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Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

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Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#11

Post by jcromartie »

user24 wrote: post #7

I'll tell you what else seems to always be listening - the camera on the MacBook Pro, even when the little green light is off. Cover the camera with your finger or shine a flashlight/mobile phone screen into it, watch the keyboard lights react. It's obviously listening for light level changes. I just wonder how much data you could collect from the sensor without the green light turning on? edit: I'm wrong, see my rep…

If you look closely, there's actually another dot next to the camera. That's the ambient light sensor.

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#12

Post by user24 »

jcromartie wrote: post #11
user24 wrote: post #7

I'll tell you what else seems to always be listening - the camera on the MacBook Pro, even when the little green light is off. Cover the camera with your finger or shine a flashlight/mobile phone screen into it, watch the keyboard lights react. It's obviously listening for light level changes. I just wonder how much data you could collect from the sensor without the green light turning on? edit: I'm wrong, see my rep…

If you look closely, there's actually another dot next to the camera. That's the ambient light sensor.

You're right. I thought that was the LED but it's not.

Well now, what am I going to do with this tin foil hat I just made?

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#13

Post by jsilence »

user24 wrote: post #7

I'll tell you what else seems to always be listening - the camera on the MacBook Pro, even when the little green light is off. Cover the camera with your finger or shine a flashlight/mobile phone screen into it, watch the keyboard lights react. It's obviously listening for light level changes. I just wonder how much data you could collect from the sensor without the green light turning on? edit: I'm wrong, see my rep…

Not sure about this one. Fiddling a little bit, I'd rather say that there is a light sensor left of the camera. Blanking only the camera does nothing, blanking the spot just left of it triggers the backlight dimming.

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#14

Post by jsilence »

seclorum wrote: post #8

Yeah .. umm .. and there is no guarantee that your CPU isn't broadcasting every single operation to a top-secret government satellite, either. The technology is there: have you audited your CPU today?

Use the same laptop RMS is using and read the source. http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#16

Post by Argorak »

jsilence wrote: post #13
user24 wrote: post #7

I'll tell you what else seems to always be listening - the camera on the MacBook Pro, even when the little green light is off. Cover the camera with your finger or shine a flashlight/mobile phone screen into it, watch the keyboard lights react. It's obviously listening for light level changes. I just wonder how much data you could collect from the sensor without the green light turning on? edit: I'm wrong, see my rep…

Not sure about this one. Fiddling a little bit, I'd rather say that there is a light sensor left of the camera. Blanking only the camera does nothing, blanking the spot just left of it triggers the backlight dimming.

To be precise: in old macbook pro versions, the sensor was in the speakers. The unibody macbook moved it next to the camera:

http://osxdaily.com/2010/05/22/where-is-the-ambient-light-se...

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#17

Post by thinkling »

When you plug a microphone device (e.g. a headphones/mic combo that comes with the iPhone) into the single audio port on a recent Macbook, it will be detected and the control panel will switch to giving you settings for "External microphone".

The internal microphone no longer shows up, suggesting it is disabled as before.

Thus, the simple plug hack should still work.

(I'm running Lion on a MBP8,1.)

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#18

Post by derekorgan »

Are you suggesting that my mac book pro is sending this data to some apple server somewhere?

Can you imagine A the traffic that would take and B the amount of useless information that would be recorded. They have millions of computers!

If its not being recorded locally or sent to an external source from a privacy point of view there is no problem. Both of these would be easy to detect by looking for sound files somewhere on the device or monitoring outbound internet traffic.

So is it battery life that you have the problem with?

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#19

Post by wladimir »

user24 wrote: post #7

I'll tell you what else seems to always be listening - the camera on the MacBook Pro, even when the little green light is off. Cover the camera with your finger or shine a flashlight/mobile phone screen into it, watch the keyboard lights react. It's obviously listening for light level changes. I just wonder how much data you could collect from the sensor without the green light turning on? edit: I'm wrong, see my rep…

Right -- I'm not sure about the MacBook, but in many cases the webcam led is software-directed, not hardware-directed. So a small change to the driver (or firmware) can make it record without enabling the led.
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