Sound is usually more sensitive, yes. But even if there is a physical switch on the laptop, only very exotic smartphones have them.

Also, loudspeakers can act as microphones, too.

In other words, paranoia gets exhausting in modern times.

(And my smartphone has a replacable battery for that reason to at least sometimes enjoy potentially surveillance free time)

The camera privacy issue arises because teenagers and college kids often have their computer in their bedroom.

So a webcam hack that lets them watch my 16 year old daughter study would also let them watch her sleeping, getting dressed, and making out with her boyfriend.

The Framework has a physical microphone switch next to the camera switch.

Modern (2019-ish? forwards?) MacBooks have physical disconnect for microphones when the lid is shut.

A picture of you with the subject "I know what you were looking at when I took this picture of you" is pretty good blackmail--I think there's an active campaign doing this even.

Yes I really wish we could have a physical switch for device mic

I honestly like the physical switch on the framework, which disconnects the microphone/webcam fully.

Your speakers are a microphone ..

As someone who often speaks gibberish to myself due to ptsd, if someone recorded me in my room they could convince anyone I am utterly insane, beyond any hope. It is a great way to blackmail people with coprolalia or other verbal tics.

And yeah, if they had access to my webcam, they would just see a guy staring into the screen or walking back and forth in the room.

I used electrical pvc tape for many years on my macbooks, no damage but I got tired of them leaving glue residue. Switched to post-its about 10 years ago, works perfectly.

I've never tried them on a matte or coated screen though.

But is it isolated? If you can update its Firmware from the computer it isn't.

This is Apple, so that assertion isn’t guaranteed valid like it would be for non-enterprise HP or Lenovo. They absolutely would invest in a capacitor if that’s what it takes, as they are maximally focused on camera privacy concerns and have made a point of that in their security marketing over time; or else they wouldn’t be allowing hardware security engineers to brag about it, much less talk publicly about it, at all.

EDIT: It’s not just a capacitor, it’s a full custom chip, that can’t be software-modified, that keeps the light on for 3 seconds. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42260379

This is counter-intuitive enough to warrant further explanation.

"All Apple silicon-based Mac notebooks and Intel-based Mac notebooks with the Apple T2 Security Chip feature a hardware disconnect that disables the microphone whenever the lid is closed. On all 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air notebooks with the T2 chip, all MacBook notebooks with a T2 chip from 2019 or later, and Mac notebooks with Apple silicon, this disconnect is implemented in hardware alone." [1]

[1] https://support.apple.com/guide/security/hardware-microphone...

Yes, photos of naked people are used to extort them (usually into just paying the holder to delete them).

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42261730

They are, but people aren’t scared of those because they can’t see them staring at them.

Depends what your threat model is?

Nobody but Abby and Ben care if Ben is caught admitting he cheated on Abby. But naked images of Abby can head off into the ether and be propagated more or less forever, turn up on hate sites, be detrimental to careers etc.

If your threat model is leaking company secrets then sure, microphone bad, as is anything having access to any hardware on your machine.

So sure, maybe people ought to be more concerned about microphones as well, rather than instead.

Right, so this is all defense in depth. That LED is sort of the last line of defense if all others have failed, like:

The exploit mitigations to prevent you from getting an initial foothold.

The sandboxing preventing you from going from a low-privileged to a privileged process.

The permissions model preventing unauthorized camera access in the first place.

The kernel hardening to stop you from poking at the co-processor registers.

etc. etc.

If all those things have failed, the last thing to at least give you a chance of noticing the compromise, that's that LED. And that's why it stays on for 3 seconds, all to increase the chances of you noticing something is off. But things had to have gone pretty sideways before that particular hail-mary kicks in.

OK, but then what? Leave the LED on for 24 hours after you've captured a single frame? At that point the LED isn't really indicating camera usage because you'll just get used to seeing it on all the time whether the camera is in use or not.

It's strange that none of these companies will include a closable cover for the camera. I got one aftermarket. It is very reassuring since no hacking or accidental misclicks on my part can move the cover.

I'd love for a third party to verify the claim! I'm just giving you an overview of the work that went into making this a thing, knowing full well you have absolutely no reason to trust me.

The LED being "hard-wired" is a tricky statement to make, and I actually wasn't aware Apple has publicly ever made a statement to that effect. What I can say is that relying on the dedicated LED or "sensor array active" signal some camera sensors provide, while technically hard-wired in the sense there is no firmware driving it, is not foolproof.

> Apple lied about it before, claiming the LED was hard-wired in blah blah same thing, except it turned out it was software controlled by the camera module's firmware.

Source?

That's basically how this works, but manufacturing electronics at a massive scale requires some more flexibility. For example, capacitors have a pretty large tolerance (sometimes +/- 20%) and LEDs have quite a bit of variety in what voltages they'll work at. So for some people the LEDs might last 3 seconds, for some they might last 5s. Using a capacitor also means the LEDs will fade slowly instead of just turning off sharply.

If the LEDs come from a different supplier one day, who is going to make sure they're still within the spec for staying on for 3 seconds?

(And yes, I have long since parted ways with Apple)

Edit:

And to add on: That capacitor needs time to charge so now the LED doesn't actually come on when the sensor comes on, it's slightly delayed!

You can't drive an LED that way in production electronics: you need to use an LED driver circuit of some kind to ensure the LED has constant current, and also to protect against failure modes. Also, a capacitor large enough to power a daylight-visible LED for 3 seconds is not as "little" as you're thinking; there's likely not enough space in a laptop lid for one of those. A driver circuit would be smaller and thinner.

Agreed, however, that the LED should be controlled by the camera sensor idle vs. active voltage.