[HN Gopher] Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
___________________________________________________________________
Don't close your MacBook with a cover over the camera
Author : ra7
Score : 244 points
Date : 2020-07-10 19:13 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (support.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (support.apple.com)
| gswdh wrote:
| Why didn't they attach the LED indicator to the PSU to one of the
| image sensor PSU rail? Thus in order for the camera to physically
| function, the LED must be on. Why not use a hardware interlock?
| Unless you have physical access this is literally unhackable.
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| More than once I was gifted camera-cover plastic things that I
| could stick to my laptop cameras. They all had convenient ways to
| open/close them, and they all had the logo of the company that
| was gifting them to me (one was a proprietary AI software
| library). I am 100% confident that those plastic things would
| indeed damage my display, since they were slightly thick and the
| laptop lid wouldn't properly close with them. So I kept the
| insulating tape that is currently there, and nothing was damaged.
| It does make some sense that this article exists.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Seriously Apple, just stop blaming your users. Camera covers are
| a totally reasonable response to the threats we all face. If your
| precious computers can't have them installed, build one in.
|
| I am a longtime Apple hardware user, but it's just getting so
| hard to keep using them...
| valuearb wrote:
| Where the blame? Apple shouldn't warn users?
| callmeal wrote:
| >Seriously Apple, just stop blaming your users.
|
| C'mon you know you should not be holding cellphones in that
| way...
| theo31 wrote:
| I broke my 16"'s screen because of this, and they asked me to pay
| $1000 to fix it.
|
| This was in January right after the 16" came out.
| kalium-xyz wrote:
| Beyond a certain point Apple computers became a status symbol and
| now they seem to be able to get the users to cater to them
| instead of the other way around.
| teekert wrote:
| It's just a warning. You can ignore it, you may damage your
| display. Nothing more, nothing less.
| ziddoap wrote:
| Which is sort of the definition of having your customers
| cater to you instead of you catering to your customers.
| teekert wrote:
| So you're catering to Siemens when you refrain from putting
| your dog in the microwave?
| Thetawaves wrote:
| What are you trying to say? All I get from this is boot-
| licking absurdity.
| ziddoap wrote:
| What a ridiculously hyperbolic reply.
|
| But no, this analogy does not follow, because your
| microwave will still work after you put your dog in there
| -- and I have not seen guidance from Siemens telling me
| that microwaving my dog voids my microwaves warranty.
| brundolf wrote:
| They probably had people come to them with broken screens and
| they wanted to establish a policy to waive responsibility,
| which is understandable.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| Scarbutt wrote:
| There's still the audio problem.
| once-in-a-while wrote:
| Use a (black/dark) spray. You never want the camera to be active
| anyway... (and if you really want to, hey, remember to be
| creative!)
| cpursley wrote:
| This is exactly what destroyed my 2020 Pro.
|
| Gowing forward its a ThinkPad with Linux.
|
| For serious work I need a serious machine.
| dabernathy89 wrote:
| Yep.
|
| https://twitter.com/dabernathy89/status/1257341572267548673
|
| https://twitter.com/dabernathy89/status/1257350535440748547
| Angeo34 wrote:
| After reading this help article by Apple I will sell all my Apple
| devices and never buy anything again from them.
|
| This post by Apple is confirmation to me that they were spying
| though the camera. In recent years I have seen more and more
| people do this with nearly every single Mac owner I know doing
| this (and that's a lot of people). I don't think it's Apple
| conducting the espionage but rather LEAs of totalitarian
| undemocratic country (US, China) performing economical espionage.
|
| It makes sense that Germany is the country that is by far most
| affected by industrial and economical espionage. And it makes
| sense that nearly all of the spying is conducted by the US and
| Chins whether it be industrial economical scientifical or
| political.
| valuearb wrote:
| Since Mac camera indicator lights are hard wired to camera
| power supply, your theory is impossible.
| thisisbrians wrote:
| I'd love to just have a physical kill switch for the camera/mic.
| ludwigvan wrote:
| Broke my Macbook Pro's display after I unplugged my earphones,
| accidentally left the tip of the earphone at the edge and closed
| the lid lightly. So beware of that too.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| When I moved to Germany I was surprised how everyone taped the
| camera on their laptops with these small, thin, easy to remove
| stickers that left no residue made for bookmarking your
| notebooks.
|
| This should still work on Macs as a sticker is thin enough not to
| damage the display.
| roland35 wrote:
| As long as it's thinner than a standard page of printer paper,
| according to apple at least!
| dguo wrote:
| That's what I use as well, and I'm still using the same one
| that I started with. It's lasted over a year.
|
| I appreciate this line:
|
| > The camera is engineered so that it can't activate without
| the camera indicator light also turning on. This is how you can
| tell if your camera is on.
|
| But I still want a physical assurance that the camera can't see
| anything. I don't want to have to count on myself noticing the
| light.
|
| Some Lenovo ThinkPads have built-in shutters, and I wish Apple
| would do the same for MacBooks. In my ideal laptop, it would
| also physically disable the microphone.
| hyko wrote:
| Here's the document explaining how it's _physically_ impossible
| to use the microphone when the MacBook lid is closed:
| https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/security/secbbd20b00b/...
|
| Where is the equivalent document explaining how it's _physically_
| impossible for the camera to be active without the green LED
| lighting up?
| randyrand wrote:
| Would be nice if they explained how the hardware worked.
|
| Hardware is not free from bugs. Ask any hardware manufacturer!
| [deleted]
| ryanmcbride wrote:
| According to that it's fine if it's thin enough. I always just
| use a little piece of electrical tape. Not really worried about
| spying just like the piece of mind that I won't accidentally be
| seen nude on a zoom call.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Half of my office has camera covers, honestly at this point I'd
| have a lot of respect for any maker who had a physical mechanism
| to their camera... Sort of like the original iSight
| https://www.coolsmartphone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/is...
| markstos wrote:
| Purism laptops include camera, mic and bluetooth physical kill
| switches. https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/
| anuragsoni wrote:
| Lenovo gets pretty close. Most thinkpads starting from 2018
| have a thin plastic cover to block the camera [1]
|
| [1] https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkShutter
| makapuf wrote:
| My hp laptop (I guess it's an elitebook) also has this small
| integrated shutter. Very practical.
| kilo_bravo_3 wrote:
| I've never understood physical covers, then again I am never in
| a compromising position in front of my laptop.
|
| Any malware that can take pictures can record keystrokes. I
| want no cover so I can see the activity light because knowing
| the webcam is on is more important than it being on.
|
| The (pennsylvania?) school district webcam spying scandal got
| kicked off because a boy noticed his webcam light coming on. If
| it had been covered would he have noticed?
|
| No, the school district wouldn't have had pictures of him, but
| they still would have screengrabs, audio, and keystrokes and he
| likely never would have noticed.
|
| Take all of the pictures of my double chin that you want.
|
| I want to know that my webcam is coming on without my
| authorization so I can root out the spyware that is keylogging.
|
| Passwords > Pics
|
| If you're the type whose life will be ruined by pictures taken
| by your webcam, by all means cover it up. I'm too old and hairy
| to be blackmailed with nudie pics.
|
| Having my passwords leak would seriously cramp my style,
| though.
|
| And no, nobody is going to waste a zero-day that can reprogram
| a webcam controller to disable the light (if possible and often
| it is not) on a nudie-pics malware. They are going to use it to
| make actual money.
| slipheen wrote:
| For me it's not about blackmail, it's about making sure the
| camera isn't accidentality enabled unexpectedly during a
| meeting.
|
| The worst that would happen is I'd look kinda unprofessional
| slurping up some noodles, but having the camera covered
| allows me to be confident I'm not presenting unless I intend
| to.
| kilo_bravo_3 wrote:
| Does that happen often?
|
| We've been 100% Microsoft Teams since March so I'd say that
| in several hundred calls and conferences since then I've
| never activated the webcam without intent.
| slipheen wrote:
| It's not frequent, but the desired number of times is 0
| :)
|
| There's been a few times that my camera has activated in
| a meeting, and shown a black screen because of the cover.
|
| My Lenovo Ubuntu machine has cover built into the casing,
| which seems ideal. For my Macbook, I use a thin (<.1mm)
| plastic sliding cover.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Software is hard to use and randomly changes every time a
| stupid designer decides to shuffle the UI for no reason.
| So yes it happens.
| runarberg wrote:
| It doesn't matter _how often_ this happens, it matters
| that it _can_ happen. It is much nicer to have a cover
| and not worry, then to always remember "did I remember to
| deactivate the camera?"
| alxlu wrote:
| I don't think it's an either/or scenario. It's easy to put a
| cover on where you can still see the indicator light on
| MacBooks.
| godelski wrote:
| I don't understand why people have window curtains and close
| them at night. If you have them closed then you can't see the
| person spying on you outside. Door locks are more important.
|
| This is what you sound like. The things can be used in
| conjunction with one another. It is not an _or_ scenario, you
| can have both. You can also have covers which don 't cover
| the indicator. You use different deterrent mechanisms for
| different threats. It is as simple as that.
| rahkiin wrote:
| In the Netherlands we don't really close curtains at night.
| I also have no camera cover.
| iso947 wrote:
| Don't you have bright lights outside? Do you like being
| woken at the crack of dawn?
| kilo_bravo_3 wrote:
| Except to use your metaphor, software control of a webcam
| is like closing the blinds and putting a physical cover
| over the lens is like covering a window in aluminum foil in
| addition to closing the blinds.
| stevespang wrote:
| piece of aluminum foil, duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
| oskenso wrote:
| Just cover the camera with a piece of sticky note paper, problem
| solved
| tandav wrote:
| https://youtu.be/Zof-TH8hZ20
| alanbernstein wrote:
| Reading this, I had the idea to create a sliding cover, in the
| same style as the bulky plastic ones, but made out of a sticky
| note. Turns out this was not an original idea, and the person who
| beat me to it has a much slicker design than what I had in mind,
| using a single sticky note, cut in two pieces, with a symmetric
| design.
|
| http://www.linux-works.de/Wiki/OrigamiWebCamCover?action=Att...
| rvense wrote:
| Meanwhile, my new Thinkpad has a camera cover built in...
| soulofmischief wrote:
| _If you close your Mac notebook with a camera cover installed,
| you might damage your display because the clearance between the
| display and keyboard is designed to very tight tolerances._
|
| Doesn't this sound like an engineering oversight and not a user
| error? Why are camera covers not just part of the design? My
| phone camera physically retracts when not in use.
| jereees wrote:
| Your phone camera sounds like an engineering oversight.
| rosywoozlechan wrote:
| As a former one plus 7 pro owner, I agree with this
| sentiment.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| What makes you feel that way?
|
| I enjoy the peace of mind and lack of a notch on my screen.
| It's designed and advertised as a feature, not an oversight.
| Twirrim wrote:
| There's a lot more moving parts to go wrong.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| It's unfair to say that a single moving part is "a lot
| more moving parts". I can almost guarantee you that my
| phone will outlive its usefulness before the camera stops
| working based on current market trends.
|
| Regardless, it's a feature I wanted and the engineering
| team catered to this desire, so I don't see how this is
| an oversight. Engineering is about trade-offs.
| valuearb wrote:
| Because people forget to slide the camera cover.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| That's circular logic.
|
| People forget simply because camera covers are not common
| enough, so it's not a valid argument for why they shouldn't
| be more common.
| valuearb wrote:
| People forget because you have to train yourself to
| remember, and outside of intelligence agency personnel, no
| one is doing that.
|
| Camera covers are just another example of security for
| show. Having a camera cover on a pc without a hard wired
| camera indicator like Macs have means you will never know
| how many of those times you were filmed after forgetting to
| slide your camera cover over.
| sixothree wrote:
| I am convinced they were ordered at some point to include
| cameras. They definitely drive up the cost of laptops,
| especially earlier on when webcams were more expensive. There
| were so few practical uses in the early days and so few people
| actually use them today that I am surprised few laptop
| manufacturers don't allow for security.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| I think cameras are generally expected in non-budget laptops
| just as they are in phones.
| astrange wrote:
| Unfortunately, they're not even as good as phone front
| cameras because laptop screens are so thin. So people who
| do a lot of video chatting typically set up an external
| webcam or even a real camera in video mode.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Do you have statistics on this? And do they take into
| account the dichotomy of mostly-mobile and mostly-
| stationary users?
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| Few people use them? I really doubt that, especially with so
| many people working from home these days.
| vortex_ape wrote:
| > Why are camera covers not just part of the design?
|
| I feel more and more companies should do this! My ThinkPad T480
| has one built-in and I really like the peace of mind.
| chrisjc wrote:
| > because the clearance between the display and keyboard is
| designed to very tight tolerances.
|
| Sounds like engineering excellence to me.
|
| But I agree with you that there should perhaps be some kind of
| physical block/switch built in.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| My Acer Chromebook 15, a budget laptop, enjoys similarly
| tight tolerances.
|
| I think engineering excellence would be to incorporate a
| camera cover and physical microphone switch while maintaining
| these tolerances.
| DanBC wrote:
| > Why are camera covers not just part of the design?
|
| I guess Apple are going to say that they'd rather focus on the
| security of the OS and computer to prevent unauthorised
| software from being able to access the camera than on a mostly
| cosmetic doodad.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| A simple built-in camera cover is not a cosmetic doodad. And
| physical covers cannot be remotely hacked, unlike the active
| camera light which has been overridden multiple times.
|
| If we're talking about focusing on security, then the choice
| should be clear.
| valuearb wrote:
| Mac camera lights can't be hacked. And tell you exactly
| when it's in use.
| Traster wrote:
| This is like focusing on the brakes and forgetting to install
| an airbag.
| runarberg wrote:
| Above in the thread it has been noted that camera covers are
| not only about security. But also about preventing accidental
| exposure, e.g. when you accidentally click the wrong button
| in a meeting app, or if your app is misconfigured to start
| with the camera on, forget to close an app, etc. Camera
| covers helps prevent you from these potential embarrassments.
| 2trill2spill wrote:
| I've had tape over my camera on my mac pro for over 10 years and
| have had no problems. And no Apple I don't trust the light
| indicator.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| A small square of electrical tape works nicely, and can be
| moved aside if need be. But will it cause damage?
| 0xDEEPFAC wrote:
| Well, being in the security field I would want to know if that
| light is software or hardware controlled.
| awake wrote:
| The light is hardware controlled. The camera can only get power
| when the light is on.
| slenk wrote:
| Now. It definitely wasn't always
| valuearb wrote:
| Right, only the last ten years models.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| It's hardware controlled.
| https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/14705/hard-wired-l...
|
| Bypass attacks have been demonstrated on old hardware. Nothing
| most people would own today.
| [deleted]
| roland35 wrote:
| This is an interesting side effect of designing a thin, fancy
| glass display! I see a lot of people who cover their camera and I
| appreciate their concerns but I do trust the green light.
|
| Although... You may not see the light on if you leave your laptop
| open when you're away from your desk. I do wish it was easier to
| get a laptop with no camera or microphone at all!
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Can you be confident that the light stays on long enough when
| taking a quick snapshot?
| duxup wrote:
| This seems like a pretty mild warning for folks who might stick a
| bulky cover on their camera and press down / pack their laptop
| tightly and now have wedged part of the screen open with the
| cover.
|
| I'm a fan of using painters tape.... pretty low profile, easily
| removed, stays on really well. Also the weird blue glow you get
| when the camera is on tells you pretty quick "Hey there's a cover
| on there" where sometimes with the all blackout covers ... I
| can't tell.
|
| I renew my calls for all devices to have an led indicator (good
| on Apple here) and a physical switch that cuts power to mics and
| cameras for all devices with them. With the endless layers of
| software we have today, I have trouble trusting anything but
| cutting power.
| dabernathy89 wrote:
| It does _not_ have to be a bulky cover. I used an extremely low
| profile webcam cover on my 2015 MBP for 3 years. I put a
| similar one on my 16 " MBP, and it destroyed the screen after a
| couple weeks.
|
| Specifically, this is the webcam cover I was using:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C24NBGL/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_T...
| txcwpalpha wrote:
| I've been using this exact same cover on 3 different MBPs
| (yes I use 3 MBPs simultaneously, a 2016 13", a 2019 13", and
| 2019 15") for almost a year and haven't noticed anything even
| remotely close to it damaging the screen on any of them.
|
| I actually just tested it, and the cover doesn't even make
| contact with the lower half of the MacBook when closed. The
| cover fits into the trackpad area, which is recessed. I don't
| see how it could possibly damage the screen without me
| putting enough pressure on it where the screen would have
| been damaged regardless.
| johnhattan wrote:
| Ahh, thanks for the link. The webcam covers I'd seen in the
| past were just removable plastic stickers, and I was having a
| hard time visualizing what counts as "thin".
|
| One of the photos shows them be about as thick as a credit
| card.
| farnsworth wrote:
| I used this on the 2016 for years, but even though it's
| incredibly thin, it is too thick for the 2020. Would love to
| find a replacement if anyone has a suggestion.
| hanniabu wrote:
| For the whole damage from using a camera cover thing, I simply
| bought as low a profile one as I could find and used a few
| small felt pads in the top 2 screen corners and next to the
| camera just outside the width of where the touch pad is (keeps
| pressure off the pad so the sensor doesn't crack).
| dabernathy89 wrote:
| I hope you have AppleCare+!
| duxup wrote:
| I had a laptop that just was a pain to pick at with your
| fingers to open... I just shoved a bunch of paper in there
| for a while before I went with your solution, some little
| rubber clear grippy pads in the corners to get it to stand
| away from the body just a bit.
| bob1029 wrote:
| I use 3M blue multi-surface masking tape on all my devices.
| I've had a piece on my surface laptop screen for several months
| now and it is still leaving no residue after removal. I also
| like to cover the microphone cutouts if feasible (these are
| directly adjacent the webcam on my laptop).
| knodi123 wrote:
| > I'm a fan of using painters tape.... pretty low profile,
| easily removed, stays on really well
|
| The cleverest solution I've seen that is 1.) easily toggled,
| and 2.) harmless to screens is a coworker who built a little
| vinyl veil that attaches to the top back of their monitor. They
| can flip it forward to cover the camera, or flip it back to use
| it. But if you close even the tightest of lids with a couple
| microns of vinyl in there, it's harmless. Bada-bing, problem
| solved, and they only used a penny or two worth of materials.
| ObsoleteNerd wrote:
| My wife uses a tiny speck of Blu Tak. It's soft so just gets
| squashed flat when the lid closes and it's designed to be
| infinitely reusable and come off things without leaving a
| mark. She just pulls it off and sticks it a few cm to the
| side of the camera when she wants to use it. She's been doing
| it for 3+ years (same piece) and it's genius.
| dathinab wrote:
| But it's also a sign about Apple not doing a good wrt. making
| their premium products robust.
|
| With many other Laptops in that price range you would either
| have to use a very fat cover or apply a amount of pressure
| which might damage your laptop anyway. I just tried it
| (carefully) with my laptop and the screen has enough
| "play"/"flex" to handle it just fine.
|
| PS: Fun fact as far as I remember a number of webcams with LED
| indicator allow (or did allow in the past) anyone using the
| camera to switch off the indicator without stopping using the
| camera...
| duxup wrote:
| I'm not sure if this is more or less of an issue with Apple
| covers than say ... anyone else.
|
| It could be, but I wouldn't base it off just Apple having a
| warning about it.
| filoleg wrote:
| >Fun fact as far as I remember a number of webcams with LED
| indicator allow (or did allow in the past) anyone using the
| camera to switch off the indicator without stopping using the
| camera...
|
| While this is still true for many laptops, it hasn't been
| true for MBP for at least the past 5 years (cannot be
| bothered to find the exact year), even if someone has full
| root access to the machine. I say that, because the camera
| LED on MBPs these days is hardware activated, not software.
| So if the camera is active on hardware level, the LED
| indicator will go green, no matter what.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I consider the piece of tape over my laptop camera like face
| masks. It may not be perfect nor pretty, but it's damn
| effective, and I feel better having it on.
| bobloblaw45 wrote:
| I've used a sticker from a banana for years on my work phone.
|
| I'm weird though, I'm one of those people that needs to have
| their arm twisted to use their camera.
| ph4te wrote:
| I learned this the hard way with one of these slide covers from
| CloudFlare I got at BlackHat Conference. Picked up the Mac with
| one hand and I heard the crack. Needlees to say I now have a
| vinyl type sticky cover I just move on and off when I need to use
| the camera. Apple replaced the screen for me for a small fee of
| course. https://www.ipromo.com/promo-products/20101/Custom-
| Webcam-Co...
| abrowne wrote:
| I always wonder why the people who cover webcams don't think
| about the mic. Isn't that almost worse? It could grab speech even
| if you aren't right in front of the camera.
| sky_rw wrote:
| The much more real-world use case for me is guaranteeing I
| won't join a video conference call with my camera on. In light
| of all the WFH zoom accidental nudity videos going around, its
| no surprise camera covers have become more prevalent.
| floatboth wrote:
| On the Google Pixelbook though, a camera cover is great for
| closing the worrying huge gap in between the lid and the touchpad
| in the closed state! :D
| brundolf wrote:
| People are suggesting just using tape, but the issue is when you
| want to un-cover it frequently (which is probably more common now
| than a few months ago). For a couple dollars you can get a thin,
| nice-looking little plastic cover that you can actually slide out
| of the way when you need to use it. Most of these are thin enough
| not to be a problem, but they vary, and even the really thin ones
| usually don't quite let your Macbook close all the way,
| potentially putting pressure on a narrow point.
| jb775 wrote:
| Black electrical tape actually retains stickiness surprisingly
| well, and it peels off easily.
| GrumpyYoungMan wrote:
| I'd recommend gaffer's tape instead:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaffer_tape. It's similar to
| electrical tape but it's designed to leave no residue when
| peeled off.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Also try scotch tape for an artistic blur effect.
| dabernathy89 wrote:
| Don't even use the extremely thin ones unless you have
| AppleCare+. Not worth the risk of a $1,000 repair.
|
| This one destroyed my screen completely:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C24NBGL/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_T...
| dogma1138 wrote:
| TBH the thing I've noticed is just how fast people stopped
| turning cameras on during Webex.
|
| Before the nearly everyone at my company what was WFH or was
| joining from their laptop rather than a video conferencing room
| had their camera on.
|
| Within like a week of the lockdown people stopped and I can
| imagine why you stopped dressing, stopped shaving heck I can
| hear bedsheets on some of the calls I attend.
|
| Pretty much now the cameras are useless.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Something I noticed specifically with webex is that the
| latency isn't nearly as bad in audio-only mode. Not as good
| as Mumble or Discord, but you can actually have a decent
| phone call.
| dhosek wrote:
| We had specific guidance to _not_ have cameras on because of
| the bandwidth load on the VPN. For cost reasons, they 've
| also turned off access from the 800 number to dial in to
| meetings.
| kelnos wrote:
| That's definitely a "YMMV" situation. There are a few people
| at my org who always have their cameras off, and occasionally
| I'll keep mine off as well, but in the meetings I'm in, 80%
| of people have their cameras on.
| dharmab wrote:
| That might vary by team. My team/org still uses cameras a lot
| as it makes it easier to empathize and be empathized with.
| Especially if we're trying to be persuasive, a human face is
| easier to emotionally connect with than a voice.
| brundolf wrote:
| That's some pretty broad-strokes-painting. I'm still on a
| video call every week, and I'm not in as many meetings as
| most of my coworkers. I'm also in two separate weekly online
| roleplaying game groups and we use cameras for those because
| it's much less fun without the added expressiveness.
| zeku wrote:
| My MBP is work issue, so I've always been a bit shy about
| putting a camera cover on it becasue I don't want to damage it.
|
| I fold and drape a microfiber cloth(like for screen or glasses
| cleaning) over it when I'm not using the camera.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Has anyone here not heard of duct tape?
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| > The camera is engineered so that it can't activate without the
| camera indicator light also turning on.
|
| Has anyone torn down the hardware and verified this lately?
|
| It should not be a complicated feature at all. Just ensure you
| have the same voltage applied to your LED circuit as your camera
| circuit, and enforce that by having them on the same wire...
| Traster wrote:
| It's not that simple, what voltage and current need to held on
| that wire to light the LED and the camera? It's not uncommmon
| to find a situation where a chip doesn't technically have the
| right power on it's power rails, but is instead drawing power
| on the input ports. It's non-trivial to prove this is or isn't
| happening.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| No, I think it is that simple. The camera module likely needs
| either 3.3v or 5v. The LED can also be powered at either 3.3
| or 5v by simply using a series resistor. You just hook the
| camera and LED to the supply in parallel.
|
| > a chip doesn't technically have the right power on it's
| power rails, but is instead drawing power on the input ports.
|
| What does this mean? The data lines of camera modules are
| generally differential pair, and it is highly unlikely that
| significant power is being drawn from them.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Even if true, do I have time to verify for all devices? A piece
| of tape is a piece of tape.
| noja wrote:
| Wait: that's not the same as having a camera cover.
|
| A camera cover guarantees that the camera can only work when
| the camera is uncovered.
|
| A camera _light_ alerts you once the camera _is already on_.
| markstos wrote:
| Important distinction. If your microphone is compromised,
| your web cam might be triggered to turn on just long enough
| to take a photo, or the camera could turn on only when the
| mic is quiet and there are indications the person is not
| engaged with the computer.
| runarberg wrote:
| Note that this is not only about security. Sometimes a user
| simply makes a mistake, or have an app configured the wrong
| way, and accidentally turn on their cameras without
| intending to. Nothing has been compromised, everything is
| secure, but they still suffered an unexpected exposure. A
| camera cover will prevent many of these situations.
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| Should be a tiny mechanical device in addition to the light
| and it should only unlock with touch id. Same for
| microphone. Honestly, I want the same thing for phones too.
| The ease by which we are monitored is too damn high.
| jrootabega wrote:
| Yep, and the cover can be toggled when the machine is locked
| or powered off.
| tartoran wrote:
| Yeah, light can turn on when one is looking away from the
| computer or sleeping and could potentially be spied on. A
| cover is a non spying guarantee, at least the visual part,
| spies can listen on the mic though
| rzzzt wrote:
| A software fridge light!
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| That's a great point. Maybe there should be a touch-sensitive
| button up by the camera to turn it on.
| XCSme wrote:
| Also, pretty unlikely, but what if the LED dies? :)
| outworlder wrote:
| Very very unlikely. Low power leds rarely malfunction.
|
| Add more than one if this is a concern, and it can still be
| compact. This is already done today in "RGB" leds.
| shhsshs wrote:
| I'm not an electrical engineer so forgive me if this is a
| dumb question. Is it possible to wire it in such a way where
| the power actually travels _through_ the LED, so if the LED
| ever stopped functioning or lost connection the webcam would
| literally receive no power?
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| Yes it's possible, as LEDs are indeed diodes, but done
| naively it would be a very bright LED, and it would tend to
| flicker as the current draw from the camera varies. It
| would be a hassle in general.
|
| The LED could still always fail short, and then you're back
| to having a broken indicator again.
| blue1 wrote:
| A post-it note is about 0.07 mm thick, so according to the
| article it's within the allowed limit of 0.1 mm.
| bo1024 wrote:
| It's so interesting that we've arrived in a state where people,
| for good reason, cannot trust "their" devices in the slightest.
| On the computer where you do all your online banking or taxes or
| whatever, you don't feel safe without sticking something over the
| camera.
|
| Makes me very proud to support Purism laptops with their
| camera/microphone hardware killswitches and FOSS software (I know
| FOSS is not the same as secure, but at least incentives are
| aligned). On desktop I use FOSS software and physically plug in a
| webcam for meetings.
| astrange wrote:
| > It's so interesting that we've arrived in a state where
| people, for good reason, cannot trust "their" devices in the
| slightest. On the computer where you do all your online banking
| or taxes or whatever, you don't feel safe without sticking
| something over the camera.
|
| That really doesn't mean anything, because the people who post
| on here just like to not trust things. It makes them look cool
| when they're posting. You can always use evil maids or
| Russell's teapot or any argument you like as an excuse to be
| cynical, it's not like it can be disproven.
| oskenso wrote:
| > The camera is engineered so that it can't activate without the
| camera indicator light also turning on. This is how you can tell
| if your camera is on.
|
| I'd assume this is done in firmware for the camera module?
| goldfishlover wrote:
| I still prefer a hardware solution or even a toggle, 1\2 the
| reason I like the cover is less for privacy and more to prevent
| joining meetings with the camera on when I'm not ready
|
| removes the need to always be thinking about some random
| indicator being on or off
| ehavener wrote:
| I'm guessing the light is part of the camera's power circuit. I
| don't think this would work for photos, though.
| valuearb wrote:
| Hard wired to Camera power supply, no firmware necessary.
| chrisjshull wrote:
| Do camera modules need power? Could the LED be wired in series
| to the camera module voltage in wire?
| catalogia wrote:
| Forget LEDs, hardware switches, and all the rest, what I want to
| know is why Apple is making hardware so fragile that a simple
| piece of tape might damage it.
| gtm1260 wrote:
| I was very skeptical of the camera covers, but then through
| conversations with some of my co-workers, I realized that they
| weren't being used because people were worried about spies
| secretly turning on the camera. It was 90% of the time just peace
| of mind that their camera was actually off, instead of having to
| find the sometimes hard to see options in video chat programs
| etc.
| runarberg wrote:
| I quite often accidentally turn on the camera without intending
| (usually because an app automatically turns it on) to. Having a
| cover prevents me from being embarrassed by an unexpected
| exposure.
| dathinab wrote:
| That is what I like with the Lenovo webcams in T480s and
| probably later versions.
|
| They have a small slider with the camera protection "glass"
| build in which can cover the camera and will "show" a red dot
| if it's covered.
| miguelmota wrote:
| This should really be the standard for laptop webcams. The
| T480 webcam cover is flush with the bezel and you barely even
| notice it because it's so subtle. One of my favorite
| features.
| Traster wrote:
| Yeah, I have the X1 Carbon and there is _nothing_ that is
| ever going to make me as comfortable as a little piece of
| plastic that sldies in front of the lens of the camera.
| slipheen wrote:
| That's exactly it for me -
|
| I'm in a lot of remote meetings, and wouldn't want to be
| accidentality presenting without expecting to.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| With regard to privacy, the microphone is 100x more sensitive
| than the camera most of the time, and it's much harder to
| secure.
| hanniabu wrote:
| Mic-Lock: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KRC3G7R/
| rcfox wrote:
| Support for this kind of thing is entirely voluntary. You
| can short the mic pin to ground (or connect an external
| mic), and it will disable the onboard mic by default
| because that's what is expected, but there's nothing
| physically stopping the audio controller from reading from
| the onboard mic anyway.
| pkage wrote:
| That's incredibly overpriced at $26.99 for what is
| essentially just a dummy input...
| iso947 wrote:
| To be fair it's a 5 pack
|
| It seems to be something with a switch that disconnects
| one of the rings of a 4 pin. Easy enough, but $5 doesn't
| seem awful.
|
| Of course it doesn't disconnect built in microphones, and
| with modern Apple phones getting rid of 3.5mm jacks it's
| value is less.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| This is just for external headsets.
| hanniabu wrote:
| No it's not. It's meant for any port, but this model has
| it's own port so you don't need to keep plugging and
| unplugging it. You can leave it in and daisy chain by
| plugging your headset or speaker into it rather than
| directly.
| malandrew wrote:
| It's a shame they don't have a USB-C one that looks like a
| compact USB-C YubiKey.
| iso1631 wrote:
| It certainly is, I have the option to
|
| 1) Block the camera and hope the microphone is on mute 2)
| Hope the camera isn't on and home the microphone isn't on 3)
| Not have the mac at all
|
| Clearly 1 is better than 2.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| I have the same with my headset. It has a physical mute button
| for the microphone, which I engage as soon as I'm done talking
| in Teams or similar. It's a dumb switch, so instant and with no
| annoying woman telling me I muted. Being a dumb switch it's
| also tactile, so I can tell by feel if I'm muted or not.
|
| That way I don't have to worry about my annoying my colleagues
| by my mechanical keyboard, occasional excess gas events or
| similar.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Exactly this. I use one for these reasons, in descending order
| of practical concern:
|
| 1. I don't want to broadcast myself during a meeting when I'm
| not prepared, or perhaps leave a meeting open by accident.
|
| 2. If a bad actor does access my camera, I won't necessarily
| notice the indicator light, especially if I'm not actively
| using the computer at that moment.
|
| 3. I don't trust the indicator light to be permanently
| unhackable.
| jachee wrote:
| As long as you maintain physical possession of your machine,
| point 3 is moot, at least on Macs.
| ldoughty wrote:
| See the several articles linked in this page about apple
| webcams/mics being turned on by hackers....
|
| Apple is good, but they are not perfect
| jilles wrote:
| They are not, but these articles are for < 2008 Macs. On
| "newer" Macbooks it done by hardware.
| acdha wrote:
| You're posting this late enough to have had time to see
| that those are all about hardware which is a decade old.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23796606
| iso947 wrote:
| I leave my laptop in my hotel room while I go out for
| dinner, so point 3 is valid.
| jachee wrote:
| If I'm going to dinner where I can't take my backpack, I
| put mine in the safe.
|
| Can recommend. Physical security > *.
| foofoo55 wrote:
| Though fixed many years ago, there may be a lack of trust due to
| previous ability for malware to take snap shots without turning
| on the camera LED.
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2013/12/19/apple_isight_webcam_l...
| pantaloony wrote:
| People also do it so they don't accidentally open something
| that's got the camera enabled. If you're a school teacher
| answering questions for students in the evening you don't want
| to click the wrong thing and turn on video, or close the lid
| with something running then open it later, having forgotten,
| and now you're broadcasting. Stuff like that. Whether teh
| haxx0rs can get at the camera is irrelevant for _that_ reason
| of using covers.
|
| Personally I wish all my devices had hardware toggles for
| camera and mic, both. Phone included, since it's only a "phone"
| a small fraction of the time these days, the rest of the time
| it's a small Web-stuff device.
| svntid wrote:
| I hope they realize covering the camera is meant to prevent the
| camera from being able to make a image in the first place. Even
| if the light indicates and I am aware of the fact that I have
| been photographed. It would not have been possible if it was
| covered.
| leogout wrote:
| How does the smart backlight can adjust luminosity without
| triggering the webcam's indicator then ? (genuenly curious, I
| don't know how it works)
| gundmc wrote:
| I think the sensors are located near but not part of the camera
| assembly. Covering the camera is also likely to cover the light
| sensor.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| There's a separate ambient light sensor. On some models you can
| make out the three separate holes above the monitor, one for
| the webcam, one for the led, and one for the light sensor.
|
| I can't for the life of me see it with more recent models, but
| if block the camera it's clearly still there since it can
| respond to light changes, but if you block enough of the area
| around the camera, it'll default to assuming you're in
| darkness.
| quotha wrote:
| Don't make all MacBook's with a camera that a lot of your
| customers want to cover up all the time.
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| If someone can hack your camera, they've probably already got the
| ability to capture your screen, keystrokes, and data.
| miles wrote:
| > "Designed to protect your privacy, Mac notebooks have a camera
| indicator light to let you know when the camera is on. ...
| Published Date: July 02, 2020"
|
| Perhaps Apple missed these?
|
| 2013: iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED
| https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569
|
| 2016: Your Mac's Camera Can Be Hacked https://www.intego.com/mac-
| security-blog/your-macs-camera-ca...
|
| 2016: Former NSA employee: This hack gains access to your Mac's
| webcam https://www.cnet.com/news/mac-webcam-hack-ex-nsa-employee/
| apecat wrote:
| Recent Apple laptops have a separate SoC dedicated to secure
| boot as well as making sure macOS has no direct control over
| that camera indicator light, and more
|
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/07/29/what-apples-t2-ch...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Silicon#T_series
| Wingman4l7 wrote:
| The handy-dandy T2 also helps to soft-brick laptops,
| destroying that pesky second-hand market!
|
| Poor Apple had already destroyed that for iPhones and iPads
| but just couldn't do it for their laptops, __until now __!
|
| https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akw558/apples-t2-security.
| ..
| aboutBen wrote:
| If the T2 chip is compromised, then separate SoC protection
| is moot. The only true protection is a physical covering
| (like in the Lenovo) or physical kill switch (like the Purism
| laptops).
| Closi wrote:
| At that stage though all bets are off - the hackers have
| access to everything you have typed, all your files, all
| the audio from your microphones, your credit card details,
| those photos of you and your partner on the hard drive...
|
| Yet the camera on a laptop is the thing that we need to
| cover? It's a weird security model, that's all.
|
| Besides, on a MacBook it sounds like the webcam light is
| almost impossible to circumvent because of the
| implementation.
| y7 wrote:
| For those photos of you and your partner you made the
| conscious decision to take them, perhaps even weighing
| the risks of them being compromised at some point. This
| is very different from a video feed being captured of you
| unknowingly. That goes for both the impact of such a
| compromise, and the feeling of the risk of being watched.
|
| Almost impossible just means it requires lots of
| money/dedication, but still a T2 chip compromise is
| scalable and can be done remotely, which is fundamentally
| different from physically compromising hardware.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Well Purism laptops have hardware switches for the
| microphones too.
|
| But it's not even just for hackers. Zoom had the SUPER
| annoying habit of turning your cam on when the meeting
| organiser selected that everyone should cam.
|
| This led to several colleagues being unaware they were
| being shown at that time. One was even lying in bed and
| called in from her phone. That's her business, it was 8pm
| at her location. But now everyone knows.
|
| A hardware slider would have prevented all of these real-
| world problems.
| toxik wrote:
| Fud, these don't work anymore.
| electrotype wrote:
| _these_
| OrangeKnucles wrote:
| Something new will come that will work.
| zdragnar wrote:
| The fact that they worked at all is an indication that
| something similar may work in the future. It's not like apple
| has never had a regression in software.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Gruber has an article about this; he mentions someone who
| is a former Apple engineer saying it's now implemented
| entirely in hardware.
|
| https://daringfireball.net/2019/02/on_covering_webcams
| gist wrote:
| Risk to the average apple customer is? Do you think that
| most people need to worry about this? Point Apple is making
| is it's not needed for the vast majority of their users and
| if you feel better use a piece of paper.
|
| So let's stipulate it can happen (because well it can
| happen). That would take both someone being targeted en
| masse (prior to apple having a fix in place) and it making
| a difference to the person or people it happened to. Is
| that really a big enough risk to spend time worrying about?
| ziddoap wrote:
| Not to presume what the OP was meaning, but I'm guessing they
| were pointing to these cases as a "it has been vulnerable
| before, it may be vulnerable again. But a cover is not
| exploitable in this way" rather than "these exploits work".
| iso1631 wrote:
| Which ones do?
|
| Which bugs, loopholes, backdoors, etc allow the camera to get
| through my cover (I upgraded to sliding plastic from
| electrical tape at the start of lockdown and there was a need
| for an actual camera)
| jamra wrote:
| Do you expect him to post links to zero day exploits? If it's
| actively targeted and done so consistently and sequentially,
| it is reasonable to expect that it _could_ be happening now.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I don't think they are saying that a vulnerability currently
| exists. I think they are saying that people don't trust these
| lights because they have a bad track record. It could be that
| the current implementation _is_ better, but how is an end
| user supposed to _know_ it 's better?
|
| It's kind of a matter of fool me once, shame on you, fool me
| twice, shame on me.
| gist wrote:
| > that people don't trust these lights because they have a
| bad track record.
|
| No tech people who think about and obsess about this type
| of 'risk' don't trust the lights. Most Apple customers vast
| majority don't think and don't care.
| stouset wrote:
| I would wager money that precisely zero of the "tech
| people who think about and obsess about this type of
| 'risk'" have had their privacy compromised as a result of
| an Apple laptop misrepresenting the on/off state of the
| camera.
|
| It's been _twelve years_ since a vulnerability in this
| was reported, and by all reports the LED power state is
| now implemented in hardware. It 's long since time to
| obsess over other sources of risk, instead of the dead
| ghosts of previous ones.
| uniqueid wrote:
| An opaque piece of tape used to disable a camera is one
| of few components a user can completely understand. Apple
| is _probably_ correct to tell users to rely on Apple 's
| security features, but those features are way more
| complicated than a piece of tape.
| livre wrote:
| > Designed to protect your privacy, Mac notebooks have a camera
| indicator light to let you know when the camera is on. ...
|
| The main problem with that isn't that it is possible to disable
| the LED. The problem is that the LED is like a smoke detector,
| when it alerts you it's already too late, you are on fire (or
| your photo/video has already been taken). An indicator LED
| doesn't protect your privacy, it only tells you when it has
| already been breached.
| DanBC wrote:
| The problem with a physical cover is that if the bad guys can
| install software on your computer that can access the camera
| without setting off the LED they can also install just about
| anything they want. At that point nothing on the computer can
| be trusted.
| jdbernard wrote:
| How is thisa problem with the hardware cover? It's a
| problem with the security model in general.
| mannykannot wrote:
| ...and it only tells you that if you are looking at it at the
| time.
| iso947 wrote:
| Indeed. Think of the "American Pie" situation. Laptop open
| playing Spotify to get you in the mood, then bop, on goes
| the camera thanks to a bug in zoom. Are you going to
| notice?
| valuearb wrote:
| On new Macs the light is a minimum 3 seconds even for a
| single frame photo. Anyone monitoring you has to turn the
| light in just to see if you are there, and what you are
| doing, and will likely have to watch for hours to catch any
| incriminating footage.
|
| You will have plenty of notice.
| tlrobinson wrote:
| There should be roughly ~0 cost (maybe a few cents?) to tie
| indicator LEDs to the camera and microphones's power supplies,
| and maybe it (in theory) be independently auditable by anyone
| with a multimeter (and maybe a magnifying glass?)
|
| Is there a database of laptops that do this correctly?
|
| I guess you'd also want the microphone physically disconnected
| when the cover is closed, or at least have the LED visible when
| the cover is closed.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| If you read to the bottom of the directions it says you can use
| a sticker. So this looks like its targeted to the plastic
| camera covers that can be turned on and off.
| OriginalPenguin wrote:
| Yes, tearing off a small piece of a post-it note seems ideal.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| >2013: iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED
| https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569
|
| ... applies only to older Mac notebooks from like 2008 period
| which are long since obsolete according to Apple's announced
| support policy.
|
| >2016: Your Mac's Camera Can Be Hacked
| https://www.intego.com/mac-security-blog/your-macs-camera-
| ca....
|
| ... refers specifically the exploit above.
|
| >2016: Former NSA employee: This hack gains access to your
| Mac's webcam https://www.cnet.com/news/mac-webcam-hack-ex-nsa-
| employee/
|
| ... is an attack that depends on the camera already being in
| use by another application and therefore has nothing to do with
| the camera indicator.
| flowersjeff wrote:
| Nice try there Mr.CIA (wink-wink)...
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| It's connected to the damn circuit! You can't power up the
| webcam without powering up the light any more than you can
| make the camera see through a piece of electrical tape.
| robotcookies wrote:
| There could still be a circuit in the light that could
| pass the current without lighting up. Or even if there
| was no such thing, it could be added in the future after
| everyone was shamed into believing you are a fool for
| putting tape over your camera.
|
| There are probably other ways. Stop trying to shame
| people just because you haven't thought of a way to
| bypass this.
| avodonosov wrote:
| it was hacked in the past - that's the point of the above
| comment
|
| No guarantee it can't be hacked again.
| nojito wrote:
| There is a guarantee because there's no way to bypass the
| wiring to the light to power the camera.
| edoceo wrote:
| Indicator of use doesn't block a hack, just let you know
| it happened.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| The problem is in the design: by not providing a hardware
| switch, all we have is trust. As we can see from the past,
| unfortunatly it's not enough.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't see how that fixes the problem; if you don't trust
| Apple to build in hardware safeguards around the camera
| indicator light, why would you trust them with a hardware
| switch?
| sli wrote:
| A hardware switch should in theory be more easily
| verifiable than a software one through physical testing.
| Running tests on PCB traces to verify that a switch
| indeed works is probably a _whole_ lot easier in general
| practice than decapping chips or decompiling and
| analyzing low level firmware or low level OS components.
| ryandrake wrote:
| But are you going to run those tests on PCB traces on
| _your own hardware_? If not, then you have to trust that
| your hardware is identical to whatever hardware was torn-
| down and tested. I suppose this is good enough unless
| your threat model includes someone swapping your computer
| enroute to you with a modified one.
| GuiA wrote:
| I had a laptop with a physical switch for WiFi/Bluetooth in
| 2006 or so (with a matching orange/blue light that would
| turn up when you toggled it). The problem was that this was
| actually all done by a software driver - when I booted into
| Linux with the laptop I was surprised to find that the
| bluetooth/wifi modules were on regardless of the switch's
| position.
|
| At the end of the day, unless you have a really nice
| microscope, solid understanding of electrical engineering,
| and a few tens of thousands of hours ahead of you, you have
| to trust whoever you're buying the hardware from that it
| will do what they say it will. No amount of hardware
| efforts can solve the fundamental human trust problem.
| grogenaut wrote:
| At this time we specifically bought computers with
| modules for radios that we could pull. Toshiba was happy
| to supply this to us.
| im3w1l-alt wrote:
| It's like the halting problem. It's hard to decide
| whether a given switch works in the general case. But
| it's possible to design an obviously correct breaker.
|
| Edit: the gnarly thing might be ensuring it doesn't
| harvest power through data wires or store power in covert
| capacitors or batteries.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| I had another laptop with a hardware switch and a
| corresponding LED, and it worked exactly as it should -
| the hardware was completely inaccessible under Linux. So
| yes, it can be done and it's not rocket science.
| GuiA wrote:
| Yes, what you describe is trivial - and it would be
| similarly trivial to design a module that appears to
| respect the switch (regardless of Linux/Windows) and yet
| records things surreptitiously, only to offload it at a
| later date.
|
| Remember the amount of effort VW was willing to expand to
| cheat emissions testing.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| That's why I like the old Thinkpad with the physical
| cover and the LED
| basch wrote:
| It would be pretty impressive for someone to get the
| camera to work through a physical cover.
| brlewis wrote:
| It would be mildly impressive if a manufacturer made a
| fake cover with a switch to detect when it's "closed" and
| make the main camera stream filtered to look like the
| cover is real, while having a 2nd back-door unfiltered
| stream. Of course this could be detected by someone who
| took the unit apart.
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T480. Its webcam switch is a
| slider that covers the webcam lens. You don't need a
| fancy microscope, or a solid understanding of EE, or tens
| of thousands of hours. You need the ability to see the
| slider cover the lens. Takes all of half a second and at
| least 1 eye.
| drdaeman wrote:
| Plot twist: the slider material could be opaque in the
| visible spectrum but transparent in IR.
|
| /s
| valuearb wrote:
| And the hackers still win, cause no one remembers to
| slide it shut after a call, and they can hack the led so
| there is no physical indicator when they are watching.
| macintux wrote:
| I honestly can't remember the last time I used my camera
| during a company meeting, and I've been working remotely
| since March.
|
| So, there's definitely value to a built-in cover; in my
| case it would stay shut permanently.
| Angeo34 wrote:
| >tens of thousand of hours >electrical engineering Yea
| gluing a piece of tape is a piece of art even Marx wasn't
| able to.
| GuiA wrote:
| The question isn't whether you can add a cover to the
| product after the fact, it's whether you can trust a
| switch on a product to do what the manufacturer says it
| does.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| But you just moved the goal-posts from a discussion about
| whether the implementation was faulty (and Apple was
| misleading their product owners) to one about whether the
| design compromises are right.
|
| Apple claims that the LED comes on when the camera is
| active, which it claims helps protect your privacy. That
| seems to be true, and certainly no-one seems to have any
| contradictory examples that are not 12+ years old.
|
| I can argue that when one uses a sliding cover, one can
| easily forget to reset it after a video chat. The design is
| bad. The right solution is simply not to have a camera.
| It's just a different design compromise.
| causality0 wrote:
| The question is whether this is a firmware implementation
| that's just waiting for a 0-day or if the +V for the CMOS
| sensor is literally wired to the LED. If the latter I'd
| like to see a picture of it.
| ISL wrote:
| Someone out there can buy a broken MacBook off eBay and
| score some YouTube notoriety to do this very
| investigation.
|
| Bonus points for using a Sawzall to get started.
| zndr wrote:
| It isn't the led is physically slaved to the power of the
| camera, the previous version was firmware fixed and was
| hacked, hence the change.
| axoltl wrote:
| Hi!
|
| I was the security architect for this feature on recent
| Macs. The LED is wired to the camera PMIC and is powered
| by the voltage rail that powers the camera. The PMIC will
| always remain on if the system has power. Macs newer than
| 4 or so years also have a feature that forces the LED to
| stay lit for at least 3 seconds after it has been turned
| on to prevent the single-frame-grab attack.
| ggus wrote:
| > to prevent the single-frame-grab attack.
|
| prevent? by the time the LED turns on, the attack has
| already happened.
| acdha wrote:
| Prevent it from being undetectable
| dasudasu wrote:
| So you have to perpetually watch out for the LED
| indicator to see if it ever randomly turns on for 3
| seconds? And what if it does come up unexpectedly? At
| this point it's too late and you've already been
| captured. A mechanical cover that can slide on and off
| the camera seems like much better security.
| valuearb wrote:
| Except that people will forget to use them
| mthoms wrote:
| You don't "have to" do anything.
|
| The point is that the hardware has been designed
| properly. Combined with the OS-level permissions, it
| should be assurance enough for the majority of use cases.
|
| If you need further assurances, then by all means, use a
| physical cover.
| dasudasu wrote:
| The claim was that single-frame grab attempts are
| prevented by an indicator that stays on for 3 seconds.
| First, you do have to be alert for all of these potential
| 3 seconds windows, and second, it doesn't prevent
| anything but only tell you that it has already happened.
| Closi wrote:
| This blogpost claims to have a message from an apple
| engineer stating that it's now hardware level:
|
| https://daringfireball.net/2019/02/on_covering_webcams
| 1-more wrote:
| According to an anonymous Gruber source, Apple fixed the
| issue by tying the led to the Vsync on the camera board.
| I have not found a teardown or anything other than this
| confirming it
| https://daringfireball.net/2019/02/on_covering_webcams
| milesvp wrote:
| Just so you know, switches in something as complicated as a
| laptop have a good chance at being connected to a processor
| , with firmware being the thing that determines what the
| switch does. So you still need trust, even with a physical
| switch.
|
| Source: write firmware for a living, and write drivers for
| physical switches.
| philwelch wrote:
| It doesn't need to be a switch. My current work laptop is
| an HP. It has a little plastic camera cover that slides
| back and forth to cover the camera.
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| That's a good point. I'm guessing that people calling for
| a "hardware switch" implicitly mean one that cannot be
| overridden by firmware.
|
| I.e., a traditional switch inline on the circuit(s)
| connecting the camera / microphone to the rest of the
| system.
| zulln wrote:
| I thought the LED is now connected to the camera by
| hardware? You cannot disable it by firmware while the
| camera is on.
| dathinab wrote:
| Doesn't matter.
|
| For many people the trust in integrated laptop cameras has
| been thoroughly eroded especially in case of Macs. (From my
| experience by interacting with people not having much tech
| experience, limited to Germany, maybe also limited to the
| social cycle(s) I interacted with.)
|
| The paradox thing is that the same people who often don't
| trust webcams in Apple Laptops or Apple All-In-One PCs do not
| bother or even think about weather or not the camera in their
| iPhone could spy on them or weather or not they microphone in
| webcams could still spy one them...
| scarface74 wrote:
| Even though you could get far more information by hacking
| the built in microphone.....
| outoftheabyss wrote:
| I would say you are equally likely to catch someone
| jacking off through the webcam as to catch valuable
| information through the microphone. They are therefore
| equally lucrative
| scarface74 wrote:
| How could it be equally lucrative? The amount of
| information someone can gather from a camera is much
| smaller than what you could gather from a microphone in a
| given room.
|
| If I am in a conference room talking about strategy, an
| uncovered camera will just pick me up. The microphone
| will capture everyone's conversation.
| class4behavior wrote:
| Your eyes
| hyakosm wrote:
| If you have your laptop in your bedroom, an uncovered
| camera can provide material for blackmail easily and
| fast.
| scarface74 wrote:
| How many people are doing something that is worth the
| time to blackmail in front of a camera and have the means
| to pay a substantial sum of money compared to the value
| of corporate secrets?
|
| Also what are the chances that a microphone wouldn't
| overhear something incriminating even if the camera were
| covered in your bedroom?
|
| And I am _really_ not trying to go down the road of
| wondering if you are doing something incriminating in
| your bedroom and your partner is being completely silent
| what that implies.....
| mamon wrote:
| Depends on your tolerance for shaming. I, for one, would
| probably be a bit pissed off if someone threaten to
| publish video of me jerking off, but wouldn't care about
| that enough to pay anyone any money. Listening to a
| secret conversations in conference room on the other
| hand, than can be valuable on it's own, no need to
| blackmail.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Blackmail potential. It's not the company meetings that
| criminals want to hack laptop cameras for.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You think state or even corporate espionage is less
| lucrative than someone blackmailing you because you were
| satisfying yourself?
| youareostriches wrote:
| For corporate espionage it is most certainly company
| meetings which are of interest.
| Twisell wrote:
| I'm not sure real "jerking face" blackmail is that
| frequent. If caught the author would face heavy charges.
| It's probably way easier and less risky to massively scam
| by pretending you had access to the webcam than to
| actually bother to hack.
|
| Beside I'm not sure a "jerking face" would be more than
| awkward if published. A reverse angle in which you could
| identify what was the video used for the jerking session
| would be way more compromising.
|
| And in this regard poorly protected IOT surveillance
| cameras have way more evil potential that webcam in my
| opinion.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| Haha some people would pay to have a plausibly deniable
| third party send masturbation videos to their contacts
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| Why especially in Macs? Were there any particular horror
| stories?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Any story about Apple gets about 50x the hype because
| it's a more understandable brand and set of products. The
| only other OEM that has any story traction is Lenovo,
| because China. Nobody knows what a Dell Latitude 43675b
| is.
|
| There's nothing notable or worse about the Apple issues.
| If anything, they are probably a lower risk than the
| average PC.
| dathinab wrote:
| There where a lot of horror stories about random people
| spying on "you" through mac webcams. Like in the sense
| that they hope to capture NSFW material and similar.
|
| Most of this stories where not actually happening, I
| don't remember exactly but I think they came from a
| single story of _targeted_ hacker attacks where such a
| thing actually happened and then people got blackmailed.
|
| But it's was more comparable to some rumors which wildly
| spread and then many non technical people ended up
| believing and which somewhat had a truth at it's core
| somewhere so it's not easy to just put it of as "mad up".
|
| Also it happened like a 5+ years ago, it just stuck with
| a lot of non tech people somehow. And it (normally)
| doesn't hurt so tech people aren't that likely to tell
| people that this isn't quite right. It's often already
| hard enough to convince them to do any privacy focused
| actions.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| Maybe that's misguided and naive, but I pretty much trust
| my phone to protect me from bad actors taking over the
| camera; I'll have to trust the apps I use that have camera
| access to not spy on me, but those are few.
|
| Until relatively recently, any userspace app on my computer
| could freely access the camera and microphone, including
| background processes and malware, so that feels a lot
| riskier. There seems to be a permission for this that must
| be granted in the newer macOS versions, but I assume there
| might be ways around that.
| warent wrote:
| This might be true for yourself as a technical savvy
| person. Camera covers are particularly important to
| people who are self-aware enough to realize they don't
| have the tech skills to keep bad actors from gaining
| access to their camera
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| As a tech-savvy person, I definitely don't have the
| skills to make sure of that on a laptop. I might be one
| brew install obscure-util-from-random-HN-comment (or npm
| install ...) away from inadvertently giving away all my
| privacy.
| pletnes wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. On my phone, I have to trust Apple.
| On my laptop, I have to trust everyone who wrote code I
| downloaded. That's two quite different crowds.
| misterhtmlcss wrote:
| Then you haven't seen all the malware and spyware on
| phone apps that have been approved by Apple and Google
| right? I don't trust anyone regarding my tech as far as I
| can throw them.
|
| I could have a System 76 machine with latest xyz hacker
| proof Linux distro and I'd still assume all was heard and
| listened to through that device. Just makes no sense to
| trust any mass production device.
| rurp wrote:
| Is your point that because these issues have been fixed there
| will never be a new camera exploit in the future?
|
| I don't see how what you're saying supports that. If your
| point is simply that Apple has resolved camera
| vulnerabilities in the past, that's nice, but doesn't exactly
| give me much peace of mind about future vulnerabilities.
| ehsankia wrote:
| No, the point is that old light indicators were done in
| software (and were open to exploits), whereas newer
| indicators have all since moved to being wired right in the
| hardware. The power of the webcam lights up the indicator.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| But most of this 'hardware' is still software. Firmware
| inside the webcam itself, which could also be hacked.
| dingoegret wrote:
| >applies only to older Mac notebooks from like 2008
|
| Point being that the indicator light can be hacked and isn't
| too be blindly trusted.
| jachee wrote:
| No longer. The power lead for the camera requires
| electricity to pass through (and, thus illuminate) the
| indicator LED.
|
| Can't hack that without extensive physical access to the
| machine.
| alunchbox wrote:
| There's a reason Zukerberg's laptop has its mic and camera
| tapped up. It doesn't matter what device you use unless
| there's a physical switch to disconnect it'll never be safe.
| Software can ALWAYS have zero days, just because it hasn't
| been exploited yet doesn't mean it can't be.
| mahaganapati wrote:
| Testing on my phone at least, tape does nothing to prevent
| discernable audio from being recorded. I think the device
| would need to be encased to block the microphone
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| > _There 's a reason Zukerberg's laptop has its mic and
| camera tapped up_
|
| Yeah, people who don't understand how hardware works.
| acdha wrote:
| Or, more accurately, he and his security experts are
| weighing the challenge of accurately assessing potential
| hardware failures against the $0.50 of tape which
| provably prevents them. If you're a high-value target
| there is a lot to be said for layered defenses and easily
| verified safety measures.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| And also because he values his own privacy, just not
| anyone else's.
| maps7 wrote:
| What do you mean?
| xwdv wrote:
| > There's a reason Zukerberg's laptop has its mic and
| camera tapped up.
|
| Virtue signaling mostly.
|
| It's not difficult to open a laptop and remove those
| components all together. Especially for someone like
| Zuckerberg.
| valuearb wrote:
| Is the reason it's not a Mac? Cause Mac video cameras are
| hard wired to the light and have been for many years.
| m12m3kg wrote:
| Zukerberg did that to troll all the privacy paranoics
| eecc wrote:
| Often that switch is just a peripheral that gets
| interpreted by software
| ehsankia wrote:
| > unless there's a physical switch to disconnect
|
| The light indicator in modern webcams is a "physical"
| indicator. Sure, it won't stop it from being hacked, but it
| will light up whenever it is active. That part can't be
| hacked, since it's in the hardware.
| ianamartin wrote:
| That wasn't Zuck's laptop. That was an accident of the
| interview location.
| the-pigeon wrote:
| But can't you specifically wire the indicator light to
| always be lit if the camera has power?
|
| I don't see Apple claiming they've done that but a correct
| design would make the indicator light work that way and be
| related to software at all. Meaning you could only disable
| the indicator light by physically modifying the device.
| ohazi wrote:
| This is the only correct design, yet almost nobody does
| this. One of the challenges is verifying that this was
| done correctly.
|
| You may be able to verify a design like this once with a
| teardown, but it's impractical to verify _your
| particular_ device, and next to impossible to re-verify
| this every time you leave your laptop unattended.
| foota wrote:
| My threat model doesn't involve someone disassembling my
| laptop and rewiring it, at that point they might as well
| just plant a bug.
| inopinatus wrote:
| This isn't speculation. Opening up hardware to modify the
| internals is something that covert agencies do, and it's
| naive to think that the purpose is equivalent to a simple
| bug.
|
| As someone who posts to Hacker News you are by almost any
| definition a potential information source or APT vector.
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| Apple's already addressed this by making their laptops
| nearly impossible to open up.
| anang wrote:
| I think what they mean is their threat model is more
| drive by random attacks rather than concerted efforts by
| intelligence agencies.
|
| For the former a piece of tape is enough.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| even then there probably should be some minimum "flash"
| time in that if it turns on and off faster than the LED
| lights up or human eyes can see then it may still take
| images faster than we can register?
|
| EDIT: a commenter below said
|
| "Macs newer than 4 or so years also have a feature that
| forces the LED to stay lit for at least 3 seconds after
| it has been turned on to prevent the single-frame-grab
| attack."
| cgriswald wrote:
| Frankly, by the time the indicator is noticed, it may be
| too late. Even with the LED wired in place and a
| 'feature' (capacitor or software?) forcing it to stay lit
| for 3 seconds, the damage may be done. It does, at least,
| let you know an attack occurred.
|
| I really think an LED is barking up the wrong tree. A
| built-in hardware cover would have the same effect as the
| LED, and no one would have to trust it, since the camera
| would just be recording the back of the cover if it was
| hacked in stealth mode.
| sscarduzio wrote:
| Ironically for Americans' wariness China, the "pop-up
| webcam" in Huawei laptops completely resolves the
| security and trust issue, by providing a physical way to
| disable the camera.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKY3hvYKPpA
|
| Too bad it mainly shows your nostrils :(
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| The attack most people are worried about is your camera
| being activated while your laptop is open. Huawei's
| approach seems worse since you can't just apply a cover
| to it.
| JadeNB wrote:
| How would you handle the microphone? I don't know any
| hardware way to make sure my microphone's not hearing me
| if I can't trust the software.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| A physical electrical on/off switch for the microphone
| (that actually interrupts the wires going to the mic).
| jsjohnst wrote:
| Plug in a headphone cable that has the wire to the
| microphone cut. There's also pre-made plugs on Amazon too
| (search "microphone blocker").
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Magnetic sliding cover:
| https://www.amazon.com/SpiShutter-Slim-RoseGold-
| Magnetic/dp/...
| ryanianian wrote:
| I used one of those (same asin) for a while. Cracked my
| screen just like TFA says. Thankfully Apple repaired it
| and looked the other way. I'm guessing they won't be so
| forgiving now with this article out there.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Ah... got it. Thank you for writing that.
| dylan604 wrote:
| my laptop has a piece of tape over it, but i can still
| see the LED lit when it comes on. however, as far as the
| flash of a quick snap, does the camera on the MacBook
| take an image faster than the iDevices? the phones always
| take at least a second after pushing the button, so maybe
| Apple would be better off putting the same kind of camera
| in the laptop to ensure it is impossible to take a photo
| quickly
| aahhahahaaa wrote:
| This has been the case for quite some time (10 years or
| so). I've torn apart two Macbooks to specifically test
| this and the LED is enabled when the camera receives
| power. It's impossible to disable with software.
|
| You can modify the Macbook of course, which is why the
| paranoid type will still use tape.
|
| Some attacks I've seen will take a photo with the camera
| as fast as possible so you might not notice, but the
| light will always turn on.
| rovr138 wrote:
| I think newer ones even route it through the T1 chip.
| Need to look again.
|
| There was an exploit, over 10 years ago like you said,
| that allow to disable it. But that was corrected.
|
| _Edit_
|
| - iiSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED -
| This was 2008 - https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bits
| tream/handle/1774.2...
|
| Looking for t1 links.
|
| _Edit 2_
|
| Can't find anything confirming the t1 right now..
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Sure, but can you guarantee any particular webcam wasn't
| intercepted and modified before being delivered?
|
| Can you guarantee the manufacturer followed the design
| specification for every batch?
|
| Threat models matter.
| colordrops wrote:
| Even if they did claim that why should we trust that they
| did it correctly and without unintentional or intentional
| vulnerability?
| m463 wrote:
| In the case of the school district spying on the kids,
| the light would just blink and be gone.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Zuckerberg is probably compromised by multiple nation
| states in some way at any time.
|
| It's a very different threat than most people have.
| matwood wrote:
| Nation states compromising Zuckerberg come in the front
| door and shake his hand.
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| Zuckerberg basically is the nation state we should be
| worried about. If a foreign country wants to spy on
| someone, they'll do it via a Facebook pixel.
| nullc wrote:
| Most people? Sure.
|
| Most people on hacker news? Unclear.
|
| I think a really large portion of users here would be
| extremely good attack targets. Developers with privileged
| access to source code and operations staff with
| privileged access to systems make up a significant
| portion of the users here.
|
| Besides: Most people don't accidentally want to show up
| on a video conference while undressed when they
| accidentally hit the wrong button in some cruddy
| skeumorphic app specific interface and the LED only warns
| you after its too late.
| pishpash wrote:
| Doesn't inspire any confidence that the indicator is subject
| to bugs. It can happen again.
| m463 wrote:
| Maybe apple needs to address customer concerns.
|
| Possibly move the ambient light sensor to the side, leave more
| space for tape/cover, or add a hardware cutout switch.
| meddlepal wrote:
| I put a piece of scotch tape and a thin piece of paper of it
| regardless.
| bzb3 wrote:
| The alternative, the led, is not that good. Even if it's 100%
| hardware controlled, just a brief flash is enough to take a
| picture of you.
| duskwuff wrote:
| IIRC, it takes about half a second for the camera to initialize
| from power-off and take a photo. The flash this creates is
| pretty noticeable.
|
| Besides, on current versions of macOS, you need to grant
| permissions to an app before it can use the camera.
| axoltl wrote:
| You should try this on a recent (last 4-5 years or so) Macbook!
| There is a hardware timer that forces the LED on for at least 3
| seconds even if the camera only grabs a single frame.
| maallooc wrote:
| Amazing how this post and privacy in general attracts schizos
| like light in the night attracting moths.
| lmilcin wrote:
| The track record of Apple keeping their camera light shine when
| camera is in use does not strike confidence and that's why people
| want to use something more advanced like tape.
|
| Unfortunately, everybody is focused on camera and forget that way
| more valuable information can be leaked through microphone and
| other sensors.
| XaspR8d wrote:
| > The camera is engineered so that it can't activate without the
| camera indicator light also turning on. This is how you can tell
| if your camera is on.
|
| Is this verifiably true? I trust Apple on security matters more
| than the _average_ laptop maker, but the fact that so many of
| these indicator lights are software-controlled erodes my trust in
| basically all of them.
| valuearb wrote:
| Yep, for a decade Macs have been shipping with indicator lights
| hard wired to camera power.
| vngzs wrote:
| If you're going to cover it, use a sticker, like the EFF stickers
| here[0]. They're reusable, so you can move it to the side for
| meetings. I used a hard plastic MongoDB-branded sliding camera
| cover on a couple laptops[1], and its presence appears to have
| contributed to backlight bleed like this[2].
|
| [0]: https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set-ii
|
| [1]: https://www.amazon.com/C-Slide-Sliding-Computers-
| Chromebooks...
|
| [2]: https://i.imgur.com/P264KiI.jpg
| windexh8er wrote:
| Came here to say this. Have been using the EFF stickers for
| years and everyone always asks about them vs the kludgey
| plastic ones everyone wedges in there that Apple is making note
| of. I've used them in the past on my phones as well, but given
| the advent of multiple front facing cameras this has become
| more of a pain. I purchased some of this sticker material a
| while ago with the intent to try and laser cut some specific
| designs. This was a good reminder!
| epberry wrote:
| Covering the camera is so silly. Do people also stuff the
| microphone hole with glue? Do they reinstall the keyboard and
| look for trackers. Do they think about all the software they use
| which is collecting far more information than grainy shots of
| your face could ever provide?
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| I don't want a warning light. I don't want audited code. I don't
| want encryption. I don't want security updates.
|
| I want the fucking camera to _not_ take pictures without my
| turning it on.
| valuearb wrote:
| Great news, Mac camera lights are hardwired to the camera, and
| have been for ten years, no code necessary!
| chansiky wrote:
| With everything being digital these days, physical failsafes are
| slowly becoming a luxury. I love having the vibration/sound-on
| hard toggle on my iphone. I don't see why this can't exist for
| something people feel so insecure about like webcam functionality
| - a physical toggle that physically disconnects webcam wiring.
| bargle0 wrote:
| I use a piece of black sticky note cut out to cover the camera.
| It doesn't interfere with the closing mechanism, it comes off
| clean, and it doesn't require trusting Apple.
| bwooceli wrote:
| One More Thing: the iNote. This magical pad of sticky notes will
| elegantly cover the camera and preserve the structural integrity
| of your display.
| colanderman wrote:
| This is not helpful advice for those who wish to prevent their
| camera from turning on in the first place.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| Lol I have electrical tape with a piece of paper on the part that
| goes over the camera lens. Use both 2015 and 16"
|
| Also not sure about this "tight tolerance" as there's a rubber
| seam all the way around the screen that would have a gap between
| the camera and laptop body right?
| diafygi wrote:
| The EFF sells some removable stickers that cover your laptop
| camera while still being able to close the lid fully.
|
| https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set-ii
|
| Been using them for years, and they work great!
| fortran77 wrote:
| I'm glad my computer comes with a built-in cover. No need to
| jerry-rig anything on. It reminds me of this old Apple ad:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZByDkSuY5c
| [deleted]
| napier wrote:
| > Downside of covering your MacBook camera: "If you close your
| Mac notebook with a camera cover installed, you might damage your
| display because the clearance between the display and keyboard is
| designed to very tight tolerances. Covering the built-in camera
| might also interfere with the ambient light sensor and prevent
| features like automatic brightness and True Tone from working."
|
| Upside: a square of post-it or similar stuck over the camera
| gives you peace of mind assurance that this particular lens of
| the digital panopticon isn't watching you.
| jackgavigan wrote:
| Use a sticky piece of Post-It note instead.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Looking at the comments here, I guess I'm the only one who finds
| sadness that Apple even has to publish this document.
|
| Some of those novelty and promotional camera covers are really
| quite thick. And it just seems like common sense to me that you
| wouldn't close a laptop with one of those things on. Just like I
| wouldn't close my laptop with a pen or a ham sandwich tucked into
| it.
|
| But I guess Apple has had enough complaints that they had to
| issue something. I can only hope that the department that writes
| these things was shaking its head the whole time.
| dabernathy89 wrote:
| This is the one that destroyed the screen on my 16" MBP. 0.023
| inches thick.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C24NBGL/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_T...
| iso947 wrote:
| That's about half a mm. what the hell happens to Apple
| laptops if you get a coin trapped in there
|
| When did Apple start building such fragile devices?
| jorge-d wrote:
| It's quite similar to the one I've been using on my 2018 15"
| MBP for the past two years. Can you give more information on
| the cause of the problem? Did you close the macbook very
| firmly and it broke?
| dabernathy89 wrote:
| I also used one on a 15" MBP (albeit 2015 model) for a long
| time with no trouble. I don't recall closing the lid
| particularly hard when it broke, though I may have.
| OriginalPenguin wrote:
| The problem is it worked extremely well on older Macs.
|
| People assume since it worked great on their old Mac, they can
| do it on their new one.
| live_video wrote:
| Japanese washi tape is the perfect solution to the 'covering the
| webcam' problem. It leaves no residue and resticks over and over.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| I've got Dell XPS 13. The only camera indicator I trust is sticky
| tape on top the camera every time I don't need. Little blinking
| lights I trust not.
| tartoran wrote:
| Lenovos have a physical cover that can be shut when camera is not
| in use. It's paranoia free and tape is no longer needed for that.
| Maybe apple could do something similar for their users comfort
| rglover wrote:
| I've had my barn door over my camera for years. It prevents a
| perfect seal but my screen works great. I'm sure this is valid in
| one way or another, but I don't buy this for a second. _Adjusts
| tinfoil hat_
| moonchild wrote:
| The real meat of TFA:
|
| > Make sure the camera cover is not thicker than an average piece
| of printer paper (0.1mm)
| jb775 wrote:
| I use a small piece of black electrical tape to cover the camera,
| and another small piece to cover the mic. It peels off easily and
| retains stickiness pretty well.
| wtallis wrote:
| Tangentially related: I have an HP notebook that has a physical
| webcam switch near the USB ports and microSD slot. This switch is
| not wired to the webcam in any way. It's a USB HID device. You
| need to install _software drivers_ to make that switch function
| as a control of the webcam. That is insane.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| I don't understand this debate around blocking camera. If your
| laptop has already been hacked such that the attacker has access
| to disable the green light(if we could be disable by prevailed
| account in the worst case), wouldn't you have more serious things
| to worry about? I mean worst case they could film me nude or
| something.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| That's correct, but it's not why I have a cover on my camera. I
| really like the peace of mind of knowing that my camera really
| is off during a meeting. I guess it's the same for many people,
| especially working from home without a dedicated office.
| ab_io wrote:
| Simply cut a small rectangle out of the sticky part of a Post-It
| note for a safe camera cover that easy to remove and reuse.
| ivalm wrote:
| But the problem is not indication that attack happened (light
| turned on). It is too late if the camera was used even if I was
| notified!
|
| The camera cover is not an indicator of use, it prevents use.
| Indicator of use is not sufficient.
| low_key wrote:
| "might also interfere with the ambient light sensor and prevent
| features like automatic brightness"
|
| Oh, if I could only get automatic brightness to actually turn
| off!!!! I keep the sensor covered with electrical tape because
| that's the closest I've been able to get.
| aczerepinski wrote:
| If they sold a model without a camera for the same price, I would
| have bought that. The camera on MacBooks is terrible anyway, and
| you can buy a USB camera that's significantly better for less
| than $100.
|
| Since that isn't an option, I keep a square torn from a post-it
| note over the camera.
| planar_vector wrote:
| Can someone help me understand the extent of possible damage by
| having a webcam cover? This might at least inform me if its worth
| the risk.
|
| When Apple says _" you might damage your display because the
| clearance between the display and keyboard is designed to very
| tight tolerances"_, do they mean?
|
| - the display itself could have scratches?
|
| - the display connector at the hinge has a chance of weakening?
|
| - others?
| duskwuff wrote:
| The webcam is behind the same pane of glass as the display.
| It's similar construction to a typical modern cell phone.
|
| When the laptop is closed, the webcam lands around the bottom
| of the trackpad. There's a small gap between the screen and the
| lower lid, and the trackpad is recessed _slightly_ , but not by
| much, and it doesn't have any "give". A bulky webcam cover will
| strike the trackpad and may shatter the glass of the display
| and/or the trackpad, especially if the laptop is closed
| quickly.
| cjbconnor wrote:
| If the camera cover is too thick it's very easy to crack the
| display itself by closing the lid too quickly
| arn wrote:
| MacBook Pro screens have gotten cracked due to camera covers:
| https://www.macrumors.com/2020/07/10/apple-macbook-camera-co...
| dabernathy89 wrote:
| Here you go.
|
| https://twitter.com/dabernathy89/status/1257350535440748547
|
| Edit: Also, from my limited research, the repair cost w/out
| AppleCare+ (or regular AppleCare if they don't count it as
| accidental damage) is around $1,000.
| finger wrote:
| I had a basic post-it like bookmark sticker on my macbook pro
| camera for years. Over time the black coating on the bezels
| started wearing off where the sticker was placed. Not much of
| an issue though, as this was purely a cosmetic issue.
| [deleted]
| joezydeco wrote:
| Extra pressure on the LCD cover glass.
|
| On my MBA there's a small metal lip around the lid and the LCD
| is recessed into that. Something thicker than the lip sitting
| on the glass would negate the relief the lip provides.
| poorman wrote:
| All the indicator light tells you is that "you are being
| watched". Not sure that gives people peace of mind that they
| won't be watched.
| aloukissas wrote:
| The easiest solution: opaque scotch tape
| sologoub wrote:
| Or Apple could just include a cover into the lid, like many other
| manufacturers already do. For example:
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/c...
| eugeniub wrote:
| Apple: Not even in your dreams pal.
| sologoub wrote:
| So true!
| tersers wrote:
| Not until Apple makes a lid so thin it rivals a shaving razor
| runxel wrote:
| Just as a social observation I noticed a pattern which always
| struck me pretty hard:
|
| Nearly all (say 9 out of 10, and not, it's not an exaggeration)
| of my friends - me included FWIW - have some kind of cover over
| their webcams. This is true even for people who you would
| describe as the opposite of tech-savvy. Sometimes these folks
| even have no ad blocker installed and use Chrome happily.
|
| But still: Everybody has something over their webcams. It is
| truly ubiquitous! Might it be we dislike the fact something like
| an eye stares us right into the face all the time?
| rahkiin wrote:
| And no microphone cover, and no cover for either on their
| phones
| gruez wrote:
| Probably because it's more concrete than some abstract threat
| like the ad industry building a dossier on you, or the NSA
| spying on your web browsing habits and phone records. John
| Oliver uses this to great effect when talking about NSA
| surveillance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M
| 1024core wrote:
| That's why I have placed a very thin sticker on the camera.
|
| Apple can kiss my ass.
| deusofnull wrote:
| protip. small piece of scotch tape and a small piece of paper.
| when you need camera, just fold the paper open. when it gets worn
| out, new paper and scotch tape.
| gumby wrote:
| Apple should have an indicator light for the microphone as well,
| and to avoid confusion,far from the camera.
|
| I don't think it's possible to block the mic.
| markstos wrote:
| It's possible to have hardware kill switches that can't be
| compromised via software. Apple opts not to include them.
|
| Purism laptops include them.
| https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/
| samrolken wrote:
| Apple includes this on the latest iPads and Macs with the T2
| chip.
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/03/apple-hardware-
| microphone-...
| gumby wrote:
| Only when the cover is shut. That prevents an important set
| of attacks. But a mechanical switch in the power connection
| to the two devices keeps you from accidentally broadcasting
| when on, say, a Zoom call.
| gumby wrote:
| Much to my surprise, amazon Alexa devices with mute buttons
| use a hard button, not a soft input.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I just tape mine off.
|
| Apple webcams are pretty horrible anyway (current generation is
| even worse than a few ones ago). So if I'm on a serious videocall
| I use an external one anyway.
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