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This statement has a number of issues. First, you have to trust Apple that the indicator _really_ can't be disabled. You also have to trust that there isn't a

• hunter-gatherer 6y ago
  > First, you have to trust Apple that the indicator _really_ can't be disabled. I'm not disagreeing with your other points nor am I saying that this isn't the case nor am I a fan of any apple products... However designed circuits to implement such functionality is quite common. [0]; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_and_parallel_circuits https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_and_parallel_circuits
  • m00x 6y ago
    If the circuit turns on when the camera is on, how does it have always-on True-Tone? Is it a different sensor or is Apple just full of shit?
    • nardi 6y ago
      Different sensor.
    • jmull 6y ago
      True Tone is a different sensor ( which isn’t a camera)
      • tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
        I wonder if the TrueTone sensor (which is most likely similar to a 1-pixel "camera") can be used to determine if the user is near the laptop, then only turn the camera on when you think they're not paying attention.
• dwd 6y ago
  I had to switch on my camera for a video call for the first time yesterday. (I can usually get around it and do audio only) Removed the piece of electrical tape I had over the camera to find the image was completely blurry from the glue. Good to know if it ever falls off and I don't have tape to replace immediately.
  • mjevans 6y ago
    This is why I use a smaller piece of normal clear tape UNDER the outer layer of tape to protect the lens from the glue.
    • Broken_Hippo 6y ago
      A small piece of paper works well also.
  • Kaibeezy 6y ago
    I use gaffer's tape. Sufficiently (for my standards) unlikely to fall off, and the better quality stuff is designed not to leave residue.
    • herodotus 6y ago
      Many high-end camera stores sell Gaffers tape. It is used extensively in the film industry exactly because it almost always leaves no residue. And what it does leave (in my experience) comes off very easily.
• mproud 6y ago
  The article also goes on to say users can use something thin like paper as an alternative, or simply remove it before closing the lid.
• foolfoolz 6y ago
  i don’t understand the argument that you trust apple enough to use their os but not be enough to believe their green light
  • JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
    You have to use some operating system at the end of the day, and vulnerabilities can impact any of them. You might as well trust Apple as much as the next company, since all of them are liable for millions of lines of code, and it's likely they all presently have undiscovered vulnerabilities.
    • minerjoe 6y ago
      Why trust a company at all when you don't have to? Linux, the BSDs, etc.
      • RealStickman_ 6y ago
        They probably have a lot of vulnerabilities as well.
      • JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
        If someone isn't getting paid, what incentive do they have to patch vulnerabilities in a timely manner?
        • minerjoe 6y ago
          Not sure what you are asking? As far as I can tell, hackers hack like fish swim. We just do. For a multitude of reasons. For many people, me included, if you wanted to give me a bunch of money to do something and I bit, not that I would nowadays, that could actually lead to a loss of motivation. As for vulnerabilities, many open source projects responds to them much quicker that industry. Say for pride in their work. as one motivation.
          • yehe7dydyd 6y ago
• Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  > First, you have to trust Apple that the indicator _really_ can't be disabled. You also have to trust that there isn't a vulnerability Apple is not aware about that could allow rolling the camera without the light coming on. I have made this point several times throughout this thread, so I apologize for repeating myself: Every laptop Apple has manufactured in the last ten years has an LED connected to the same circuit which powers up the camera. You cannot send power to the camera without also sending power to the LED, which will in turn cause the LED to light up. Unless the LED is broken, in which case you will know because it will never light up. If you manage to find a vulnerability in this system, I don't think I even mind, because you've also broken physics and very possibly found a way to generate unlimited electricity forever.
  • harry8 6y ago
    I trust you absolutely and toally on this. Why wouldn't I? But if you had your entire net worth riding on it, would you trust yourself to be infallibly correct or would you trust something along the lines of a post-it note to be completely sure? You know, if your life depended on it on every single possible model of apple laptop in all circumstances imaginable? (Do we include if your laptop was interecepted and altered by a hostile agent? Because we know that happens too...)
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • taneq 6y ago
      Devil's advocate: If our threat model includes your laptop being tampered with by an evil maid competent enough to imperceptibly modify the camera LED circuit, couldn't they just install a separate camera elsewhere (maybe in one of the speakers)?
      • harry8 6y ago
        Or they put you to sleep in a way where you have no memory and place the bug inside your body. You can go on like that forever. So leave your doors unlocked because you can't ever be 'safe' right? Obviously not. There's a scale from dead easy to more difficult to very dificult. Easier to get you is a bigger problem. Cheap & easy to prevent - well why wouldn't you? It's asymetric. Wouldn't you feel hilariously stupid if someone modified your camera circuit when interecepting your laptop and you actually didn't stick a post-it over it to thwart their dastardly plans. The point here is making the kind of claims made about LEDs and camera circuits is really, really easy when telling other people what is not a risk. When you carry that risk - ie "all possible models and other threat vectors" suddenly you should not be so sure anymore. A physical cover is better, easier, cheaper and basically infallible for what it is advertised to do. Asymetric payoffs are worth noting. A genunine plausible risk scenarios are all you need to take a /trivial/ mitigation step. Apple making trivial mitigation steps harder is really, really, really stupid. In fact, beyond merely stupid, it's unwittignly and incompetently user-hostile. (Unless you think they're design process has been infiltrated by the NSA or something, which I guess is at least possible, but I think it unlikely in the face of utterly incompetent idiocy - which Apple do display from time to time).
• throwandcatch 6y ago
  Not to mention the CIA had an exploit for Samsung TVs that recorded audio even when the TV seems to be turned off[1]. It is better to have peace of mind by blocking the camera physically. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-cia-mi5-hacked-your-smart-tv-to-spy-on-you/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-cia-mi5-hacked-your-smart-...
  • Antrikshy 6y ago
    Well yes but those are Samsung TVs.
    • Drdrdrq 6y ago
      > Kenneth White, a security researcher and cryptographer, told The Intercept that smart TVs are a "historically pretty easy target," and that there is "zero chance" that the CIA targeted only Samsung.
• harha 6y ago
  I think the third point is especially strong argument for having the cover. It gives you a second physical layer of security rather than possibly a button you might automatically click away and it gives you the opportunity to join the call first and then decide to actually share (e.g. if the setting is more formal than expected or if the other side isn’t sharing). Relying on the light going on after the fact is a much weaker protection, the user may have opted in to always letting an app use a camera and between the 15 or so UIs that the conference apps have the user might miss that it actually turns the camera on unless the button is clicked. Now if apple were to release an os Level protection that automatically pulls up a screen showing what is shared from the view of the camera and asks for that approval, that would improve this situation.
  • saagarjha 6y ago
    > Now if apple were to release an os Level protection that automatically pulls up a screen showing what is shared from the view of the camera and asks for that approval, that would improve this situation. That doesn’t help for the attack that many people are using here, which is if the software on your machine is compromised.
    • harha 6y ago
      I didn’t refer to that concern, that’s a different discussion - in a corporate setting the policies might help avoid that by limiting what can be installed. where they don’t help is accidentally activating the camera and only realizing afterwards. That’s a UX issue with so many different video conference technologies that all behave slightly differently.
      • saagarjha 6y ago
        Yes, I think that’s a legitimate concern. I can’t say I haven’t started videoconferencing software with a thumb over the camera ;)
• pabs3 6y ago
  Fourth, lights are not accessible to blind persons, but switches or covers potentially can be.
  • dkarbayev 6y ago
    This one is one of the most solid points. Remember Tim Apple saying "When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don't consider the bloody ROI."?
• Razengan 6y ago
  > First, you have to trust Apple that the indicator _really_ can't be disabled. Or anyone with a basic knowledge of electronics who could verify it.
  • Dahoon 6y ago
    On the exact laptop you are using right this minute since multiple versions of each Mac model exists making a general advice useless.
• boudin 6y ago
  I agree, the official statement is comparing pears and apples. A led gives you no control. The real alternative to a cover would be a physical on/off button next to the camera which would physically connect/disconnect the camera behind the hood.
• dguest 6y ago
  Just to illustrate the third point: Our company's video conferencing software has multiple "modes" for a conference call, which the moderator could configure. Hardly anyone ever changed the mode, but at one point while trying to configure something unrelated I ended up switching modes in the middle of the conference call. To my horror the software immediately turned on everyone's camera. Luckily the strain of streaming 40 video feeds to everyone 40 participants pretty much locked up the call, but for a brief moment I was able to enable approximately 40 cameras from people who were just sitting in their houses, who knows how dressed or what was going on behind them (I tried not to look). I'm pretty sure we can apply Hanlon's Razor here and assume it was just an innocent bug: it's not hard to see how joe programmer might have overlooked the default settings when the mode is changed during some completely unrelated refactor. But whatever the case, as long as video conferencing remains lucrative vendors will continue to pack features into the software, and as long as they keep adding features, they will continue to create additional edge cases to trigger these incidents.
• victoriasun 6y ago
  I used to work at Discord. There's a reason virtually every Trust and Safety (the division that handles online harassment cases) Associate has a physical covering over their webcam. Regardless of how bad actors are accessing these photos, its eminently obvious that people are getting webcam photos of them taken without their knowledge.
• nine_k 6y ago
  Any points like "but the LED is directly fed from the power line" are moot. (1) With a mechanical shutter, the state of blocking can be trivially and reliably inspected. With electrical control, this is not the case. (2) A mechanical shutter works by making it physically impossible for the camera to see anything, while powered or not. With any electrical control, this is nit the case. So, either you use a mechanical shutter, or all bets are off.
• Kuraj 6y ago
  For me the second argument is already strong enough to settle the discussion
• bloody-crow 6y ago
  I also thought about another point recently. Many companies hand out Apple laptops with pre-installed software to their employees. It's not entirely unrealistic to imagine that some of the pre-installed software is intended to spy on the employees to make sure they don't use company hardware to do anything weird and takes screenshots and camera shots occasionally. In this kind of situations you'll see the LED and you'll know what's happening and you'd much prefer to have a physical cover on your webcam.