The power LED on my Amiga can be overridden (turned off). I can't think of any reason a Macintosh camera LED would be any different. If there's a will, there's a hack for it.
LED on the Macbook camera is in parallel with the power supply to the camera. Camera module power == LED ON.
Or even better, a jig that hangs on the lid, and has a mirror arrangement to arrange it so that all the camera ever sees (at home) is a goatse picture at just the right distance to be perfectly in focus...
I find it odd that there's no easy way to simply disable the camera. The only methods I've seen involve having to mess around with kernel extensions and the like.
Remember, these are STUDENT machines. Locked-down like Alcatraz.
Only if you're looking in its direction. If it's also on for only a short period (to take a photo) then you will probably not notice, or consider it a random hardware glitch. I'd hope the light was hardwired so couldn't be overridden by software, but that's also a possibility.
It is in parallel with the camera power. No way to spoof. But as you said, probably only a brief flash when taking a snapshot.
This is really no different from how Mr. Al Gore talks the big talk about global warming but has big cars and a huge electric bill on his mansion while George W. Bush has a ranch which is off the grid and uses solar energy to heat the hot water for the house.
I don't care whether you supported Bush and his parties policies but in his personal life he is more environmentally conscientious than Gore who is all talk and no action.
While I'm not fan of either Algore or Bush (either 41 or 43), all this proves is that Bush's "old money" allows him to live the way most of us would like to; but cannot afford to.
Bush didn't earn his money; he just is a "Trust Fund Kid" who happened to win the genetic lottery.
I'd do that stuff too, if I could afford it. And he probably lives far enough from the nearest HIGH CURRENT power lines that it was the only practical way to power a modern, power-hungry ranch like his. Same thing with the water recycling: Not a lot of water to go around in that part of the country.
Bottom line: It was a matter of practicality, coupled with the ability to absorb the massive up-front costs, nothing more. If Dubya really cared about renewable energy, then why wasn't it reflected in his Public Policy? All one has to do is to look into his Daddy's ties to Conoco Oil, and then answer becomes clear...
Now, excuse me while I put another layer of copper foil (aluminum foil isn't as good) on my hat.
Some teardowns estimate an iMac's *profit margin* at 40%, which means that Apple makes $800 in *profit* off of a single $2000 iMac sale. Even if they have a 40% profit margin on app sales, they need to sell 6,667 apps at that profit margin to make $800 in profit - 30 cents in revenue per app times 40% profit margin = 12 cents profit per app. They've implied quite publicly that their profit margins on the app store are nowhere near 40%.
Exactly! As I said above, you put dollars in the bank, not percentage-points.
And clearly, one of the reasons they are making the iCloud services FREE (as in beer) (excluding iTunes Match, and even that is priced at break-even), is that they know that it will more than pay for itself in increased hardware sales, from two major, and unrelated, segments:
1. People who have an iOS device; and will get another, or a Mac, or vice versa; because of the way cool automatic syncing features.
2. PowerPC holdouts; who have a perfectly good PowerPC Mac, but who just can't stand to not be in the inCloud(tm) anymore. Full disclosure: I would be in that second segment... Segment #2 is actually larger than you think, and would provide a(nother) nice bump to Mac sales in the short-term.
As of Jan 18 2011, iOS (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV) account for 67% of Apple revenue.
Apple has sold 200 million iOS devices in four years, they have not sold 600 million computers running OS X, Apple is currently selling about 3.5-3.8 million OS X computers a quarter for 14-15.2 million a year.
Revenue != Profit.
How much profit, as far as actual dollars (not percentage) do you think is actually in an iPod, iPad, iPhone or AppleTV, as compared to the actual dollars (not percentage) of profit from the sale of a 17" MacBook Pro, a Mac mini or even an iMac?
And remember, you put dollars in the bank, not percentage-points.
Note that their massive growth really started in 2005. The iMac had nothing to do with it. In fact, there are rumors that they will completely drop Mac OS X and move all devices to iOS to shift more focus to App Store purchases.
Kudos for your post. His will to work is simply amazing, and I respect him a lot for that. I wish him the best, but I feel he might not be around much longer.
He does look a bit like a skin-covered skeleton at this point, doesn't he? I was noticing how you can clearly see the bones of his forearms during the WWDC Keynote speech.
"Gaunt" is how I would describe him at this point. Although the malabsorption doesn't seem to have seriously affected his mentation... yet.
No. He HAD pancreatic cancer which (probably) spread to his liver. He has a new liver and as a result has to (or had to) take anti-rejection drugs, and no pancreas and a bunch of other missing stuff due the whipple procedure used to remove the pancreas, etc. He probably has a hell of a time absorbing nutrients, maintaining his blood sugar, etc. I respect the man for continuing to get out of bed every day.
I thought a Whipple was the procedure that most people have for bariatric surgery, and involves the duodenum, not the liver. Maybe you were thinking of his Pancreas instead?
Although I certainly will agree that the removal of one's duodenum is certainly a cause of malabsorption of many nutrients.
We would ask that you cease and desist your activity, and would like to remind the reading public that Jonestown residents were consumers of "flavor-aid" an inferior imitation product.
LOL! I just saw some packages of FlavorAide the other day. Every time I see those, I think of Jim Jones; who incidentally started out here in Indianapolis, Indiana; where I happen to live.
Why do I have a feeling that the Steve Jobs story is going to end with him and a large number of followers drinking arsenic-laced kool-aid in an effort to travel to the alien home planet of Klatlun?
C'mon Mods! +5 INSIGHTFUL?!? +5 FUNNY, I'll agree. But what sort of "Insight" was that?
Just out of curiosity, I looked up Blackberry, Android, and iPhone up on the National Vulnerability Database [nist.gov]. BB has 40, Android 59, and iPhone 131.
However, that 131 number contains not only long-patched vulnerabilities; but even those that are the fault of third party vendors. If I am using that website correctly, there are ZERO vulnerabilities for the current version of iOS (4.3.3). And THAT is all that matters, isn't it?
Forgive me if I'm not using the NIST database correctly. I really couldn't figure out how to figure out when/if a vulnerability was patched (or not).
Except that there are ZERO self-propagating "viruses" for OS X. ZE-RO. ZIP. NADA. FIND ME ONE IN THE WILD.
Additionally, OS X is UNIX-like so it is also susceptible to buffer overflow & brute force access attempts as in any other UNIX-like OS X if you don't have the knowledge to lock it down properly and take countermeasures.
ANY OS can potentially brute-forced; so that isn't even on the table. As far as buffer overflows: I think not. Ever hear of Stack Canaries? Howabout the No-Execute bit? OS X has employed both for years now.
That is what really scares me about the fanbois who crow about OS X being UNIX - because the majority of them wouldn't understand the core operation of a UNIX OS if it hit them in the face.
Newsflash: The USER isn't SUPPOSED to HAVE to "understand the core operation of a UNIX OS". That's the OS Engineer's job. Do you have to understand the core operation of your Microwave Oven to heat some soup in it? Would you care to? Or would you rather just. Eat? Would you enjoy it if an RF engineer called you an idiot because you couldn't correctly determine the optimum drive current for the Magnatron? n00b! How DARE you operate that Microwave without understanding even in the slightest how its cooking cavity got to be the dimensions that it is?
But fortunately, the engineers that design, build and maintain OS X were not as arrogant as you, and so they already baked-in a whole raft of security features into OS X Snow Leopard (with even more coming right around the corner in Lion), just so you wouldn't have to worry your pretty little head about it, just like the designers of your Microwave oven put a whole series of interlocking safety switches that keep you from cooking your forearm when you stupidly open up the Microwave before it's finished its cooking cycle.
Afterall, if you REALLY understood the fundamentals of how Microwave Cooking works, you'd know damn well better than to open the door without pressing the "Stop" button first! But, the switches protect you from your own ignorance.
The same argument could be used with linux/osx... let's say I managed to get root access in either (remotely using some fresh exploit) and put a backdoor and a running damon (to do what ever ; connect to irc://evil.net/DDoSonDemand or send spam..etc). how would you notice it or what makes linux so special that you would notice it ???
I can't speak for Linux, with its 863 instances of malware; but, as far as anyone knows, OS X is one DECADE old now, and still has ZE-RO root exploits. And nothing beyond a Trojan or three. And only one of those is of any note whatsoever.
The fact is that if you keep XP updated, run a good, free virus checker and good, free anti-malware program, don't install warez, don't open email attachments you don't trust and as an extra precaution, run alternatives to Outlook and IE, you probably won't get viruses or malware.
You forgot the most important thing to secure a Windows XP machine: Pull the network cable.
It's the users who know nothing about computers, OSes and the Internet that are the problem - exactly the people whom Apple market their products at and who will be OS X's/iOS's greatest downfall if and when their products have enough penetration for malware authors & hackers to take an interest in them. (God forbid!
I've been a professional embedded software and hardware dev. for over thirty years. And an Apple user since 1976 (yes, that means even on an Apple 1). I use Windows when I absolutely have no choice (a lot of embedded dev. tools still only run in XP). But don't even think that I "know nothing about computers."
The difference is, I am smart enough to know the difference between the desire to work with my computer, versus on my computer. Life's too short to mess around with a bunch of cat and mouse "Spy vs. Spy" malware/anti-malware games. I personally have shit to do with my computer. And running around keeping it secured against the threat du jour and worrying about which websites I can and can't visit and which software I can and can't trust, ain't it!
Running a Windows machine reminds me of my very short stint on IRC: Logon to channel. Get Kicked. Log back onto channel. Get channel "admin" rights. Kick former opponent. Log back into channel. Nuke! Repeat... And all I wanted to do was chat with some friends about $whatever...
Granted, there are many stupid people out there who install an "Ooh, shiny!" app without having a trusted source. In that regard, Apple is ahead of the game (if you don't care that they control the app ecosystem). However, as noted in the story, iOS lacks granular app permissions. This is a far more important security measure (to me) than a wall-garden app store. You can see (and change) every permission parameter for any app running on Blackberry OS (and presumably Android, according to TFA).
You can change it, IF you understand that it is dangerous/inappropriate to the app's function. And that's where all that sort of "geek-level" security falls apart. Maybe not for you or me; but these are CONSUMER devices.
And as far as lack-of-granularity goes; I believe that the hands-down "winner" is Android, where nearly every app has some seemingly-legitimate-sounding reason to get to the phone's state, for example.
Jailbreaking uses security flaws to run unsigned code. The same flaws can be used for malicious purposes. It is most definitely a security issue.
While most jailbreaking methods do require the phone to be tethered to a computer which greatly reduces the chances of infection in the wild, there have been at least two well known untethered jailbreak methods that could have been used to install malicious code quite easily.
Note that the article called iOS the MOST secure OS. It did NOT say it was an IMPENETRABLE OS.
Name me one that is, and I'll call you a liar, a fanboi, or a fool.
But I'd sure as hell feel more secure with my personal data on an iOS device than an Android. And I don't think I'm anywhere near "alone" on that one.
Slashdot Mirror
The power LED on my Amiga can be overridden (turned off). I can't think of any reason a Macintosh camera LED would be any different. If there's a will, there's a hack for it.
LED on the Macbook camera is in parallel with the power supply to the camera. Camera module power == LED ON.
or ya know, tape
Or even better, a jig that hangs on the lid, and has a mirror arrangement to arrange it so that all the camera ever sees (at home) is a goatse picture at just the right distance to be perfectly in focus...
Hmm. What an idea for a product!
I find it odd that there's no easy way to simply disable the camera. The only methods I've seen involve having to mess around with kernel extensions and the like.
Remember, these are STUDENT machines. Locked-down like Alcatraz.
Only if you're looking in its direction. If it's also on for only a short period (to take a photo) then you will probably not notice, or consider it a random hardware glitch. I'd hope the light was hardwired so couldn't be overridden by software, but that's also a possibility.
It is in parallel with the camera power. No way to spoof. But as you said, probably only a brief flash when taking a snapshot.
Or Bill Gates: http://www.netscrap.com/netscrap_detail.cfm?scrap_id=528
"Existing cedar tree was determined by Gates to be in the wrong location and moved 6 inches."
And yet, Steve Jobs is seen as the dictatorial perfectionist...
This is really no different from how Mr. Al Gore talks the big talk about global warming but has big cars and a huge electric bill on his mansion while George W. Bush has a ranch which is off the grid and uses solar energy to heat the hot water for the house.
I don't care whether you supported Bush and his parties policies but in his personal life he is more environmentally conscientious than Gore who is all talk and no action.
While I'm not fan of either Algore or Bush (either 41 or 43), all this proves is that Bush's "old money" allows him to live the way most of us would like to; but cannot afford to.
Bush didn't earn his money; he just is a "Trust Fund Kid" who happened to win the genetic lottery.
I'd do that stuff too, if I could afford it. And he probably lives far enough from the nearest HIGH CURRENT power lines that it was the only practical way to power a modern, power-hungry ranch like his. Same thing with the water recycling: Not a lot of water to go around in that part of the country.
Bottom line: It was a matter of practicality, coupled with the ability to absorb the massive up-front costs, nothing more. If Dubya really cared about renewable energy, then why wasn't it reflected in his Public Policy? All one has to do is to look into his Daddy's ties to Conoco Oil, and then answer becomes clear...
Now, excuse me while I put another layer of copper foil (aluminum foil isn't as good) on my hat.
Some teardowns estimate an iMac's *profit margin* at 40%, which means that Apple makes $800 in *profit* off of a single $2000 iMac sale. Even if they have a 40% profit margin on app sales, they need to sell 6,667 apps at that profit margin to make $800 in profit - 30 cents in revenue per app times 40% profit margin = 12 cents profit per app. They've implied quite publicly that their profit margins on the app store are nowhere near 40%.
Exactly! As I said above, you put dollars in the bank, not percentage-points.
And clearly, one of the reasons they are making the iCloud services FREE (as in beer) (excluding iTunes Match, and even that is priced at break-even), is that they know that it will more than pay for itself in increased hardware sales, from two major, and unrelated, segments:
1. People who have an iOS device; and will get another, or a Mac, or vice versa; because of the way cool automatic syncing features.
2. PowerPC holdouts; who have a perfectly good PowerPC Mac, but who just can't stand to not be in the inCloud(tm) anymore. Full disclosure: I would be in that second segment... Segment #2 is actually larger than you think, and would provide a(nother) nice bump to Mac sales in the short-term.
As of Jan 18 2011, iOS (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV) account for 67% of Apple revenue.
Apple has sold 200 million iOS devices in four years, they have not sold 600 million computers running OS X, Apple is currently selling about 3.5-3.8 million OS X computers a quarter for 14-15.2 million a year.
Revenue != Profit.
How much profit, as far as actual dollars (not percentage) do you think is actually in an iPod, iPad, iPhone or AppleTV, as compared to the actual dollars (not percentage) of profit from the sale of a 17" MacBook Pro, a Mac mini or even an iMac?
And remember, you put dollars in the bank, not percentage-points.
The spike started in 2005
Which is when Apple announced the switch to Intel. Ever think of that?
Note that their massive growth really started in 2005. The iMac had nothing to do with it. In fact, there are rumors that they will completely drop Mac OS X and move all devices to iOS to shift more focus to App Store purchases.
There are rumors that Elvis is still alive.
What was your point again?
Kudos for your post. His will to work is simply amazing, and I respect him a lot for that. I wish him the best, but I feel he might not be around much longer.
He does look a bit like a skin-covered skeleton at this point, doesn't he? I was noticing how you can clearly see the bones of his forearms during the WWDC Keynote speech.
"Gaunt" is how I would describe him at this point. Although the malabsorption doesn't seem to have seriously affected his mentation... yet.
No. He HAD pancreatic cancer which (probably) spread to his liver. He has a new liver and as a result has to (or had to) take anti-rejection drugs, and no pancreas and a bunch of other missing stuff due the whipple procedure used to remove the pancreas, etc. He probably has a hell of a time absorbing nutrients, maintaining his blood sugar, etc. I respect the man for continuing to get out of bed every day.
I thought a Whipple was the procedure that most people have for bariatric surgery, and involves the duodenum, not the liver. Maybe you were thinking of his Pancreas instead?
Although I certainly will agree that the removal of one's duodenum is certainly a cause of malabsorption of many nutrients.
Should he really? It's not exactly news that the Apple crowd behaves a lot like a cult.
And the Linux crowd DOESN'T???
If that's your feeling, you should seriously ask for a sense of humour.
You'd think so; but the OP was modded +5 INSIGHTFUL!!!
We would ask that you cease and desist your activity, and would like to remind the reading public that Jonestown residents were consumers of "flavor-aid" an inferior imitation product.
LOL! I just saw some packages of FlavorAide the other day. Every time I see those, I think of Jim Jones; who incidentally started out here in Indianapolis, Indiana; where I happen to live.
Why do I have a feeling that the Steve Jobs story is going to end with him and a large number of followers drinking arsenic-laced kool-aid in an effort to travel to the alien home planet of Klatlun?
C'mon Mods! +5 INSIGHTFUL?!? +5 FUNNY, I'll agree. But what sort of "Insight" was that?
Just out of curiosity, I looked up Blackberry, Android, and iPhone up on the National Vulnerability Database [nist.gov]. BB has 40, Android 59, and iPhone 131.
However, that 131 number contains not only long-patched vulnerabilities; but even those that are the fault of third party vendors. If I am using that website correctly, there are ZERO vulnerabilities for the current version of iOS (4.3.3). And THAT is all that matters, isn't it?
Forgive me if I'm not using the NIST database correctly. I really couldn't figure out how to figure out when/if a vulnerability was patched (or not).
One reasons why viruses spread very quickly
Except that there are ZERO self-propagating "viruses" for OS X. ZE-RO. ZIP. NADA. FIND ME ONE IN THE WILD.
Additionally, OS X is UNIX-like so it is also susceptible to buffer overflow & brute force access attempts as in any other UNIX-like OS X if you don't have the knowledge to lock it down properly and take countermeasures.
ANY OS can potentially brute-forced; so that isn't even on the table. As far as buffer overflows: I think not. Ever hear of Stack Canaries? Howabout the No-Execute bit? OS X has employed both for years now.
That is what really scares me about the fanbois who crow about OS X being UNIX - because the majority of them wouldn't understand the core operation of a UNIX OS if it hit them in the face.
Newsflash: The USER isn't SUPPOSED to HAVE to "understand the core operation of a UNIX OS". That's the OS Engineer's job. Do you have to understand the core operation of your Microwave Oven to heat some soup in it? Would you care to? Or would you rather just. Eat? Would you enjoy it if an RF engineer called you an idiot because you couldn't correctly determine the optimum drive current for the Magnatron? n00b! How DARE you operate that Microwave without understanding even in the slightest how its cooking cavity got to be the dimensions that it is?
But fortunately, the engineers that design, build and maintain OS X were not as arrogant as you, and so they already baked-in a whole raft of security features into OS X Snow Leopard (with even more coming right around the corner in Lion), just so you wouldn't have to worry your pretty little head about it, just like the designers of your Microwave oven put a whole series of interlocking safety switches that keep you from cooking your forearm when you stupidly open up the Microwave before it's finished its cooking cycle.
Afterall, if you REALLY understood the fundamentals of how Microwave Cooking works, you'd know damn well better than to open the door without pressing the "Stop" button first! But, the switches protect you from your own ignorance.
The problem is the illusion of no malware/etc.,
It's no illusion. It is reality. Trojans will never count; and that is all there are for OS X; and only THREE of them in a DECADE (yes, I'm yelling).
The same argument could be used with linux/osx ... let's say I managed to get root access in either (remotely using some fresh exploit) and put a backdoor and a running damon (to do what ever ; connect to irc://evil.net/DDoSonDemand or send spam ..etc). how would you notice it or what makes linux so special that you would notice it ???
I can't speak for Linux, with its 863 instances of malware; but, as far as anyone knows, OS X is one DECADE old now, and still has ZE-RO root exploits. And nothing beyond a Trojan or three. And only one of those is of any note whatsoever.
The fact is that if you keep XP updated, run a good, free virus checker and good, free anti-malware program, don't install warez, don't open email attachments you don't trust and as an extra precaution, run alternatives to Outlook and IE, you probably won't get viruses or malware.
You forgot the most important thing to secure a Windows XP machine: Pull the network cable.
It's the users who know nothing about computers, OSes and the Internet that are the problem - exactly the people whom Apple market their products at and who will be OS X's/iOS's greatest downfall if and when their products have enough penetration for malware authors & hackers to take an interest in them. (God forbid!
I've been a professional embedded software and hardware dev. for over thirty years. And an Apple user since 1976 (yes, that means even on an Apple 1). I use Windows when I absolutely have no choice (a lot of embedded dev. tools still only run in XP). But don't even think that I "know nothing about computers."
The difference is, I am smart enough to know the difference between the desire to work with my computer, versus on my computer. Life's too short to mess around with a bunch of cat and mouse "Spy vs. Spy" malware/anti-malware games. I personally have shit to do with my computer. And running around keeping it secured against the threat du jour and worrying about which websites I can and can't visit and which software I can and can't trust, ain't it!
Running a Windows machine reminds me of my very short stint on IRC: Logon to channel. Get Kicked. Log back onto channel. Get channel "admin" rights. Kick former opponent. Log back into channel. Nuke! Repeat... And all I wanted to do was chat with some friends about $whatever...
Granted, there are many stupid people out there who install an "Ooh, shiny!" app without having a trusted source. In that regard, Apple is ahead of the game (if you don't care that they control the app ecosystem). However, as noted in the story, iOS lacks granular app permissions. This is a far more important security measure (to me) than a wall-garden app store. You can see (and change) every permission parameter for any app running on Blackberry OS (and presumably Android, according to TFA).
You can change it, IF you understand that it is dangerous/inappropriate to the app's function. And that's where all that sort of "geek-level" security falls apart. Maybe not for you or me; but these are CONSUMER devices.
And as far as lack-of-granularity goes; I believe that the hands-down "winner" is Android, where nearly every app has some seemingly-legitimate-sounding reason to get to the phone's state, for example.
Ok it's not like online jailbreaking was never possible on iOS...
Actually, the vulnerability was in an app, IIRC; not the OS.
Relying on the obscurity of a closed platform is itself the security problem.
Are you SERIOUSLY calling iOS "obscure"?
Jailbreaking uses security flaws to run unsigned code. The same flaws can be used for malicious purposes. It is most definitely a security issue.
While most jailbreaking methods do require the phone to be tethered to a computer which greatly reduces the chances of infection in the wild, there have been at least two well known untethered jailbreak methods that could have been used to install malicious code quite easily.
Note that the article called iOS the MOST secure OS. It did NOT say it was an IMPENETRABLE OS.
Name me one that is, and I'll call you a liar, a fanboi, or a fool.
But I'd sure as hell feel more secure with my personal data on an iOS device than an Android. And I don't think I'm anywhere near "alone" on that one.