Snippet: MacBook Camera without the Green Light ☇

Ashkan Soltani and Timothy B. Lee for The Washington Post:

Now research from Johns Hopkins University provides the first public confirmation that it’s possible to do just that, and demonstrates how. While the research focused on MacBook and iMac models released before 2008, the authors say similar techniques could work on more recent computers from a wide variety of vendors. In other words, if a laptop has a built-in camera, it’s possible someone — whether the federal government or a malicious 19 year old — could access it to spy on the user at any time.

It seems this was only done on older machines, and undoubtedly Apple has redesigned and modified the system in systems since. I don’t know why they didn’t study newer systems, but most 2008-era and older machines have long been replaced. I’m sure this will be picked up as another Apple-is-doomed piece, but it once again should serve as a reminder to know where your software is coming from.