4 ms·

There seems to be widespread anxiety regarding cameras, but hardly anyone ever talks about microphones. Are conversations not much more privileged information t

There seems to be widespread anxiety regarding cameras, but hardly anyone ever talks about microphones. Are conversations not much more privileged information than potentially seeing someone in their underwear?

sneak 2y ago
They are, but people aren’t scared of those because they can’t see them staring at them.
Nursie 2y ago
Depends what your threat model is? Nobody but Abby and Ben care if Ben is caught admitting he cheated on Abby. But naked images of Abby can head off into the ether and be propagated more or less forever, turn up on hate sites, be detrimental to careers etc. If your threat model is leaking company secrets then sure, microphone bad, as is anything having access to any hardware on your machine. So sure, maybe people ought to be more concerned about microphones as well, rather than instead.
- hunter-gatherer 2y ago
  I'm not arguing a point here, but I'm curious what the actual number of instances exist where someone is naked or in some other extortionate way (accidently of course) potentially exposed from the position of their webcam. I too would be much more concerned about my microphone, where I know one had conversations that in front of or next to my machine that I wouldn't want "out there". In terms of where my camera is, I woukd imagine they would catch me picking my nose every so often but that's about it.
  - rocqua 2y ago
    People watch porn on their laptops. Even just your orgasm face would be embarrassing for most people.
- joeblubaugh 2y ago
  > Nobody but Abby and Ben care if Ben is caught admitting he cheated on Abby. This isn't true at all, even for private citizens. Your friends, parents, children, and colleagues are all likely to care.
  - Nursie 2y ago
    It's very limited, it's certainly not going to be passed around like naked pictures could be.
- ohhnoodont 2y ago
  My point is that the threat model is backwards. The threat associated with a camera is the least severe compared to anything else a malicious person could do with access to your computer. Recored conversations, chats and email, browsing history, etc are all much more likely to result in harm if leaked than a recording of you innocently in your home. > Nobody but Abby and Ben care if Ben is caught admitting he cheated on Abby. That destroys families, standing within a community, and very often careers.
  - Nursie 2y ago
    I don't think it is backwards, personally. The threat of public humiliation, and the capability for someone to spy on what you do in your own home, is worse with the camera. > chats and email, browsing history, etc are all much more likely to result in harm if leaked than a recording of you innocently in your home. This is far less of an intrusion for most people than recording what they are actually doing in their own home IRL. People know that information can be hacked, they don't expect and react quite differently to someone actually watching them. > That destroys families, standing within a community, and very often careers. Yes, but it doesn't stay on the internet forever in quite the same way. Now I get to some extent what you're saying - aren't the consequences potentially worse from other forms of information leak? Maybe. It depends on how you weight those consequences. I'd put (for example) financial loss due to fraud enabled by hacking my accounts as far less important than someone spying on me in my own home. Even if they didn't use that to then extort me, and were using the footage for ... uh ... personal enjoyment. I think a lot of people will feel the same way. The material consequences might be lesser, but the psychological ones not so much. Not everything is valued in dollars.
    - ohhnoodont 2y ago
      I think we may just be bumping into cultural differences here. I grew up in a household were being naked around family members was common. I spend time in clothing-optional spaces. I rarely draw the blinds on my windows, etc. I'm not concerned with what other people think in this way and such images could never be used to extort me. Consider the case of Germany - people there are extremely concerned about their privacy and data protection. At the same time public nudity is an entrenched cultural norm. It's also known that people are not very good at assessing risk. People are more word about dying at the hands of a serial killer than they are of dying in a car crash or slipping in the shower. I feel you're underplaying the psychological harm of having all of your data crawled through by a creep (that would include all of your photos, sites visited, messages sent, everything). All I can really say is that if someone gained access to my machine, the camera would be the least of my concerns. That's true in nearly every context (psychological, financial, physical, etc).
qingcharles 2y ago
Yes, photos of naked people are used to extort them (usually into just paying the holder to delete them). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42261730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42261730
- ohhnoodont 2y ago
  This raises a different but related question. In what world should a victim of a crime be extorted for doing innocent things in their home. If a peeping tom took a photo though a window, could that be used to extort someone? When people are extorted for these kinds of things it's usually catfishing that leads to sexual acts being recorded. That's not related to cybersecurity.
  - pfix 2y ago
    Fear of harrasment. You don't want your coworkers see you naked, do you? edit: s/baked/naked/ :D
jamesmotherway 2y ago
"All Apple silicon-based Mac notebooks and Intel-based Mac notebooks with the Apple T2 Security Chip feature a hardware disconnect that disables the microphone whenever the lid is closed. On all 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air notebooks with the T2 chip, all MacBook notebooks with a T2 chip from 2019 or later, and Mac notebooks with Apple silicon, this disconnect is implemented in hardware alone." [1] [1] https://support.apple.com/guide/security/hardware-microphone-disconnect-secbbd20b00b/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/hardware-microphone...
- KennyBlanken 2y ago
  That's what they said about the first gen Facetime cameras. "oooh don't worry, it's controlled in hardware!" We have no way of verifying that anything they said in that document is true.
  - kimixa 2y ago
    It's clear Apple define "Hardware" as "Not using the main CPU". They've pretty much admitted it's firmware based, otherwise the T2 chip simply wouldn't be involved to be mentioned.
    - swiftcoder 2y ago
      The T2 chip is mentioned in the quoted passage as an indicator of the architecture version, not necessarily an indicator that the T2 chip is directly involved
    - dfox 2y ago
      It is implemented in dedicated small CPLD that cannot be flashed by any software means. My understanding of relation to T2/SEP is that this CPLD serves as a kind of "IO expander" for T2/SEP which also hardwires logic like this.
  - jamesmotherway 2y ago
    I'm inclined to believe it. If someone managed to prove Apple's lying about it, there would be serious reputational (and other) risks to their business. I also can't imagine how they would benefit from such a fabrication. That said, I still use "Nanoblock" webcam covers and monitor for when either the camera or microphone are activated.

sneak 2y ago

They are, but people aren’t scared of those because they can’t see them staring at them.

Nursie 2y ago

Depends what your threat model is? Nobody but Abby and Ben care if Ben is caught admitting he cheated on Abby. But naked images of Abby can head off into the ether and be propagated more or less forever, turn up on hate sites, be detrimental to careers etc. If your threat model is leaking company secrets then sure, microphone bad, as is anything having access to any hardware on your machine. So sure, maybe people ought to be more concerned about microphones as well, rather than instead.

hunter-gatherer 2y ago
I'm not arguing a point here, but I'm curious what the actual number of instances exist where someone is naked or in some other extortionate way (accidently of course) potentially exposed from the position of their webcam. I too would be much more concerned about my microphone, where I know one had conversations that in front of or next to my machine that I wouldn't want "out there". In terms of where my camera is, I woukd imagine they would catch me picking my nose every so often but that's about it.
- rocqua 2y ago
  People watch porn on their laptops. Even just your orgasm face would be embarrassing for most people.
joeblubaugh 2y ago
> Nobody but Abby and Ben care if Ben is caught admitting he cheated on Abby. This isn't true at all, even for private citizens. Your friends, parents, children, and colleagues are all likely to care.
- Nursie 2y ago
  It's very limited, it's certainly not going to be passed around like naked pictures could be.
ohhnoodont 2y ago
My point is that the threat model is backwards. The threat associated with a camera is the least severe compared to anything else a malicious person could do with access to your computer. Recored conversations, chats and email, browsing history, etc are all much more likely to result in harm if leaked than a recording of you innocently in your home. > Nobody but Abby and Ben care if Ben is caught admitting he cheated on Abby. That destroys families, standing within a community, and very often careers.
- Nursie 2y ago
  I don't think it is backwards, personally. The threat of public humiliation, and the capability for someone to spy on what you do in your own home, is worse with the camera. > chats and email, browsing history, etc are all much more likely to result in harm if leaked than a recording of you innocently in your home. This is far less of an intrusion for most people than recording what they are actually doing in their own home IRL. People know that information can be hacked, they don't expect and react quite differently to someone actually watching them. > That destroys families, standing within a community, and very often careers. Yes, but it doesn't stay on the internet forever in quite the same way. Now I get to some extent what you're saying - aren't the consequences potentially worse from other forms of information leak? Maybe. It depends on how you weight those consequences. I'd put (for example) financial loss due to fraud enabled by hacking my accounts as far less important than someone spying on me in my own home. Even if they didn't use that to then extort me, and were using the footage for ... uh ... personal enjoyment. I think a lot of people will feel the same way. The material consequences might be lesser, but the psychological ones not so much. Not everything is valued in dollars.
  - ohhnoodont 2y ago
    I think we may just be bumping into cultural differences here. I grew up in a household were being naked around family members was common. I spend time in clothing-optional spaces. I rarely draw the blinds on my windows, etc. I'm not concerned with what other people think in this way and such images could never be used to extort me. Consider the case of Germany - people there are extremely concerned about their privacy and data protection. At the same time public nudity is an entrenched cultural norm. It's also known that people are not very good at assessing risk. People are more word about dying at the hands of a serial killer than they are of dying in a car crash or slipping in the shower. I feel you're underplaying the psychological harm of having all of your data crawled through by a creep (that would include all of your photos, sites visited, messages sent, everything). All I can really say is that if someone gained access to my machine, the camera would be the least of my concerns. That's true in nearly every context (psychological, financial, physical, etc).

qingcharles 2y ago

Yes, photos of naked people are used to extort them (usually into just paying the holder to delete them). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42261730 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42261730

ohhnoodont 2y ago
This raises a different but related question. In what world should a victim of a crime be extorted for doing innocent things in their home. If a peeping tom took a photo though a window, could that be used to extort someone? When people are extorted for these kinds of things it's usually catfishing that leads to sexual acts being recorded. That's not related to cybersecurity.
- pfix 2y ago
  Fear of harrasment. You don't want your coworkers see you naked, do you? edit: s/baked/naked/ :D

jamesmotherway 2y ago

"All Apple silicon-based Mac notebooks and Intel-based Mac notebooks with the Apple T2 Security Chip feature a hardware disconnect that disables the microphone whenever the lid is closed. On all 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air notebooks with the T2 chip, all MacBook notebooks with a T2 chip from 2019 or later, and Mac notebooks with Apple silicon, this disconnect is implemented in hardware alone." [1] [1] https://support.apple.com/guide/security/hardware-microphone-disconnect-secbbd20b00b/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/hardware-microphone...

KennyBlanken 2y ago
That's what they said about the first gen Facetime cameras. "oooh don't worry, it's controlled in hardware!" We have no way of verifying that anything they said in that document is true.
- kimixa 2y ago
  It's clear Apple define "Hardware" as "Not using the main CPU". They've pretty much admitted it's firmware based, otherwise the T2 chip simply wouldn't be involved to be mentioned.
  - swiftcoder 2y ago
    The T2 chip is mentioned in the quoted passage as an indicator of the architecture version, not necessarily an indicator that the T2 chip is directly involved
  - dfox 2y ago
    It is implemented in dedicated small CPLD that cannot be flashed by any software means. My understanding of relation to T2/SEP is that this CPLD serves as a kind of "IO expander" for T2/SEP which also hardwires logic like this.
- jamesmotherway 2y ago
  I'm inclined to believe it. If someone managed to prove Apple's lying about it, there would be serious reputational (and other) risks to their business. I also can't imagine how they would benefit from such a fabrication. That said, I still use "Nanoblock" webcam covers and monitor for when either the camera or microphone are activated.