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Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

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Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#31

Post by ddagradi »

mchanson wrote: post #22

This article is without merit. The author's logic train derails shortly after leaving the station. Without removing the hardware there is no way to prevent someone with remote root access from recording audio from any input regardless of settings. This is true of any machine that has audio inputs and drivers loaded for those devices.

He even gets basic facts incorrect. The author assumes his Macbook Pro doesn't have a dedicated audio input. It does. Every Macbook Pro does. (The Macbook Air is the only Mac shipping without a built-in audio input).

Really, what I see is a software update that fixes a user interface bug. System Preferences no longer offers disconnected audio inputs as a selectable option, because it's just plain smarter that way. Could there any possible confusion for an average user between "Internal Microphone - Built In" and "Line In - Audio Line In" when looking at their sound input options? Seems like a design decision made in the interest of removing irrelevant choices.

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#32

Post by bradleyland »

nthnclrk wrote: post #26

Without further investigation, I pose a potentially naive question: What evidence is there that this behaviour of the internal mic is the same when the Audio preferences pane is not open? Could it be that the mic is automatically made 'live' when system preferences or that particular pref pane is opened?

Even if that's the case, it's not really relevant. If the concern is that an attacker will listen your mic, the only 100% solution is to physically extricate the mic from your laptop. If an attacker is able to install software (with administrative privilege) on your computer, they can do anything you can do, including re-configure your audio devices and mic volume levels.

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#33

Post by jamii »

mchanson wrote: post #22

This article is without merit. The author's logic train derails shortly after leaving the station. Without removing the hardware there is no way to prevent someone with remote root access from recording audio from any input regardless of settings. This is true of any machine that has audio inputs and drivers loaded for those devices.

A nice intermediate step is to attach a small light directly to the mic/camera, so that the light is on whenever they are being used.

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#34

Post by petsos »

jsilence wrote: post #14
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/

How would I verify that this source was actually used?

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#35

Post by bradleyland »

Changing your sound configuration is useless against anyone who has obtained admin rights on your operating system. Windows, Linux, Mac, or otherwise. If they have root/admin, they can override any setting you change at the most basic levels.

If you're still OCD and concerned about it, install Soundflower [1] and you can easily configure Soundflower as your default input, but not feed anything on to the Soundflower bus, thus making the default input silence. This is, in effect, the same as the author's suggestion of setting the default input to line-in and plugging in a stub; also pointless, as a line-in jack has no ability to convert acoustic wave forms to electrical signals.

I feel less-smart for even addressing this question.

http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#36

Post by finnw »

jrockway wrote: post #29

If you are really worried about this, I recommend surgery. I used to have this Windows box at work that would always make sounds for no reason, even though the sound was muted. The solution was to open it up and physically disconnect the speaker. Never made a sound again. If you don't want your computer to be used as a listening device, first try adjusting your tinfoil hat. If you're still worried, open it up and rem…

> There. Now you just have to worry about the bugs the Agents put all over your house.

Physical bugs are expensive. Malware is cheap.

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#37

Post by jwr »

Every microphone in every powered device must be considered as listening if you are serious about security at all.

So what if the panel actually even disabled the mic preamp on the board? You could have a program/virus/trojan that silently re-enabled it behind your back, without you knowing. So I'd say this is nothing to be concerned about, because every device you own potentially "listens" with its microphones all the time.

The advice with plugging a jack into the line-in port is good -- if you're sure your hardware hasn't been tampered with, this should physically disconnect the microphone.

Obviously if you're really worried about your computer listening, you should rip it open and physically cut the microphone connection.

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#38

Post by unwind »

bradleyland wrote: post #35

Changing your sound configuration is useless against anyone who has obtained admin rights on your operating system. Windows, Linux, Mac, or otherwise. If they have root/admin, they can override any setting you change at the most basic levels. If you're still OCD and concerned about it, install Soundflower [1] and you can easily configure Soundflower as your default input, but not feed anything on to the Soundflower b…

I understood is as the stub was plugged into the input to avoid having the input automatically ignored due to not having a device connected.

I don't know (no experience) if Macs' analog ports were this clever, but considering the hardware to detect presence in the port is trivial, it wouldn't surprise me so that's how I interpreted it.

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#39

Post by doomlaser »

bradleyland wrote: post #35

Changing your sound configuration is useless against anyone who has obtained admin rights on your operating system. Windows, Linux, Mac, or otherwise. If they have root/admin, they can override any setting you change at the most basic levels. If you're still OCD and concerned about it, install Soundflower [1] and you can easily configure Soundflower as your default input, but not feed anything on to the Soundflower b…

Beat me to it. Though I find the tone of this article incredibly overparanoid.

I'll also link along http://roguemaobea.com. They produce a line of audio apps that can hijack and route sound in OS X for a range of actually useful purposes. They've got tools for doing timed recordings of system audio, Line in audio, or audio from specific apps, as well as a tool for broadcasting any of these audio sources to Apple's Airport Express.

Re: Is My MacBook Pro Always Listening?

#40

Post by lloeki »

Actually I don't think it is listening at all when not in use. In fact the sound card even powers itself down when not in use, which can actually be heard in some cases (with some badly shielded/grounded HP for example). It's on when the prefpane is shown for the purpose of displaying that VU meter but as soon as you quit the prefpane, the hardware turns off. And as soon as an app opens it, it turns back on.

Even then, let's assume the sound card is always on (like my old SB16):

- what would listen to it if it was on? necessarily some code, or else it just goes straight to /dev/null.

- so if it's external code injected by a malicious guy, what prevents him from setting it back to internal (and setting it back to line-in when you're looking)? Or craft all sorts of drivers hooking into or replacing AppleHDA.kext or whatever?

- but if it's not external code it has to be internal (i.e Apple provided), so what would prevent Apple to simply tell you it's off when it would not actually be?

- and since line-in disappeared but the (HDA or whatever) sound chip certainly still has this functionality, what would prevent Apple from having a second microphone plugged into that line-in, completely hidden and uncontrollable?

Now Poe's Law kicks in and I can hear headlines already "Apple removed the line-in on purpose to spy on us!"

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