Top Stories: Apple Warns About MacBook Webcam Covers, iOS 13.6 Released, Apple Hacked on Twitter

[mrkite77]

The camera literally cannot be on without you knowing about it.

I don't understand why this is so difficult for people. If the light is on, it's already too late, your privacy has been violated.

 

[panjandrum]

The trouble with those green indicator LED’s is that they are triggered by software, not hardware. Software can be hacked, Apple. There’s a reason the macs in the background of your ARM announcement video had their cameras covered. You could at least be honest about that fact and engineer in a solution yourself.

Well, I have not had every single model of Mac apart, but I've had many of them apart. In all of them that I've had apart far enough to see how the camera and camera-power-LED are configured it has always APPEARED that the LED sits right in the power cable to the camera. If I'm correct about what I *think* I'm seeing there then that LED MUST activate when the camera is powered-on in a Mac. That would be a simple and clever arrangement that would guarantee that the camera would always activate if the camera had power (barring the highly-unlikely scenario of a bad LED I guess).

On a related note; I'm about to replace a screen in a Mid-2015 MacBook Pro (which I would certainly not have expected to be damaged with a sticker over a camera - not quite the close tolerances of the newest models) with a malfunctioning display very similar to what that screen-shot depicts and onto-which the owner did indeed stick camera cover, so the reporting on this is timely. Already swapped-out the display-cable in hopes that was the issue, but no-such luck. I'll be sure to pass the info on that owner should not place anything over the camera on the new screen.

 

[kingtj]

Regarding this camera issue? I find it amazing Apple took this long to say something about the camera covers! My previous job enacted a ban on those at least 6 months ago, when we saw several of them coming back to us for screen repairs.

Most Windows laptops are thicker and have a recessed bezel around the LCD vs the outer edge of the top cover. So the thin plastic sliding stick-on shutters fit neatly in that recessed part. New Macbooks just leave no tolerance for anything much thicker than a sheet of paper to fit between the top and bottom parts with the lid closed.

I like the sleekness of the new MBP's but this is also a downside for them. I've tried to buy snap on plastic protective covers for my 16" model and have gone through 3 different ones now. The first one developed a stress crack in one corner of the thin top cover. The second had other manufacturing flaws with its matte black finish (every little fingerprint etched permanently in it so it looked awful in only a few days of use). And the latest one I bought has a faux woodgrain finish over a thin leather top surface that's flaking off in tiny chips at the corners. I think they just reached a point where they went a bit too thin on the top lids and it's interfering with any aftermarket items related to them.

 

[TiggrToo]

I don't understand why this is so difficult for people. If the light is on, it's already too late, your privacy has been violated.

Hyperbole much?

There's far bigger risks out there than this. Y'all chicken-littling over a MacBook camera and totally ignore the microphone on the laptop, the cameras on your phone and all the smart home devices listening in on every conversation.

There have been plenty of known problems with devices listening and capturing private conversations, almost nothing Apple related on MacBook cameras.

Yet it's the cameras everyone is so bloody focused on. Totally ****ing nuts.

I do not understand this massive fixation on the cameras and ignoring all the other far more exploitable dangers.

 

[coolbeep]

I literally use a small piece of tape to cover my webcam, I can't relate to this. I've seen those types of covers before and it takes the intelligence of a squirrel to not realize it will break the glass

 

[pdaholic]

Step 1: Stop obsessing over getting MacBook web camera hacked.
Step 2: Leave web camera on all the time.
Step 3: Get paid.

 

[C DM]

The camera literally cannot be on without you knowing about it.

It might not be able to be on without the light coming on, but it can be without someone knowing about it if they don't notice the light (if it just comes on for a moment to take a snapshot, or the computer is further away at the time, etc.).

 

[vanylapep]

In Snowden, they were watching the camera when the green light was off.

 

[Vanilla35]

Delete

 

[nylonsteel]

i just use a post it note for a cam cover