that large-scale bulk deletes weren't a frequently-encountered use case, as the default was to use a web form. That would have taken centuries to complete.

Some simple shell and awk could generate all the potential patterns, and batch the deletions (about 200 per request, with a return code indicating whether or not the request was accepted or the queue was full).

Documentation and initial tests suggested that it might take weeks, possibly months, to complete the deletions from the CDN. Residency on the CDN in any event was ~9 - 18 months, though no clear guarantees of deletion.

In practice, I kicked off the job on a Friday afternoon, and it completed over the weekend. The same initial request-generating code could be used to spot-check (random sampling), and eventually exhaustively search the space to confirm that all deleted content was now 404.

This was well before GDPR, and though the network userbase numbered in the tens of millions, the engineering staff was small (technology is an interesting multiplier lever, useful when deploying, problematic when dealing with issues at scale).

Upshot: deletion can be complicated. It's generally possible, however.

(A full scrub would have involved backups. I believe that the technical solution to that problem was not having any in the first place. Largely confirmed when the service fell over completely a few years later. Another warning regards online SAAS.)


You can find "slim" webcam privacy covers on Amazon. Since they can slide it they're a better solution than tape.


1st world problem

I used to live in Romania where hospitals are full of deadly bacteria, doctors are corrupt, nurses are corrupt. There's a shortage of equipment, vaccines, cancer treatment, important medicine, you name it. There is no place in the country to treat a seriously burned man, they all die. Obviously, lifespan here is shorter than in the US by about 4-5 years.


> 1st world problem

I suspect it isn't.

You didn't tell us how human are all those corrupt nurses and doctors? Maybe they offer first-rate compassion and spiritual support, once they pocketed their bribe?

People die everywhere, and even in poor countries people not always die because of shortages of equipment and treatments... hope in Romania terminal patients are accompanied to death with all due compassion -- this has no material costs that only 1st world can afford.


Sure, thinks are worse in other places. That doesn't make this right or make it less newsworthy.


I think it's reasonable for people who aren't living in Romania to expect conditions that are different than Romania's.


Revolut allows you to generate "virtual" credit cards which are just disposable credit card numbers linked to your account. You can spun one for every major online service you use (Netflix, Amazon, etc.) in case it gets hacked or for any transaction you're making on a less trusted site.


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