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Comment by bar000n | Hacker News Reader

When i think about it, I would be absolutely terrified by smartphone cameras. Think laptop accessories that cover the webcam - haven't seen any of those for smartphones. Yet we trust a green dot with all our heart nowadays. Back in the day when cameras started showing up on mobile phones there were even versions of popular business feature phones that lacked the camera (Nokia E51 if i recall correctly), probably triggered by requirements of clients with strict information security standards.

It seems we all learned to stop worrying and love the cameras.

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Some industries still require camera-less phones, and there are companies who make them, or more interestingly, modify existing iphones!

Here's one vendor https://noncam.com/

And yet if you have your phone on you, you can still record everything that was said…

My wife worked in a facility that didn't allow phone cameras. You had to check it in anytime you went into one of the secure areas or prove you had one of their phones that had the camera disabled if you were important enough to require being contactable. While I'm sure one or more of the thousands of employees managed to leak some valuable info through conversations, pictures would have been worth 1000x as much if not more.

Can't they just sell a case that can be locked and covers the camera holes?

Cases can be removed.

when i go into secure zone at factory, they cover our phone camera lens with a piece of sticker. It was quite trouble some because my phone has 5 camera(S21U). The sticker is similar to the warannty sticker you find on electronic device, so if you try to remove they will know.

But the sticker seem generic, so i bet someone can prepare it before hand if they really want.

I'd be far more worried about an ability for 3rd parties to record audio at any moment than for them to be able to record video of what's likely my pocket or desk surface at any given moment.

Same concern of many I have with laptops and theoretical webcam recording. Theres far worse things they could be stealthily doing.

>haven't seen any of those for smartphones

Many phone cases do. Under the idea that you're protecting the camera, but it blocks it none the less.

You trust the green dot with your heart simply because they wired it in series with the camera. Can’t be bypassed unless you opened the device and bypassed the green light. This is why people with webcam covers on macbooks are fools: they fear and yet they do not care to understand what it is they fear to see if it is actually worth fearing.

The "hack" baddies do is to only activate it for 30ms or so, so there's a chance you'll miss the green light.

The API calls to turn on the camera, wait for + grab the first frame, and terminate it, are 1) non timing deterministic and 2) always take more than 30ms so that’s a pretty bad “hack”

The problem is that apparently, often enough that is just not the case.

On laptops, the LED is not powered with the camera, but controlled by it. And on smartphones, if it's a green dot on the display it can obviously be bypassed in different ways given the right vulnerabilities.

Also, aside from that, your condescending attitude is frustrating.

So anyways, here's a somewhat memorable incident of people doing the thing you claim is impossible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISeeYou

ISeeYou went well beyond turning off the light, it also came with arbitrary code execution: https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity14/technical...

An indicator light cannot prevent malicious webcam activation, it can only tell you that you have been owned in retrospect.

This is only true on Macs

Even zuck doesn’t understand this. There are shots of him out there with macbooks that have that circuit setup with a piece of tape still. Even if it was a risk, what about the mic there zuck? Stuffed with beeswax already?

> This is why people with webcam covers on macbooks are fools

So you think it's fine if someone accidentally activates the camera, as long as they know about it?

All it takes is an accidental click on "Video" during a teams call in the bathroom, and you will quickly discover the utility of a cover.

Lol it's like calling people taking vaccine is a fool. The indicator light only tell you that you have been compromised, they do not prevent that malware from running at all. And when the light is turned on, the hacker will already have hundreds pictured of you(60 fps is 60 frames per second after all)

I thought the oval area on the iPhone is a screen. Not really a light per se

Phone camera covers have been available for years.

There are so many things that would have to go wrong for a third party app to surreptitiously activate your camera and pick up images in the background on iOS, this is tin foil hat level concern.

It’s also hilarious how many people worry about covering up their camera on the laptop not thinking that the microphone can pick up much more information in the surrounding area - again worrying about the wrong thing.

Also see, not using biometric security because in the US, police can’t legally make you give up your password - even though police are not above rubber hose decryption, judges hold people in contempt indefinitely and iPhone and Android phones are laughable insecure after first unlock after rebooting your phone.

You ever see The Accountant? That scene where he goes home and ups the stimulation to 13/10? I live my life in that world. Good luck getting any useful intel from my phone's microphone.

https://youtu.be/Mb8krWbv1CI?t=62

>It’s also hilarious how many people worry about covering up their camera on the laptop not thinking that the microphone can pick up much more information in the surrounding area - again worrying about the wrong thing.

Or they worry about the right thing, its just not what you worry about.

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