Hey DST...I hope you don't mind or feel like I'm raining on your parade, but I thought I would respost this comment on the site you linked because there are super paranoid people out there who could use some mind easing from the other side of the coin before they flip out!
28 May, 2009 - 13:34 Jonny (not verified)
Umm.... No?
Ok, first - The Flash Camera Access prompt is well worded, conceise, and makes no attempt to access your camera in the background. Its called a Prompt because, it does just that, it Prompts you, asking you if you mind if we can have access your camera. NOTE - Accessing Camera, and HAVING access to the camera are 2 completely different things.
Secondly - What on earth do you think Youtube would have to gain by 'SPYING' on people staring into a webcam. Webcam's are rarely, pointed at keyboards, therefore its not likely they could capture someones passwords, credit card details (unless you make a habit of holding your credit card infront of your webcam, in which case, RETARD YOU. Lol)
To be bluntly honest, if they really wanted to spy on you, they could capture you're password on registration, forward it to their e-mail, and then go check your e-mail inbox for paypal details etc. It would be a lot easier than 'Accessing the Webcam'.
The only thing they would probably see, when Spying, is some ugly 14 year old kid staring at the camera, picking his nose.
There are alot of people in the world, and quite a few of them have greater technical and legal knowledge than myself and everyone else on this blog, although, I seem to be king of the hill when it comes to common sense at the moment.
If YOUTUBE were doing what you claimed, they would be closed down, and have lawsuits filed against them by internet providers, users and probably face some conspiracy to commit fraud charges.
As for what the Flash Prompt means,
Basically, when you log into Youtube, and visit the page for uploads, and choose to upload from your web cam, Youtube messages your browser, specifically the flash/shockwave plugin, and asks it to ask you if it can access your camera.
You always have the choice of saying YES or NO.
There is absolutly nothing seedy, or untrustworthy about this, Since it never hides its intentions.
Note - Selecting YES, grants permission for it to Access your camera, but it in no way means that it IS going to access your camera.
I could grant access via that prompt, to a website to access my camera, and voila..... hey... my Webcam light has not turned on/powered up. (macbook - it powers up on its own)
When your camera IS in use, they usually, have some sort of visual indicator to indicate it is powered up.
Youtube only accesses your camera, with permission, and when you are uploading video directly to the site.
Also another note - s.ytimg.com
This is the domain name that background images on peoples profiles are stored on. If you are seeing this domain coming up in cookies, or coming up as referrers or whatever, its due to the fact that either someones youtube profile is using a background image or video, from your myspace or whatever site.
You can check it yourself, right click on someones youtube profile, someone who has a background image, and view source.
All in all - Youtube spying on you?
------ No...
Show me proof that video is being uploaded, and stored on a remote server, then I will believe you, heck if you prove it very convincingly, I might even start the law suit off.
Quite why anyone thought that this wold be a good thing to add into a browser component is beyond me; browsers should browse, they should not attempt to do video conferencing
OMG - In that case, FARMERS should Farm, and not have social Lives. Lol
I guess that means that every Social Networking site, that offers video chat, voice chat, or even Online Games, should only play, not do silly features like voice chat, cause thats what team speak is for.
Spy in the net? Adobe is the enemy
Yeah - You lead the rebellion, and we will all stop using Adobe Products. Everyone uninstall their Flash Players please. O.O Oh Oh.... No Flash Player = No Youtube.
Talking about spies...Do you know how to rid your site of a "bot"? Our myspace and our main web site, plus possibly others have been attacked with a robot.
Some Bots = Good
Some Bots = Bad
Good Bots = GoogleBot and other such spider/web crawlers. They go into a website, capture every single link, and href, and e-mail address etc, and add it to the search engines keywords list. Meaning, once the bot has been on a page, a day or so later, it should appear on google.
Bad Bots = Junk Mailers etc. These web crawl web pages, capturing e-mail addresses, and save them to a database, and then e-mail those e-mail addresses things like links to viagra, diet pills, viruses, etc. There is no way to stop these type of Bots, except for making your site/page private, in which case, only people who you grant access to, can access the page.
Next you should post a way to completely remove the google and ask toolbars, which are obviously both "legit" corporate spyware.
Clearly Google and Ask.com dont like you, because Im able to opt out of installing these addons, and disable them when ever I want if they are installed, via tools menu > manage addons (IE7)
. 
Para Pete oot. 
