Re:Apple Explains Mysterious iPhone 11 Location Requests
by btown on Thursday December 05, 2019 @05:53PM
(#21717587)
Do you have a reference of a case where this was violated? I had thought that Apple at least actually had real hardware paths to monitor webcam activity, unless the hardware was physically compromised.
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Re:Apple Explains Mysterious iPhone 11 Location Requests
by antiuniverse on Thursday December 05, 2019 @06:14PM
(#21717698)
Close; there's a precedent for it having been subverted via firmware compromise:
https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurit...
Re:Apple Explains Mysterious iPhone 11 Location Requests
by jacobush on Thursday December 05, 2019 @05:54PM
(#21717598)
No, the Mac cam light is software activated.
Re:Apple Explains Mysterious iPhone 11 Location Requests
by btown on Thursday December 05, 2019 @06:30PM
(#21717821)
Just read that there have been updates since this time:
https://daringfireball.net/2019/02/on_covering_webcams
> Here’s an answer I received from a former engineer at Apple who was intimately familiar with the software drivers for Mac webcams: "All cameras after that one were different: The hardware team tied the LED to a hardware signal from the sensor: If the (I believe) vertical sync was active, the LED would light up. There is NO firmware control to disable/enable the LED. The actual firmware is indeed flashable, but the part is not a generic part and there are mechanisms in place to verify the image being flashed. […]"
Re:Apple Explains Mysterious iPhone 11 Location Requests
by saagarjha on Thursday December 05, 2019 @06:53PM
(#21717974)
(“That one” being the MacBook comprised in the “iSeeYou” paper.)