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They basically did, the light can only be turned off when the USB signals "standby". The hack is to override the camera to ignore that signal. It is a rather u
by Guvante 13y ago
They basically did, the light can only be turned off when the USB signals "standby".
The hack is to override the camera to ignore that signal. It is a rather unique idea and probably not something anyone even considered at Apple.
- cnvogel 13y agoI don't think anyone at Apple considered this LED to be designed "tamper proof". They just lazily implemented a requirement possibly written as: -- A LED shall light up when the camera is activated. But what they should have implemented is: -- It shall not be possible to activate the camera without the LED being lit, taking malicious third-party software into account. The first requirement is obviously, and demonstrably, implemented by every camera (ignoring hardware defects regarding the LED). The second is, as proven by the paper, not fulfilled by any. {EDIT: added the malicious part to the 2nd requirement}
- zmb_ 13y agoI'd be much happier with a requirement to the industrial design department: -- There shall be a way for the user to physically obstruct the camera lens. Apple used to have this in their standalone camera back in the day.
- iriche 13y agoYeah, HP had that in some of there old machines too, remember I had one with a physical slidethingy
- adisbladis 13y agoYou still can. Just put a piece of tape over it.
- kro0ub 13y agoSo is an MBP/A running Linux susceptible to the hack, then?
- theshrike79 13y agoAs far as I can tell, yes. The hack is about rewriting the camera controller chip, which isn't platform specific in any way. OS X allows non-privileged users to do that for some reason though...
- kro0ub 13y agoIs it possible to un-hack your cam controller chip, then?