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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

#231

Post by jrootabega »

noja wrote: post #35
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #15

> 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 .

Yep, and the cover can be toggled when the machine is locked or powered off.

Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera

#232

Post by youareostriches »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #186
scarface74 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could it be equally lucrative? The amount of information someone can gather from a camera is much smaller than what you could gather from a microphone in a given room. If I am in a conference room talking about strategy, an uncovered camera will just pick me up. The microphone will capture everyone’s conversation.

Blackmail potential. It's not the company meetings that criminals want to hack laptop cameras for.

For corporate espionage it is most certainly company meetings which are of interest.

Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera

#233

Post by maps7 »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #209
alunchbox wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason Zukerberg's laptop has its mic and camera tapped up. It doesn't matter what device you use unless there's a physical switch to disconnect it'll never be safe. Software can ALWAYS have zero days, just because it hasn't been exploited yet doesn't mean it can't be.

> There's a reason Zukerberg's laptop has its mic and camera tapped up Yeah, people who don't understand how hardware works.

What do you mean?

Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera

#234

Post by hyakosm »

scarface74 wrote: post #179
outoftheabyss wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say you are equally likely to catch someone jacking off through the webcam as to catch valuable information through the microphone. They are therefore equally lucrative

How could it be equally lucrative? The amount of information someone can gather from a camera is much smaller than what you could gather from a microphone in a given room. If I am in a conference room talking about strategy, an uncovered camera will just pick me up. The microphone will capture everyone’s conversation.

If you have your laptop in your bedroom, an uncovered camera can provide material for blackmail easily and fast.

Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera

#235

Post by dathinab »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #172
dathinab wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't matter. For many people the trust in integrated laptop cameras has been thoroughly eroded especially in case of Macs. (From my experience by interacting with people not having much tech experience, limited to Germany, maybe also limited to the social cycle(s) I interacted with.) The paradox thing is that the same people who often don't trust webcams in Apple Laptops or Apple All-In-One PCs do not bother or ev…

Why especially in Macs? Were there any particular horror stories?

There where a lot of horror stories about random people spying on "you" through mac webcams. Like in the sense that they hope to capture NSFW material and similar.

Most of this stories where not actually happening, I don't remember exactly but I think they came from a single story of targeted hacker attacks where such a thing actually happened and then people got blackmailed.

But it's was more comparable to some rumors which wildly spread and then many non technical people ended up believing and which somewhat had a truth at it's core somewhere so it's not easy to just put it of as "mad up".

Also it happened like a 5+ years ago, it just stuck with a lot of non tech people somehow. And it (normally) doesn't hurt so tech people aren't that likely to tell people that this isn't quite right. It's often already hard enough to convince them to do any privacy focused actions.

Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera

#236

Post by astrange »

soulofmischief wrote: post #198
sixothree wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am convinced they were ordered at some point to include cameras. They definitely drive up the cost of laptops, especially earlier on when webcams were more expensive. There were so few practical uses in the early days and so few people actually use them today that I am surprised few laptop manufacturers don't allow for security.

I think cameras are generally expected in non-budget laptops just as they are in phones.

Unfortunately, they're not even as good as phone front cameras because laptop screens are so thin. So people who do a lot of video chatting typically set up an external webcam or even a real camera in video mode.

Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera

#237

Post by Traster »

dathinab wrote: post #109
gtm1260 wrote: post #20

I was very skeptical of the camera covers, but then through conversations with some of my co-workers, I realized that they weren't being used because people were worried about spies secretly turning on the camera. It was 90% of the time just peace of mind that their camera was actually off, instead of having to find the sometimes hard to see options in video chat programs etc.

That is what I like with the Lenovo webcams in T480s and probably later versions. They have a small slider with the camera protection "glass" build in which can cover the camera and will "show" a red dot if it's covered.

Yeah, I have the X1 Carbon and there is nothing that is ever going to make me as comfortable as a little piece of plastic that sldies in front of the lens of the camera.

Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera

#238

Post by ehsankia »

alunchbox wrote: post #185
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

There's a reason Zukerberg's laptop has its mic and camera tapped up. It doesn't matter what device you use unless there's a physical switch to disconnect it'll never be safe. Software can ALWAYS have zero days, just because it hasn't been exploited yet doesn't mean it can't be.

> unless there's a physical switch to disconnect

The light indicator in modern webcams is a "physical" indicator. Sure, it won't stop it from being hacked, but it will light up whenever it is active. That part can't be hacked, since it's in the hardware.

Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera

#239

Post by ehsankia »

rurp wrote: post #225
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Is your point that because these issues have been fixed there will never be a new camera exploit in the future? I don't see how what you're saying supports that. If your point is simply that Apple has resolved camera vulnerabilities in the past, that's nice, but doesn't exactly give me much peace of mind about future vulnerabilities.

No, the point is that old light indicators were done in software (and were open to exploits), whereas newer indicators have all since moved to being wired right in the hardware. The power of the webcam lights up the indicator.

Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera

#240

Post by Traster »

DanBC wrote: post #181
soulofmischief wrote: post #160

If you close your Mac notebook with a camera cover installed, you might damage your display because the clearance between the display and keyboard is designed to very tight tolerances. Doesn't this sound like an engineering oversight and not a user error? Why are camera covers not just part of the design? My phone camera physically retracts when not in use.

> Why are camera covers not just part of the design? I guess Apple are going to say that they'd rather focus on the security of the OS and computer to prevent unauthorised software from being able to access the camera than on a mostly cosmetic doodad.

This is like focusing on the brakes and forgetting to install an airbag.
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