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Apple M4 iPad Pro OS Has New Security Exclave for Camera and Microphone Activity
- ggm 2y agoIt would help if articles explained why software cannot interfere with the path from camera or microphone to the light. What quality of "exclave" is needed to do this, that simpler wiring and voltage checking chips can't do.
- klausa 2y agoBecause it's not a separate "light", like you have on your external camera, or on a laptop — it lights up specific pixels on the "main" screen; without the CPU/GPU/mainOS knowing about it.
- saagarjha 2y agoExclaves run on the AP
- klausa 2y agoWhat is the on-chip part of "Secure Exclave" then?
- saagarjha 2y agoYou will note that that verbiage does not appear in anything Gui says himself
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- klausa 2y agoI was gonna link to https://mastodon.social/@_inside/112440596781136013 https://mastodon.social/@_inside/112440596781136013; but you're right, it says that "iPadOS running on M4" has "Secure Exclave"; not that "M4 has Secure Exclave". Though I will admit I definitely misread it that way at first.
- saagarjha 2y agoThat is what 9to5Mac seems to have thought too :)
- transpute 2y agoThanks, I've edited the submission title to add "OS".
- aeadio 2y agoDo you have a source for this? I'm finding it difficult to find concrete information on the new Exclave.
- saagarjha 2y agoThis is all from research done by people smarter than me; not much has been published unfortunately. A good starting point for thinking about exclaves is by looking at ARM Realms or how pKVM is designed in Android.
- transpute 2y ago> ARM Realms or how pKVM is designed in Android And 2014-ish Bromium (now HP) uXen + AX, https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2018/speaker/pratt/ https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2018/speaker/pratt/ If the "Secure Exclave" is a privileged VM (alongside iPadOS VM) on a minimal bare-metal hypervisor, does that open the door to unprivileged Linux or other user VMs safely running alongside iPadOS on iPad Pro?
- aeadio 2y agoThe article is definitely light on details, but my reading is that this pertains to the orange dot painted in the menu bar or notification area when the camera/microphone is being rendered, not to any physical LEDs (which I believe iPads don't have for these components). Since this is drawn on the screen, typically you might assume system-level malware that's able to get access to window server, compositor, etc would be able to prevent the dot from being drawn, or remove it after the fact. It sounds as if what they're implying is that there is a dedicated function in a separate hardware chip, outside of the control of the primary application CPU, and not addressable by the system software at all, that paints the dot on the screen as an overlay after the image is rendered by the software display stack, but before it is presented to the OLED/LCD. That would make it very difficult or potentially impossible for even root/kernel-level malware to hide. That would definitely be noteworthy. And it sounds like a very Apple thing to do -- based on some of the Asahi team's notes about their current hardware, they have an affinity for novel and intricate solutions at the hardware/platform level.
- baq 2y agoThe idea is kind of obvious, but the implementation sounds quite tricky. Kudos to Apple.
- saagarjha 2y agoIt’s not a separate chip but a bit of code isolated from the main OS.
- wahern 2y agoApple's Secure Enclave utilizes a separate processor isolated from the main processor(s): https://support.apple.com/guide/security/secure-enclave-sec59b0b31ff/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/secure-enclave-sec5... It runs it's own microkernel-based OS to isolate individual tasks/functions to mitigate the impact of one of those tasks having exploitable bugs.
- transpute 2y agoeNclave eXclave
- nebula8804 2y agoWould this prevent someone swapping the physical LED out with something that would take the voltage but try to hide the light? Maybe like a IR led? Or even some circuit that can be toggled to act as a resistor? I guess an evil maid/supply side attack is much less likely than just hacking the software but still...
- wtallis 2y agoI'm not sure about iPads, but on my MacBook Air the camera/microphone indicator light is not a discrete LED but drawn using pixels on the screen.
- saagarjha 2y agoIt’s not a physical LED, it’s essentially a piece of software isolated from the OS that draws to the screen
- nebula8804 2y agoDo you have a Macbook with that center gap in the screen? Because I notice different behavior on my 2023 Macbook Pro vs my iPhone 13 Mini. On the iPhone if you observe closely, it is drawing a green circle on the screen area where you normally see portions of your OS or app. It starts with a tiny circle and grows until it becomes a certain size. When you close the camera app, the circle turns orange and shrinks until it disappears. On the Macbook, it is a bright green circle that just turns on like an LED and is located in the cut off portion of the screen that has nothing software related in it. When the camera using app is close the circle just disappears like an LED turning off.
- pdntspa 2y agoIt's weird this requires a "security exclave" rather than just wiring the light into the circuitry that activates the camera.
- saagarjha 2y agoThere’s no separate light.
- asp_hornet 2y agoRemember, M4 is iPad only for now not macbook. No light on those
- asplake 2y agoOn Mac it drives me nuts that you can’t turn the recording indicator off. When you’re recording a presentation it’s not at all what you need.
- usrnm 2y agoAny way to turn it off would defeat the entire purpose. It's annoying, but I'm still glad that it's there
- brcmthrowaway 2y agoOr a projector..
- shaunkoh 2y agoI think that’s meant to be a security feature. If it can be toggled off in software, that lessens the trust that it reliably represents the state of recording. Maybe a black circle sticker might help? I see people do that to block the camera. Should work just as well for the LED.
- bzzzt 2y agoYou can turn it off for external displays, it requires a few steps because you're weakening privacy protection. Check https://support.apple.com/en-gb/118449 https://support.apple.com/en-gb/118449
- asplake 2y agoThanks! That option did not exist when they released this feature.