You know how that little green light next to your webcam comes on when you're being recorded?
Well, here's something to think about: It doesn't always come on when you're being recorded. Which means—that's right—your MacBook can spy on you with or without your permission, according to new research from Johns Hopkins University.
The research was published in a paper called "iSee You: Disabling the MacBook Indicator LED," and was co-authored by computer science Professor Stephen Checkoway and graduate student Matthew Brocker.
As their abstract states, Checkoway and Brocker set out to demonstrate "how to disable the LED on a class of Apple internal iSight webcams used in some versions of MacBook laptops and iMac desktops. This enables video to be captured without any visual indication." They've also provided two proofs-of-concept: "an OS X application, iSeeYou, which demonstrates capturing video with the LED disabled" and "an OS X kernel extension, iSightDefender, which prohibits the modification of the iSight's firmware from user space."
No comments:
Post a Comment