More than once I was gifted camera-cover plastic things that I could stick to my laptop cameras. They all had convenient ways to open/close them, and they all had the logo of the company that was gifting them to me (one was a proprietary AI software library). I am 100% confident that those plastic things would indeed damage my display, since they were slightly thick and the laptop lid wouldn't properly close with them. So I kept the insulating tape that is currently there, and nothing was damaged. It does make some sense that this article exists.
Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
71–80 of 990 posts
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#72Seriously Apple, just stop blaming your users. Camera covers are a totally reasonable response to the threats we all face. If your precious computers can't have them installed, build one in.
I am a longtime Apple hardware user, but it's just getting so hard to keep using them...
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#73People 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…
Something I noticed specifically with webex is that the latency isn't nearly as bad in audio-only mode. Not as good as Mumble or Discord, but you can actually have a decent phone call.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#74There's still the audio problem.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#75Apple should have an indicator light for the microphone as well, and to avoid confusion,far from the camera. I don’t think it’s possible to block the mic.
It's possible to have hardware kill switches that can't be compromised via software. Apple opts not to include them.
Purism laptops include them. https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's not frequent, but the desired number of times is 0 :)
There's been a few times that my camera has activated in a meeting, and shown a black screen because of the cover.
My Lenovo Ubuntu machine has cover built into the casing, which seems ideal. For my Macbook, I use a thin (<.1mm) plastic sliding cover.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#77> "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…
Recent Apple laptops have a separate SoC dedicated to secure boot as well as making sure macOS has no direct control over that camera indicator light, and more
https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/07/29/what-apples-t2-ch... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Silicon#T_series
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#78Half 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...
Purism laptops include camera, mic and bluetooth physical kill switches. https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#79> "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…
The problem is in the design: by not providing a hardware switch, all we have is trust. As we can see from the past, unfortunatly it's not enough.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fud, these don’t work anymore.
The fact that they worked at all is an indication that something similar may work in the future. It's not like apple has never had a regression in software.
Gruber has an article about this; he mentions someone who is a former Apple engineer saying it's now implemented entirely in hardware.