4 ms·
Apple hardwired the LED to the camera. It can't be disabled.
by hpen 6y ago
Apple hardwired the LED to the camera. It can't be disabled.
- dahfizz 6y agoHow do you know? And how do you know there is not a bug in the electrical design?
- simonh 6y agoHow do we know there isn’t a secret spy camera hidden somewhere else in the laptop? How do we know Apple didn’t hide spy nabobots in their products that spread all over our houses watching everything we do?
- dahfizz 6y ago"Hey man, even if you're sure your gun isn't loaded you still shouldn't point it at people. Can never be too careful". "YeAh but wHaT if tHerEs a sNipEr alReaDy PoiNted aT yOu??". Makes most sense to secure the camera that you already know exists and is looking right after you. Then you can spend energy on other things.
- hpen 6y agoThe circuitry can't be that complex. Meaning the likelihood of a bug being pretty low. I mean come on, it's a wire attached to the camera power source with a resistor and a LED.
- dahfizz 6y agoHow do you know? How do you know how the LED is implemented?
- rimjongun 6y agoIs this what you think passes for informed commentary? There are innumerable things I take for granted. Sure, I assume Ifixit isn’t a CIA front and their tear downs fairly accurately represent what ships to the customer. Barring hopeless threat models, the light is a decent trade off.
- shbooms 6y agoHardwired or not, it doesn't mean the LED can't be disabled by malware: https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569 https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569
- conception 6y agoI can’t say if that’s still the case but that study is seven years old.
- simonh 6y agoThe “versions of MacBook laptops and iMac desktops” they are referring to are the ones from more that 8 years ago that didn’t have the hard wired LED. Nowadays there is literally a wire from the sensor to the LED. If the sensor is on, the LED is on. It’s got nothing to do with firmware.
- geoelectric 6y agoWhat happens to the connection if the LED burns out? Is the LED lifetime sensitive to state change such that you could flicker it via rapid camera toggling to burn duty cycle overnight? If someone had access briefly to your laptop at a coffee shop, could they cover the LED with black opaque cellophane? This sort of attack is pretty specific, so you figure it’s only done by people who want something from you in particular. These sorts of physical prep steps are what I’d be looking at if someone were relying on the light. Hypothetically, I’d attack the light first then take advantage of the false assurance. Missing or open cover is a little harder to miss.
- raverbashing 6y agoLEDs don't burn out in regular usage conditions
- oehpr 6y agoNothing stops a malicious actor for waiting for no activity on the machine before flicking the camera on, taking a picture, and then turning it off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School... Students were particularly troubled by the momentary flickering of their webcams' green activation lights, which several students reported would periodically turn on when the camera was not in use, signaling that the webcam had been turned on.[9][23][25][48] Student Katerina Perech recalled: "It was just really creepy." After the suit was brought, the school district, of which the two high schools are part, revealed that it had secretly taken more than 66,000 images. Apple is advocating for a strategy to preserve the privacy of its users that demonstrably does not work.
- airstrike 6y ago"Even God himself couldn't sink this ship", said the captain of the Titanic