Mark Zuckerberg covers his camera and audio mic jack
facebook.com
facebook.com
Just covering up the camera is like putting a bandaid on a small cut when you have internal bleeding.
I personally don't have any cameras in my room for this reason, but the risk of capturing something sensitive is quite real.
Wouldn't a better solution be software-based, or some more advanced hardware (like added network security)?
But this picture is taken at an office, where presumably sex isn't happening, and anything confidential will likely not be in large font on a sheet of paper held up in front of a camera that is presumed inactive.
I think microphones are more dangerous actually; it's hard to glean much meaningful data from most webcam streams (besides perhaps some less than flattering pictures of the user) but a microphone can pick up all sorts of confidential conversations.
And if the light doesn't turn on, it's likely something more problematic is happening.
And tape over the mic and webcam aren't really things that can be broken through remotely.
Computer security is not an all or nothing thing. It's more like plugging lots of little holes in a boat. This plugs the "microphone and camera" security hole very cheaply and simply.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/03/rat-breeders-meet...
Taping over the webcam stops access to the camera, but does nothing about the rootkits and keyloggers that are giving criminal gangs access to all your online accounts.
I don't care to be honest.
While It's true that someone who compromised a machine can get a lot of information limiting what they can do with it is not a bad idea at all.
Those computers end up being in rooms where sensitive material can be discussed and if they are compromised the recording from the camera or the microphone can reveal a lot of information which cannot be accessed digitally.
It's also important to note that not every compromise is utter and complete the microphone and the camera for example can potentially be accessed via applications that might not have privileged access to the system or any access to the local storage (your browser for example).
If some one gets remote access to these machines there are a lot of secondary security controls that might prevent them from owning the box completely and even if they have privileged access, accessing the information itself is another challenge as it is stored on separate encrypted containers, the microphone or the camera however as mentioned before can be easily accessed without any special permissions.
So while putting a sticker on your camera and disabling your microphone can be analogous to "putting a BAND-AID on it" like you have said there is nothing wrong with it, as more often than not you just get a cut and a BAND-AID is pretty damn good at preventing it from getting infected, this isn't about internal bleeding with BAND-AID's.
Not to mention that while your hard drive is where it's easy to get "technical" information from the microphone and your camera are where it's easy to get personal information from, no one wants the recording of what goes in their bedroom to become public and probably way too many people have had to take their laptops to the bathroom on some occasions.
All those sensitive personal moments from sexual activity to the fights you can have with your significant other, friends and family are really good material for blackmail considerably better in virtually every case than the material you have on your hard drive, and when you attack targets both high or low blackmail is usually the way to go because it's a pretty damn good way to ensure that you can get what you want in almost every case.
It would also be trivial for someone in her company's IT department to do so, and the same is true at many other companies (and schools). The software that many IT departments use to monitor company-owned computers + prevent theft allows them to access any aspect of the computer on demand, without the user's knowledge.
http://i.imgur.com/3oNniEh.jpg
Zoomed in with the covers outlined:
The question stands, why tape the headphone jack? The microphone is not inside the headphone jack.
The idea is to fool the system into having no physical microphone, and even a hacker/malware that compromises the operating system is going to have a hard time dealing with whatever soundcard firmware is responsible for making that switch in the hardware.
That does not apply to most modern computers though, and especially not anything with a four-pin combo jack (including that Macbook). Those have to be able to handle situations where normal headphones are plugged in and the internal mic is still being used, so the mic switching is entirely software on these.
Headphone/speaker switching may be in hardware, but a lot of laptops I've used under Linux allowed me to treat the headphone jack as an entirely separate audio device. I suspect the Macbook would allow the same, though I don't have a new enough one available to test. Mine's an '08 model that Sierra finally EoLed.
I don't understand what he hopes to accomplish by taping the jack though; it's not like it does anything without something plugged into it.
http://www.bungajungle.com/products/nope
I use these on my work machines, however I suggest placing the magnet combo vertically as opposed to horizontally like in the photo so that it defaults into that position.
[Yes I know I could get thin magnets much cheaper from somewhere else, I give them credit because they were the first one I found when looking for a solution a few years ago]
So it could be to block that light, or to prevent cruft from going into it, or to fight the urge to use headphones at work.