3 ms·

And I thought I was clever for turning the light on for only a tiny split-second to take a picture... (I wasn't writing malware. I put the program on my own lap

by eurleif 13y ago

And I thought I was clever for turning the light on for only a tiny split-second to take a picture... (I wasn't writing malware. I put the program on my own laptop before I sent it in to be serviced. http://ecritters.biz/applecarefacility/ http://ecritters.biz/applecarefacility/)

praptak 13y ago
It actually is clever. I like this "go around instead of breaking" approach very much. Two similar cases: A car magazine claimed they discovered a serious weakness in a particular brand of a steering wheel lock. The company made a series of improvements to the lock and challenged the magazine to demo their hack. The magazine guy approached the new lock, gave it a good hard yank and it came off the steering wheel. Another one was the Flash fullscreen mode. Flash used to (probably still does) display a hard-coded warning after the app went full screen - obviously to prevent Flash apps from impersonating browsers, OSes and so on. I've seen a demo that took advantage of the fact that the text was an overlay over what the app displayed. The demo app just went full screen and printed lots of messages in the same font as the Flash warning, all over the screen. The overlay was still visible (Flash made it impossible to hide or cover) but it was basically impossible to read. The demo then pretended it did a Windows restart - it was pretty scary :-)
- dec0dedab0de 13y ago
  Do you have sources? They seem like interesting stories.
  - damoncali 13y ago
    Don't know, but I've seen The Club circumvented by cutting the steering wheel with what looked like gardening shears. Literally took less than two seconds to remove the device.
- rcthompson 13y ago
  > serious weakness in a particular brand of a steering wheel lock ... gave it a good hard yank and it came off the steering wheel Serious weakness indeed. Not what people (especially HN readers) usually mean by that phrase!
bentcorner 13y ago
I do something similar, whenever my laptop is opened it takes a few pictures. The light is on only for a split second. It's actually kind of amusing to see pictures of you and notice your hair growing over several weeks :)
Bakkot 13y ago
Split second as in actually significantly under a second? I've never been able to get mine to take a picture without lighting up for very nearly a full second.
- DenisM 13y ago
  Consider that the optical nerve is shut off when eyes move from one target to another. What human "sees" during that time is a retained image, so he is effectively blind. If you make something appear on screen away from his focal point it might distract user enough to be blinded while his focus moves across the screen, so the green dot won't be seen.
- eurleif 13y ago
  It really was significantly under a second. This was a much older model of MBP, though. A comment elsewhere in this thread suggests that maybe Apple switched from simply wiring the LED in with the camera to using a microcontroller for this very reason -- so the light would stay on for a minimum amount of time.

by eurleif 13y ago

praptak 13y ago

It actually is clever. I like this "go around instead of breaking" approach very much. Two similar cases: A car magazine claimed they discovered a serious weakness in a particular brand of a steering wheel lock. The company made a series of improvements to the lock and challenged the magazine to demo their hack. The magazine guy approached the new lock, gave it a good hard yank and it came off the steering wheel. Another one was the Flash fullscreen mode. Flash used to (probably still does) display a hard-coded warning after the app went full screen - obviously to prevent Flash apps from impersonating browsers, OSes and so on. I've seen a demo that took advantage of the fact that the text was an overlay over what the app displayed. The demo app just went full screen and printed lots of messages in the same font as the Flash warning, all over the screen. The overlay was still visible (Flash made it impossible to hide or cover) but it was basically impossible to read. The demo then pretended it did a Windows restart - it was pretty scary :-)

dec0dedab0de 13y ago
Do you have sources? They seem like interesting stories.
- damoncali 13y ago
  Don't know, but I've seen The Club circumvented by cutting the steering wheel with what looked like gardening shears. Literally took less than two seconds to remove the device.
rcthompson 13y ago
> serious weakness in a particular brand of a steering wheel lock ... gave it a good hard yank and it came off the steering wheel Serious weakness indeed. Not what people (especially HN readers) usually mean by that phrase!

bentcorner 13y ago

I do something similar, whenever my laptop is opened it takes a few pictures. The light is on only for a split second. It's actually kind of amusing to see pictures of you and notice your hair growing over several weeks :)

Bakkot 13y ago

Split second as in actually significantly under a second? I've never been able to get mine to take a picture without lighting up for very nearly a full second.

DenisM 13y ago
Consider that the optical nerve is shut off when eyes move from one target to another. What human "sees" during that time is a retained image, so he is effectively blind. If you make something appear on screen away from his focal point it might distract user enough to be blinded while his focus moves across the screen, so the green dot won't be seen.
eurleif 13y ago
It really was significantly under a second. This was a much older model of MBP, though. A comment elsewhere in this thread suggests that maybe Apple switched from simply wiring the LED in with the camera to using a microcontroller for this very reason -- so the light would stay on for a minimum amount of time.