Oof. Apple claims this is not possible for macbook cameras because the LED can't be controlled from software. Wish more manufacturers would do the same.
If you look at tear downs apparently it is connected to the webcam so it is energized when the webcam receives power making it nearly impossible to defeat.
You can say a lot about Apple but the engineering is clever at the hardware level.
I’m at a loss for how you would signal all of that without a GPIO.
LEDs won't stop creeps — the camera owner can always disable LEDs with a bit of electrical tape.
At the point we are in time... honestly, I don't expect this thing called "privacy" any more. And I'm, notably, German. Glassholes, camera surveillance everywhere, our police is more and more turning into the rabid hellscape that is American police with far-right authoritarians at the helm and more and more forces joining up with Palantir or working on a European alternative.
I'm dead sure that at least law enforcement plus dedicated individuals with access to ad data brokers can work out precisely when I had a wank and what I wanked to, now there being a video of me wanking would only be the icing on the cake.
> LEDs won't stop creeps — the camera owner can always disable LEDs with a bit of electrical tape.
Many even forget about that piece of opsec, which is why they get caught in the first place, eventually the tape falls off.
Giving the camera plus LED a separate power supply means that the camera has to boot or come online, which maybe increases the dwell time. And the camera is not visible on the USB bus when powered off.
I think there's more engineering to Apple's design than it first seems.
I'd have tried that first before diving into the firmware head-first.
Also I thought you could trust iMessage if, unlike everyone, you disabled iCloud backup (and, unlike everyone, so did the recipient). Perhaps a way for the feds to be able to pin dumb criminals while giving investigative journalists & dissidents a way to stay safer.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651#advanced
You do have to be sure to not enable web access via icloud.com
Much easier to use a 3rd party app like Signal.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/118246
https://support.apple.com/en-us/118247
> An unrecognized new device was added to that person’s Apple Account. This alert might mean that the person you are messaging has an issue with one of their devices, or that a sophisticated attacker might be attempting to eavesdrop on the conversation.
My understanding is that iMessage implements PFS. To get around PFS and access older messages, one needs to get their hand on a backup, which needs fully enrolling a device, not just messaging key exchange hackery.
And as far as trusting Apple with key exchange, well, if you're running their OS and hardware, I suppose that trust of key exchange is the least of your concern (or part of the whole deal anyway depending on how you look at it)