71–80 of 241 posts
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I will try that. If anything fishy happens the camera is getting an ice pick. Problem solved I have barely used it.
I've heard a drill works well.
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What about internal microphones on MB's? osascript -e 'set volume input volume 0' doesn't really produce the expected result…
plug a square card reader in the jack.
This is with a mid-2012 macbook model.
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I've heard a drill works well.
Scary, because with some machines you're not drilling into a separate webcam lens but through the display glass to get to the webcam lens.
It might be possible to drill out the webcam from the backside so long as you were very careful to not drill too far, but if that is how your computer is set up you should probably look for a safer method.
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Buy hardware and software you, as the paying customer, remain allowed to control.
I'm assuming this is a dig at Apple. Care to show that any other laptop manufacturer's webcams are impervious to having their firmware overwritten?
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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.
If you have the LED hooked up in parallel with the chip, then you can't really do any fancy indication things like blink the LED, change colour (voltage level) etc. It's possible that the engineers wanted to maintain that flexibility. 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…
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.
Although I haven't looked into it in detail, yet, the T430 I have at the moment has a physical switch for WiFi and Bluetooth functionality. 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…
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plug a square card reader in the jack.
Doesn't physically turn off the internal microphone. I've found out the hard way: I have a headset with a hardware mic switch. If this switch is in the "off" position when headphones are put into the jack, the mic built into my mac still operates. This is with a mid-2012 macbook model.
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…
The earliest standalone webcams, for instance Logitech models and the IndyCam that came with the Silicon Graphics 'Indy' workstation, had a 'door' that you could slide over the lens when not in use. Lenovo had this on their all in one PC's a few years ago but I don't think they kept that feature.
What was wrong with the slide-across lens cover?
You would think it would be an essential feature for some.
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.
My current Thinkpad has a physical switch to disable radios. I'd like to have a physical 'privacy' switch that cut the power to internal microphones and cameras. To be security aware, this has to be an auditable hardware power switch, and not just an interrupt/driver/bios combination that could be bypassed. It's also prefereable for security to have a an off-by-default switch, than an activity light you might not not…