zlacker

>>xairy+(OP)
I thought the whole point of these camera LEDs was to have them wired to/through the power to the camera, so they are always on when the camera is getting power, no matter what.

Having the LED control exposed through the firmware completely defeats this.

>>sbarre+T1
For what it's worth, you could just power on the camera, take a pic, then turn it back off instead. Provided you can do this fast enough, an indicator LED is rendered worthless. So you'd need to make the indicator LED staggered, to stay lit for a minimum amount of time.

There's also the scenario where the LED or the connections to it simply fail. If the circuit doesn't account for that, then boom, now your camera can function without the light being on.

Can't think of any other pitfalls, but I'm sure they exist. Personally, I'll just continue using the privacy shutter, as annoying as that is. Too bad it doesn't do anything about the mic input.

>>perchi+e5
I worked on this feature for Apple Macbooks around 2014 as the security architect. All Macbooks since then have a camera indicator LED that is (barring the physical removal of the LED) always on at least 3 seconds. This feature is implemented in gates in the power management controller on the camera sub-board.

There's a LOT of pitfalls still (what if you manage to pull power from the entire camera sub-assembly?), this was a fun one to threat-model.