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Comment by etaioinshrdlu | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone verified independently that the camera power is hardwired to the LED power on recent Apple hardware?

Seems worth checking.

Yes, some security researchers at Johns Hopkins found an issue in older models (before 2013) that was since fixed and now it's should be impossible to circumvent it by software. https://daringfireball.net/2019/02/on_covering_webcams

My goal isn't to know when I'm being spied on, it is to avoid being spied on at all :)

And I suppose barring that, ignorance is bliss to you?

Not at all, only pointing out the skewed perspective surrounding this topic.

It hardly matter much, but yes, worth checking.

As a former colleague pointed out: If some on is so far into my computer that they can disable the camera LED and turn on the camera, having leaked pictures of me walking around in my underwear is the least of my concerns.

He had a point. We're so afraid of bad guys spying on us using the built in camera that we forget if they are so far into our machines they can steal pretty much everything else.

Also, LEDs do fail.

I wish the camera's power circuitry were set up such that the LED were an integral part of it, so the LED failing would make the camera inoperable too.

The camera probably still gets voltage without the LED turning on, I remember a Louis Rossmann video where a Macbook failed to boot because of an overcurrent-caused defect in the camera.

The funniest thing about that was the fuse protecting the camera was intact.

Worse actually, there is no physical indicator LED on the latest (M1) laptops, it's an indicator icon in the menu bar.

In the "better" category, Apple claims webcam access is controlled by the secure enclave processor, which is more than most manufacturers do.

There is a physical indicator LED for the camera. The LED indicator can't be seen if the camera isn't in use. Try launching Photo Booth and you'll see the LED indicator.

But, the latest Macs don't have a LED for the mic, which is a disappointment. Good old MacBooks had a LED indicator for the mic.

EDIT: sorry, my memory failed me. The old MacBooks didn't have a LED for the mic. On white plastic MacBooks (2006), there's two black dots around the camera. The dot on the right side is a LED for the camera. The dot on the left side is the mic, not the LED indicator for it. Thanks for correcting me!

> Good old MacBooks had a LED indicator for the mic.

No, this is not true. Apple never included a physical indicator for microphone use on any computer.

> Good old MacBooks had a LED indicator for the mic

Are you sure about that? I've had the plastic MacBook and a few MacBook Pros, and none of them had a hardware visual indicator for the mic.

Would add that the microphone is hardware disconnected when lid is closed:

https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/security/secbbd20b00b/...

So you should have some guarantee that no one is spying when laptop is sleeping at least.

This is not actually "hardware disconnected", more like "firmware disconnected". Consider Purism Librem 14 if you actually want a hardware kill switch.

> Worse actually, there is no physical indicator LED on the latest (M1) laptops, it's an indicator icon in the menu bar.

This isn't true. I just tested it. There is definitely a physical LED next to the camera, within the "notch" area of the display.

Same with the M2 Air. Physical indicator in the notch.

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