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Is the iSight indicator LED hardwired or can it be circumvented?

Is the iSight indicator LED hardwired or can it be circumvented?

Hi,

Asked by: Guest | Views: 199
Total answers/comments: 5
bert [Entry]

If the NSA wants to monitor you, there's really nothing you can do. Of course to help them from thought monitoring an aluminum hat might help. Here's a fancy one so you wouldn't look so much like a paranoid nut
bert [Entry]

"I’m an Apple tech and I was wondering about this question too! Obviously the LED can be disabled. The question is would it require a software, firmware or hardware modification?

As a hardware technician I open hundreds of these systems. I can see that there is 5 contacts on the camera connector on the logic board.

Just by educated guess and my very basic knowledge of electronics I would say that 5 wires means the LED most likely can operate separately from the camera. I plan to take a look a a schematic to check this.

Obviously, this would require physical access to a device and you could also just remove the glass and disable the LED.

My next step after that will be looking into this at the software & firmware levels"
bert [Entry]

"Hmm, for the sake of others who may search for this topic, let me just state that despite his assertions to the contrary, clearly Dan doesn't know the answer.

His reference to a bug prior to 10.7 above is misleading as it does not concern the link between the green light and camera, but is actually about someone being able to remotely use the camera (with green light on).

I'll remain looking for an answer and will post back again only if if I find one, or someone other than Dan posts something that actually addresses what the OP asked."
bert [Entry]

"This just happened to my laptop a moment ago and my laptop is theoretically impenetrable. It is protected by McAfee anti-virus installed by Cisco. I too am now wondering if the flashing light is at all linked to the camera being on because I am not running any application that I have configured to use the camera.

I'm an IT security expert and my gut feeling is that I just got hacked. The reality is it's more likely that the light was broken. It's time for Apple to investigate, because either their hardware is defective, their operating system is defective or I'm too lazy to work out the alternative which is simply that I don't pay attention to all the applications running on my system and one of them is doing something it shouldn't be doing.

Whilst this was going on I had just woken my laptop from sleep mode and Chrome gave me the rainbow spinning wheel. I'm on the very latest OSX image at this moment.

Options: I got hacked. My laptop is defective. My operating system is defective. My applications are defective. I am defective. I wonder which it could be? :)"
bert [Entry]

"This thread is a bit older now, but it shows out, how seriously all the people work on a single man's question!

BTW I was astonished, seeing the led glow, despite using any program, that in general uses the camera.

After a restart, the light was off.

I keep this thread in mind ....

Thank you all

yours

Rainer"