31–40 of 241 posts
Since I read that, I've been keeping a piece of post-it note on my Macbook Air camera, although it does fall off occasionally (and I need to remove it, very rarely, to actually use the camera.)
I've just upgraded it to a proper piece of card with real tape. ugly, but effective.
Honestly, I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to create a camera chip not susceptible to any software hack. The camera sensor needs electrical current to work. Simply place the LED inline or in parallel to the camera and you are done. Any time current is sent to the camera sensor, the LED cant help it but light up. My knowledge of electronics is limited, but I know for a fact that this can be achieved without th…
I want hardware on/off switches for camera, microphone, wifi, bluetooth, and maybe even external speakers. These should be power switches, not switches that make a polite request to firmware for the firmware to act as if the devices are off.
I want the same for the built-in camera and mic. A little physical "red switch" that no amount of coding can defeat.
I agree with others, here. I'm worried at least as much about the microphone as I am about the camera. I can always physically block the camera -- and control what it is pointed at.
Further, I'm not comfortable with plugging in a microphone to "override" the built-in microphone. Physical design alone leaves me certain (although without proof) that this "override" is controlled by code. And a bit of experience with software that overrides such defaults to allow simultaneous input over multiple, "normally" orthogonal channels leaves me convinced that such can likely be done with the internal microphone of most devices.
Obv. its still a problem, even if the light turns on. Taking a quick picture doesnt requite the light to be on for long, so it could go by unnoticed.
Honestly, I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to create a camera chip not susceptible to any software hack. The camera sensor needs electrical current to work. Simply place the LED inline or in parallel to the camera and you are done. Any time current is sent to the camera sensor, the LED cant help it but light up. My knowledge of electronics is limited, but I know for a fact that this can be achieved without th…
Now all you have to do is warn users that the one LED is important and means something. Not like all the other LEDs that are on all the time and are mostly pointless. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/10/webcam-spy-settleme... http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2386599,00.asp > When the school district investigated the case, it found other incidents of webcam spying, and notified the students involved, includin…
No longer plastering devices with semi-pointless LEDs would help. Harddrive activity? Wifi? Bluetooth? I don't think all these lights are really necessary. Throw one on the power cable maybe, and a few to backlight the keyboard, but otherwise only use them as indicator lights for things that are actually important to the standard user.
On early Macbook webcams it was electrically impossible to turn on the webcam without activating the light next to it. I'll see if I can find a source. Edit: the story refers to precisely these early Macbooks. Yikes.
Any ideas why they changed it? Surely the circuit would be simpler like this rather than having the LED hooked up to the microchip and software controlling it.
Second, if the LED fails to a short your camera won't get any power. That means an expensive component appears to be broken when it's only a very cheap component, and you have no way to knowing that w/o opening up and inspecting or replacing parts. In contrast, if an isolated LED fails, one can still verify that the camera works via software, and choose not to send it in for repair.
Also, LEDs have a very small leakage current even in their off state. If somebody is hyperoptimizing power consumption they might choose to put the LED on a high impedence controller output rather than feeding off a power rail or similar.
Finally, the desired led might work off a configurable controller output, but that might not be the same as the output driving the chip enable pin. So you could require extra circuitry to convert to a compatible voltage/current level.
That's my guess.
You'd have to get the user to download and run a package installer that prompts for an admin password RIGHT?
In other words; this isn't just something that can happen without end user interaction.
There's really only 1 solid solution to this:
Open software and open hardware.
I would be more concerned about the microphone. I can easily cover the camera with tape. Also, random pictures of me programming or reading HN are probably less damaging audio recordings of conversations I might be having.
Especially since there is no LED to signal the microphone is active, it doesn't need to point anywhere. If it could be activated while the laptop is closed (force wake up a part of the OS for just a few minutes here and there for instance) it would be a really tough problem.
Does anyone know of how to secure against this type of thing (other than tape)?