Japanese washi tape is the perfect solution to the 'covering the webcam' problem. It leaves no residue and resticks over and over.
Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
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Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#52Lenovos have a physical cover that can be shut when camera is not in use. It’s paranoia free and tape is no longer needed for that. Maybe apple could do something similar for their users comfort
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#53People are suggesting just using tape, but the issue is when you want to un-cover it frequently (which is probably more common now than a few months ago). For a couple dollars you can get a thin, nice-looking little plastic cover that you can actually slide out of the way when you need to use it. Most of these are thin enough not to be a problem, but they vary, and even the really thin ones usually don't quite let yo…
TBH the thing I’ve noticed is just how fast people stopped turning cameras on during Webex. Before the nearly everyone at my company what was WFH or was joining from their laptop rather than a video conferencing room had their camera on. Within like a week of the lockdown people stopped and I can imagine why you stopped dressing, stopped shaving heck I can hear bedsheets on some of the calls I attend. Pretty much now…
That's some pretty broad-strokes-painting. I'm still on a video call every week, and I'm not in as many meetings as most of my coworkers. I'm also in two separate weekly online roleplaying game groups and we use cameras for those because it's much less fun without the added expressiveness.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#54> "Designed to protect your privacy, Mac notebooks have a camera indicator light to let you know when the camera is on. ... Published Date: July 02, 2020" Perhaps Apple missed these? 2013: iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569 2016: Your Mac’s Camera Can Be Hacked https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/your-macs-camera-ca... 2016: Former NSA emp…
>2013: iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569
... applies only to older Mac notebooks from like 2008 period which are long since obsolete according to Apple's announced support policy.
>2016: Your Mac’s Camera Can Be Hacked https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/your-macs-camera-ca....
... refers specifically the exploit above.
>2016: Former NSA employee: This hack gains access to your Mac's webcam https://www.cnet.com/news/mac-webcam-hack-ex-nsa-employee/
... is an attack that depends on the camera already being in use by another application and therefore has nothing to do with the camera indicator.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#55Tangentially related: I have an HP notebook that has a physical webcam switch near the USB ports and microSD slot. This switch is not wired to the webcam in any way. It's a USB HID device. You need to install software drivers to make that switch function as a control of the webcam. That is insane.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've never understood physical covers, then again I am never in a compromising position in front of my laptop. Any malware that can take pictures can record keystrokes. I want no cover so I can see the activity light because knowing the webcam is on is more important than it being on. The (pennsylvania?) school district webcam spying scandal got kicked off because a boy noticed his webcam light coming on. If it had b…
For me it's not about blackmail, it's about making sure the camera isn't accidentality enabled unexpectedly during a meeting. The worst that would happen is I'd look kinda unprofessional slurping up some noodles, but having the camera covered allows me to be confident I'm not presenting unless I intend to.
Does that happen often?
We've been 100% Microsoft Teams since March so I'd say that in several hundred calls and conferences since then I've never activated the webcam without intent.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#57> The camera is engineered so that it can’t activate without the camera indicator light also turning on. Has anyone torn down the hardware and verified this lately? It should not be a complicated feature at all. Just ensure you have the same voltage applied to your LED circuit as your camera circuit, and enforce that by having them on the same wire...
Wait: that's not the same as having a camera cover. A camera cover guarantees that the camera can only work when the camera is uncovered. A camera light alerts you once the camera is already on .
Yeah, light can turn on when one is looking away from the computer or sleeping and could potentially be spied on. A cover is a non spying guarantee, at least the visual part, spies can listen on the mic though
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#58Beyond a certain point Apple computers became a status symbol and now they seem to be able to get the users to cater to them instead of the other way around.
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Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#59Half of my office has camera covers, honestly at this point I'd have a lot of respect for any maker who had a physical mechanism to their camera... Sort of like the original iSight https://www.coolsmartphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/is...
I've never understood physical covers, then again I am never in a compromising position in front of my laptop. Any malware that can take pictures can record keystrokes. I want no cover so I can see the activity light because knowing the webcam is on is more important than it being on. The (pennsylvania?) school district webcam spying scandal got kicked off because a boy noticed his webcam light coming on. If it had b…
I don't think it's an either/or scenario. It's easy to put a cover on where you can still see the indicator light on MacBooks.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#60> "Designed to protect your privacy, Mac notebooks have a camera indicator light to let you know when the camera is on. ... Published Date: July 02, 2020" Perhaps Apple missed these? 2013: iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569 2016: Your Mac’s Camera Can Be Hacked https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/your-macs-camera-ca... 2016: Former NSA emp…
Fud, these don’t work anymore.
I don't think they are saying that a vulnerability currently exists. I think they are saying that people don't trust these lights because they have a bad track record. It could be that the current implementation is better, but how is an end user supposed to know it's better?
It's kind of a matter of fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.