Earlier quoted context omitted.
And what sort of hardware switch is it that guarantees the 3 second minimum?
A capacitor?
A capacitor would also mean that you could quickly switch the camera on and off without triggering the light.
Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
611–620 of 990 posts
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#612Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple hardwired the LED to the camera. It can't be disabled.
Hardwired or not, it doesn't mean the LED can't be disabled by malware: https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569
The “versions of MacBook laptops and iMac desktops” they are referring to are the ones from more that 8 years ago that didn’t have the hard wired LED. Nowadays there is literally a wire from the sensor to the LED. If the sensor is on, the LED is on. It’s got nothing to do with firmware.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#613Not just Apple. I have Lenovo yoga. Put a sliding cover. Now I have cracked display cover though led panel is ok. Don’t do it folks
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#614I have personally used a camera cover on 4 macbook pros and 1 macbook air, I have friends and colleagues who have done so as well, I've never heard of anyone having an issue. Just my 2cents.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#615Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple hardwired the LED to the camera. It can't be disabled.
How do you know? And how do you know there is not a bug in the electrical design?
How do we know there isn’t a secret spy camera hidden somewhere else in the laptop? How do we know Apple didn’t hide spy nabobots in their products that spread all over our houses watching everything we do?
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
People forget because you have to train yourself to remember, and outside of intelligence agency personnel, no one is doing that I'm sorry, do you mean to say that only intelligence agency personnel are capable of remembering a simple habit such as sliding a camera cover? Not too long ago we were all using flip phones, many with extendable antennas, and no one was having trouble remembering to flip open their phone a…
Closing the camera isn’t required to use it, only to disable it. Flip phones required opening to use them (and closing to fit in your pocket). And yes, 90% of people aren’t going to remember to close the camera cover every time. The LED indicator is all you need as long as its hardwired like Apples is.
Your argument to not having a cover is that some people will occasionally forget to use it. That's preposterous, and I can't imagine applying that argument with a straight face to something like seatbelts or gun safety mechanisms.
> The LED indicator is all you need as long as its hardwired like Apple's is.
An LED indicator does nothing to stop someone from snooping.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#618Earlier quoted context omitted.
You still have a silent mode toggle on your iphone. I think apple can figure out how to add a hardware switch for a camera/mic to a laptop without compromising thickness. It doesnt need to be a hardware cover, just a hardware killswitch to the circuit.
> You still have a silent mode toggle on your iphone. Yes, and it's one of, what, three moving parts left? Even the home button on the iPhone 7, 8, and 2020 SE is fake, it doesn't actually depress.
I think the removal of iphone buttons is for water resistance which I don't think applies to laptops.
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#619I 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.
Yeah, I started using to LARP, but it's actually huge for peace of mind. When I'm in meetings and I want to make sure that nobody can see make butt naked, I place the webcam cover. The person caught peeing on a zoom VC[1] would never have happened with a webcam cover.
Also, I am really worried about microphones. I have 2 google homes, 6 siris (iPhones and apple watch), a portal, a number of macbook pros and airs, a PS4, ... any of these devices could be listening to me at all time :/
[1]: https://geekologie.com/2020/03/poor-jennifer-woman-takes-lap...
Re: Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
#620I 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.
Exactly this. I use one for these reasons, in descending order of practical concern: 1. I don't want to broadcast myself during a meeting when I'm not prepared, or perhaps leave a meeting open by accident. 2. If a bad actor does access my camera, I won't necessarily notice the indicator light, especially if I'm not actively using the computer at that moment. 3. I don't trust the indicator light to be permanently unha…
I've actually been on calls when the person did not want to show their webcam (and I had never seen them face to face) and did not notice they were showing their webcam due to having several screens.