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Camera and microphone require HTTPS in Firefox 68

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Camera and microphone require HTTPS in Firefox 68

#11

Post by hereme888 »

asark wrote: post #6

Dear Apple: for Christmas I'd like physical, no-bullshit power shutoff switches for your camera and microphone on the Macbook Pro. Other devices too—if you can manage it, that'd be great. Sincerely, the people who put tape over their cameras, the people who don't because it's ugly and messes with closing the lid but wish they could, and the people who would be in one of those two camps if they understood the risk (so…

That's what the Purism laptops have. But they're linux-based (although I hear Mac OS is based on linux kernel).

Re: Camera and microphone require HTTPS in Firefox 68

#12

Post by [deleted] »

asark wrote: post #6

Dear Apple: for Christmas I'd like physical, no-bullshit power shutoff switches for your camera and microphone on the Macbook Pro. Other devices too—if you can manage it, that'd be great. Sincerely, the people who put tape over their cameras, the people who don't because it's ugly and messes with closing the lid but wish they could, and the people who would be in one of those two camps if they understood the risk (so…

[deleted]

Re: Camera and microphone require HTTPS in Firefox 68

#13

Post by ohazi »

hereme888 wrote: post #11
asark wrote: post #6

Dear Apple: for Christmas I'd like physical, no-bullshit power shutoff switches for your camera and microphone on the Macbook Pro. Other devices too—if you can manage it, that'd be great. Sincerely, the people who put tape over their cameras, the people who don't because it's ugly and messes with closing the lid but wish they could, and the people who would be in one of those two camps if they understood the risk (so…

That's what the Purism laptops have. But they're linux-based (although I hear Mac OS is based on linux kernel).

Mac OS is in no way based on the Linux kernel.

Re: Camera and microphone require HTTPS in Firefox 68

#14

Post by klodolph »

nhumrich wrote: post #5
petters wrote: post #2

It will still work on localhost, which is nice. It would be nice if it also worked on local IPs, like 192.168. . . Those do not work on Chrome, I think, which make mobile testing a bit more cumbersome.

You could add a tunnel via iptables to just route one port on localhost to another ip

iptables on your phone? I think you would need to root your phone, if it's Android.

Re: Camera and microphone require HTTPS in Firefox 68

#15

Post by jonny_eh »

atonse wrote: post #9
asark wrote: post #6

Dear Apple: for Christmas I'd like physical, no-bullshit power shutoff switches for your camera and microphone on the Macbook Pro. Other devices too—if you can manage it, that'd be great. Sincerely, the people who put tape over their cameras, the people who don't because it's ugly and messes with closing the lid but wish they could, and the people who would be in one of those two camps if they understood the risk (so…

From my understanding, Apple has done sort of what you're asking for, they've hooked up the physical wiring of the camera LED to the camera itself, so it is physically impossible to power the camera without the LED being turned on (as opposed to the "turn on LED" being part of firmware logic that could be hacked).

What about the mic?

Re: Camera and microphone require HTTPS in Firefox 68

#16

Post by nothrabannosir »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #7
asark wrote: post #6

Dear Apple: for Christmas I'd like physical, no-bullshit power shutoff switches for your camera and microphone on the Macbook Pro. Other devices too—if you can manage it, that'd be great. Sincerely, the people who put tape over their cameras, the people who don't because it's ugly and messes with closing the lid but wish they could, and the people who would be in one of those two camps if they understood the risk (so…

Have you noticed that the people who tape up their laptop camera almost always still carry around a smartphone in their pocket 100% of the time.

A smartphone is significantly more secure than a computer. I install lord knows what NPM package from God knows where on a weekly basis. Only since very recently does mic or camera access cause any kind of system prompt on Mac.

Smartphones , for all their faults , at least are far less vulnerable to viruses than pcs.

Or at least iOS vs Mac.

Re: Camera and microphone require HTTPS in Firefox 68

#17

Post by t34543 »

atonse wrote: post #9
asark wrote: post #6

Dear Apple: for Christmas I'd like physical, no-bullshit power shutoff switches for your camera and microphone on the Macbook Pro. Other devices too—if you can manage it, that'd be great. Sincerely, the people who put tape over their cameras, the people who don't because it's ugly and messes with closing the lid but wish they could, and the people who would be in one of those two camps if they understood the risk (so…

From my understanding, Apple has done sort of what you're asking for, they've hooked up the physical wiring of the camera LED to the camera itself, so it is physically impossible to power the camera without the LED being turned on (as opposed to the "turn on LED" being part of firmware logic that could be hacked).

I’ve read this as well but my macbook senses ambient light and adjusts my backlight accordingly. Isn’t this through the camera - with no LED?

Re: Camera and microphone require HTTPS in Firefox 68

#18

Post by pietroglyph »

hereme888 wrote: post #11
asark wrote: post #6

Dear Apple: for Christmas I'd like physical, no-bullshit power shutoff switches for your camera and microphone on the Macbook Pro. Other devices too—if you can manage it, that'd be great. Sincerely, the people who put tape over their cameras, the people who don't because it's ugly and messes with closing the lid but wish they could, and the people who would be in one of those two camps if they understood the risk (so…

That's what the Purism laptops have. But they're linux-based (although I hear Mac OS is based on linux kernel).

macOS is based upon XNU, which was based upon the Mach kernel (with bits of BSD userspace), not Linux.

Re: Camera and microphone require HTTPS in Firefox 68

#19

Post by groovybits »

hereme888 wrote: post #11
asark wrote: post #6

Dear Apple: for Christmas I'd like physical, no-bullshit power shutoff switches for your camera and microphone on the Macbook Pro. Other devices too—if you can manage it, that'd be great. Sincerely, the people who put tape over their cameras, the people who don't because it's ugly and messes with closing the lid but wish they could, and the people who would be in one of those two camps if they understood the risk (so…

That's what the Purism laptops have. But they're linux-based (although I hear Mac OS is based on linux kernel).

Mac OS was originally based on BSD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution

Re: Camera and microphone require HTTPS in Firefox 68

#20

Post by Analemma_ »

t34543 wrote: post #17
atonse wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding, Apple has done sort of what you're asking for, they've hooked up the physical wiring of the camera LED to the camera itself, so it is physically impossible to power the camera without the LED being turned on (as opposed to the "turn on LED" being part of firmware logic that could be hacked).

I’ve read this as well but my macbook senses ambient light and adjusts my backlight accordingly. Isn’t this through the camera - with no LED?

No, the ambient light sensing is done with a light sensor on the body - look for the tiny hole drilled into the chassis. It doesn't use the camera.
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