[HN Gopher] If you care about security you might want to move th...
___________________________________________________________________
If you care about security you might want to move the iPhone Camera
app
Author : jgrahamc
Score : 254 points
Date : 2025-12-28 18:28 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.jgc.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.jgc.org)
| pirates wrote:
| > if you hover your finger over the Camera app icon without
| actually opening the app, the camera starts operating iOS 18.3,
| cannot recreate this. If I long-press the icon then yeah
| obviously it triggers, but just "hovering" does nothing for me.
| In addition, if I put my finger on the camera app icon and then
| swipe pages it doesn't trigger the dot either. Is this a new
| thing in 26.x?
|
| Edit: actually there is a timing sweet spot on the swiping that I
| can get to do it, but still nothing with just pure hovering
| myrandomcomment wrote:
| No issue making this happen on IOS 26. Camera was lower left
| icon exactly where I touch go swipe, holding phone in left
| hand.Put finger down and swiped, green light on. Moved it to
| the right side.
| arachnid92 wrote:
| I couldn't get it to trigger until I opened the camera app and
| made sure to switch to the front facing camera before exiting.
| After doing that I was able to consistently trigger the
| indicator when swiping across and long-pressing the icon.
|
| EDIT: it also only seems to happen if the camera icon is on one
| of your Home Screen pages. I haven't been able to reproduce the
| behavior when swiping across the icon while in the App Library.
| Wonder why they decided to do it that way? Do most people keep
| a camera icon on their Home Screen? That would be baffling to
| me. Why clutter your Home Screen when you can so easily access
| the camera from the lock screen or by using the physical camera
| button on newer iPhones?
| supermatt wrote:
| > Why clutter your Home Screen when you can so easily access
| the camera from the lock screen
|
| Because if using the phone then you need to access the lock
| screen to use the camera?
|
| That means hitting the power button twice (slowly so you
| don't trigger the wallet) and then a long press on the
| camera.
|
| Alternatively it's just a swipe and a tap if it's on the home
| screen.
| arachnid92 wrote:
| Fair enough, but then I can think of an even better place
| to put the icon: the control center that is a single swipe
| away from any screen in the OS. This is all moot in newer
| iPhones tho, as the physical camera button in the lower
| right is the easiest and fastest way to get to the camera.
|
| Anyhow, this is all just personal preference, of course.
| Anyone is free to put a camera icon anywhere they please. I
| just personally can't stand clutter in my home or lock
| screens, so I tend to keep the number of apps there to a
| minimum and access everything else either via Spotlight or
| Control Center widgets.
| supermatt wrote:
| Yeah, control centre also works, but that requires using
| 2 hands to do comfortably.
| fnoff wrote:
| I swipe down to see the notifications/lock screen, then
| right to access the camera.
| supermatt wrote:
| sure, but with typical one-handed operation you cant
| reach the top of the screen to swipe down.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _Why clutter your Home Screen when you can so easily access
| the camera from the lock screen_
|
| Half the time since updating to iOS 26 on my 13 mini, if I
| try to activate the camera from the lock screen the app opens
| but the camera fails to start and the view just stays black,
| and then I have to exit and try again. It's quite annoying.
| This does not happen with the camera app after unlocking the
| phone.
| DHPersonal wrote:
| Do you also have the slow-motion bug where every second or
| so a frame or two gets dropped, resulting in stutters in
| the video?
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Hmm, I don't think so, but I do get the awful indoor
| lighting flicker when shooting slow-mo at 240fps that
| completely ruins indoor videos, and it really seems like
| Apple could just fix that if they cared at all.
| snailmailman wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that's because the lights are actually
| flickering. The lights are the issue not the camera.
|
| Rooms with these lights give me migraines. I can always
| tell when lights in a room are like that, and I use the
| 240hz slow motion on my phone to double check or figure
| out which specific lights are the issue.
|
| I hate these lights and I don't understand why places use
| them.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure that's because the lights are actually
| flickering
|
| They are, but the camera stack should be detecting and
| compensating for that - it's pretty easy to detect, since
| it should be a fixed 50/60Hz depending on geographic
| location. You typically have to implement this filtering
| on all manner of light sensors.
| withinboredom wrote:
| Um. 240 is a multiple of 60.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Yes, so you either get a strobe on/strobe off every two
| frames if you're in 60 Hz country, or a slower crawling
| flicker in 50 Hz land. Migraine-inducing either way.
| Also, your phone won't shutter at exactly 60.00/50.00 Hz
| (mains freq. is pretty stable, usually stable to at least
| the first decimal) so you'll see a jittered, jumpy phase
| drift on top of that.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| Yep, and this breaks all sorts of computer vision setups.
| We had to compensate for it on the cameras that track the
| Oculus controllers, since folks are often playing under
| indoor lighting
| dagmx wrote:
| It's not just about matching the frequency but also the
| phase.
|
| This is easier when your lights are all in phase and also
| in a single frequency, but you might also have bulbs that
| are at different frequencies (120 vs 60) or electric
| hookups that go out of phase.
|
| It's a very tricky problem to solve and to the best of my
| knowledge, nobody truly has. Film lights do clever and
| expensive tricks to match phase but that's not feasible
| in a domestic setup.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _I'm pretty sure that's because the lights are actually
| flickering._
|
| I didn't say it wasn't. I said I bet that Apple, the
| company that can zero-shot high resolution synthetic 3D
| views from flat photos, could make the flicker not show
| in the video if they tried so that slow motion videos
| shot indoors aren't completely ruined by AC flicker.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| In don't understand accessing _anything_ from the lock
| screen. It 's locked, nothing should operate.
| azinman2 wrote:
| It's a special mode called secure access. You cannot
| actually access any existing data from it; but taking
| camera photos is a primary action that people use their
| phones for. Why wouldn't you want to accelerate that?
| gruez wrote:
| Not to mention with this feature, I don't have to hand an
| unlocked phone to a stranger if I want a photo taken.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I suppose. I rarely take photos with my phone. It's
| really one of the least used features of the device for
| me. When I activate the camera from the lock screen it's
| always unintentional and it's an annoyance. It would be
| nice to at least have the option to disable that.
|
| Edit: I discovered that in iOS 26 you _can_ disable the
| "swipe" activation of the camera on the lock screen. I've
| done that and it should remove one of my major annoyances
| with the phone.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Mine does this too. I wonder if it's exclusively an iPhone
| 13 mini thing because I don't understand how it shipped.
| niij wrote:
| There are so many bugs in iOS 26 I've personally
| experienced. I'd believe anything at this point.
|
| I keep opening my phone "favorites" section and it
| erroneously reports no favorites. They either eventually
| load after seconds+ or I have to force close to get them
| to show.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| iPhone 13 regular here, same problem. I reported it
| repeatedly during the iOS 26 betas but they don't give a
| damn.
| drawfloat wrote:
| I have this in iOS 16 so it's not new (and not fixed it
| sounds like) sadly.
| kgen wrote:
| Because it's on the homescreen in the default layout and a
| large number of people don't change their defaults?
| snorbleck wrote:
| _> Do most people keep a camera icon on their Home Screen?
| That would be baffling to me._
|
| probably. it is a TikTok world after all. or, pretty sure
| it's on the home screen by default and no one probably
| bothers to move it.
| crazygringo wrote:
| "Hover" doesn't exist on touchscreen devices, in the physical
| sense of holding your finger above the screen without touching.
|
| It only exists with a pointer, when you're using some kind of
| mouse or trackpad.
|
| So it's ambiguous and confusing language. They should have said
| "when you hold your finger down on".
| ashleyn wrote:
| Wait, iphones now support detection of finger hover? I remember
| hearing about iOS introducing software support for this,
| presumably for when the hardware can catch up. But never heard of
| it actually being implemented.
| concinds wrote:
| Of course not. Only tapping. But the camera hardware gets
| booted up as soon as you tap the icon, without waiting to see
| if the tap is a swipe, and without waiting for you to lift your
| finger (which is when other apps would open).
| gyomu wrote:
| > Of course not
|
| Actually of course yes, every capacitive touchscreen has
| basic hover capabilities in some form, it's just a fairly
| narrow range (a few mm at most) and not exposed as a public
| API.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| There's an API in iOS/iPadOS named UIHoverGestureRecognizer,
| but it only detects hover from cursors and from the Apple
| Pencil. The Apple Pencil hover is neat and actual "hover"
| detection in the way you're thinking; it can be detected up to
| 12mm away from the screen. But right now there's no actual
| detection for finger hover, even though Apple patented a
| technique for it almost 10 years ago.
| stefan_ wrote:
| I think this is more of an Apple specific hack to get latency
| down; boot the cameras up as early as possible.
| varun_ch wrote:
| Can third party apps use this to speed up their use of camera
| hardware too?
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| I doubt it - Apple has a bad habit of putting in specific
| behaviors for certain home screen icons in Springboard
| (consider the clock and calendar icons) which are tied to
| the app identity but executed by Springboard.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I think capacitive touchscreens always did? It was never
| reliable enough or something. The panels generate scanned
| strength maps for the whole displays. Values for locations that
| aren't being touched aren't zeroes.
| gyomu wrote:
| Yes, but it's a couple mm at most and not exposed as a public
| API.
| GranPC wrote:
| Beyond hover detection causing the app to preload (TIL that's
| apparently a thing? Can anyone confirm?), another case I've seen
| is trying to slide up to unlock but accidentally triggering the
| lock screen camera for a millisecond or two, which also causes
| the indicator to linger for a few seconds.
|
| edit: Is this actual "hover without touching screen", which is
| what I was shocked about, or is this more like "finger passes
| over the icon while swiping between pages"?
| bar000n wrote:
| When i think about it, I would be absolutely terrified by
| smartphone cameras. Think laptop accessories that cover the
| webcam - haven't seen any of those for smartphones. Yet we trust
| a green dot with all our heart nowadays. Back in the day when
| cameras started showing up on mobile phones there were even
| versions of popular business feature phones that lacked the
| camera (Nokia E51 if i recall correctly), probably triggered by
| requirements of clients with strict information security
| standards.
|
| It seems we all learned to stop worrying and love the cameras.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Phone camera covers have been available for years.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Some industries still require camera-less phones, and there are
| companies who make them, or more interestingly, modify existing
| iphones!
|
| Here's one vendor https://noncam.com/
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| And yet if you have your phone on you, you can still record
| everything that was said...
| brewdad wrote:
| My wife worked in a facility that didn't allow phone
| cameras. You had to check it in anytime you went into one
| of the secure areas or prove you had one of their phones
| that had the camera disabled if you were important enough
| to require being contactable. While I'm sure one or more of
| the thousands of employees managed to leak some valuable
| info through conversations, pictures would have been worth
| 1000x as much if not more.
| amelius wrote:
| Can't they just sell a case that can be locked and covers the
| camera holes?
| adastra22 wrote:
| Cases can be removed.
| mrheosuper wrote:
| when i go into secure zone at factory, they cover our phone
| camera lens with a piece of sticker. It was quite trouble
| some because my phone has 5 camera(S21U). The sticker is
| similar to the warannty sticker you find on electronic
| device, so if you try to remove they will know.
|
| But the sticker seem generic, so i bet someone can prepare
| it before hand if they really want.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| There are so many things that would have to go wrong for a
| third party app to surreptitiously activate your camera and
| pick up images in the background on iOS, this is tin foil hat
| level concern.
|
| It's also hilarious how many people worry about covering up
| their camera on the laptop not thinking that the microphone can
| pick up much more information in the surrounding area - again
| worrying about the wrong thing.
|
| Also see, not using biometric security because in the US,
| police can't legally make you give up your password - even
| though police are not above rubber hose decryption, judges hold
| people in contempt indefinitely and iPhone and Android phones
| are laughable insecure after first unlock after rebooting your
| phone.
| brewdad wrote:
| You ever see The Accountant? That scene where he goes home
| and ups the stimulation to 13/10? I live my life in that
| world. Good luck getting any useful intel from my phone's
| microphone.
|
| https://youtu.be/Mb8krWbv1CI?t=62
| fastasucan wrote:
| >It's also hilarious how many people worry about covering up
| their camera on the laptop not thinking that the microphone
| can pick up much more information in the surrounding area -
| again worrying about the wrong thing.
|
| Or they worry about the right thing, its just not what you
| worry about.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You trust the green dot with your heart simply because they
| wired it in series with the camera. Can't be bypassed unless
| you opened the device and bypassed the green light. This is why
| people with webcam covers on macbooks are fools: they fear and
| yet they do not care to understand what it is they fear to see
| if it is actually worth fearing.
| arm32 wrote:
| The "hack" baddies do is to only activate it for 30ms or so,
| so there's a chance you'll miss the green light.
| gyomu wrote:
| The API calls to turn on the camera, wait for + grab the
| first frame, and terminate it, are 1) non timing
| deterministic and 2) always take more than 30ms so that's a
| pretty bad "hack"
| felurx wrote:
| The problem is that apparently, often enough that is just not
| the case.
|
| On laptops, the LED is not powered with the camera, but
| controlled by it. And on smartphones, if it's a green dot on
| the display it can obviously be bypassed in different ways
| given the right vulnerabilities.
|
| Also, aside from that, your condescending attitude is
| frustrating.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| So anyways, here's a _somewhat memorable_ incident of people
| doing the thing you claim is impossible:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISeeYou
| chuckadams wrote:
| ISeeYou went well beyond turning off the light, it also
| came with arbitrary code execution: https://www.usenix.org/
| conference/usenixsecurity14/technical...
| kube-system wrote:
| An indicator light cannot prevent malicious webcam
| activation, it can only tell you that you have been owned in
| retrospect.
| saagarjha wrote:
| This is only true on Macs
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Even zuck doesn't understand this. There are shots of him
| out there with macbooks that have that circuit setup with a
| piece of tape still. Even if it was a risk, what about the
| mic there zuck? Stuffed with beeswax already?
| ars wrote:
| > This is why people with webcam covers on macbooks are fools
|
| So you think it's fine if someone accidentally activates the
| camera, as long as they know about it?
|
| All it takes is an accidental click on "Video" during a teams
| call in the bathroom, and you will quickly discover the
| utility of a cover.
| mrheosuper wrote:
| Lol it's like calling people taking vaccine is a fool. The
| indicator light only tell you that you have been compromised,
| they do not prevent that malware from running at all. And
| when the light is turned on, the hacker will already have
| hundreds pictured of you(60 fps is 60 frames per second after
| all)
| firesteelrain wrote:
| I thought the oval area on the iPhone is a screen. Not really
| a light per se
| miladyincontrol wrote:
| I'd be far more worried about an ability for 3rd parties to
| record audio at any moment than for them to be able to record
| video of what's likely my pocket or desk surface at any given
| moment.
|
| Same concern of many I have with laptops and theoretical webcam
| recording. Theres far worse things they could be stealthily
| doing.
| duxup wrote:
| >haven't seen any of those for smartphones
|
| Many phone cases do. Under the idea that you're protecting the
| camera, but it blocks it none the less.
| treetalker wrote:
| Trying to decide whether I'm taken aback more at the green dot
| when touching the camera icon during a swipe, or at my own
| failure to notice it before ...
| pjot wrote:
| "Hover" seems to be causing some confusion. It's more of a
| "shallow" press. Like the opposite of "pressing into" when 3D
| Touch was a thing
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Yes, maybe hover wasn't the best word.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Wild how a _single_ poor word choice can derail so much of HN
| 's comments into the kind of nit-picking we're seeing here.
| Thanks for correcting! We'll probably have much better
| comments here because of it.
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Sure, but I didn't express myself clearly enough and HN was
| a great editor :-)
| tosh wrote:
| touch + swipe away to cancel app opening
| solarkraft wrote:
| I think it's so smart of them to do this to improve UX, which I
| really care about. You can just tell they had a creative workshop
| around optimizing camera startup time (which is super important
| to optimize and one of the many reasons I own an iPhone!).
|
| I'm happy to see them being so open about it in the privacy
| report. It shows that it's a real priority for them: It would've
| been easier to hide this as an implementation detail and not have
| people wonder about it. Another big reason to own an iPhone.
|
| However, it is yet another example of them making full use of
| owning the platform in ways I assume other players can't. The
| Apple camera app will always start faster than others, which is a
| loss for customization and competition.
| Footprint0521 wrote:
| Yeah but also if they did make that an API imagine apps abusing
| it... instagram posts abusing HDR is bad enough as it is lol
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Hovering does not do anything. They mean pressing and dragging
| your finger away from the icon.
| csomar wrote:
| If you very gently and shortly press the button, it'll not open
| the camera app. Confusing to be honest.
| Havoc wrote:
| >Because hovering a finger on the Camera app icon is enough,
|
| Like others I can't get this replicated either.
|
| And even if I did not sure I'd care. My iphone has so much
| information on me already an extra 500ms of camera on seems
| pretty immaterial compared to other risks (like tracker in your
| pocket 24/7, constantly leaking info to god knows what app's
| servers etc)
| jgrahamc wrote:
| I wasn't clear about what I meant by hovering: you touch the
| icon but then you move your finger somewhere else so the app
| never gets opened. I've edited the post to make this clearer.
| sxg wrote:
| I think you're missing the point of the post, which I actually
| also initially missed based on the misleading title. The author
| isn't saying that the camera app activating the camera and
| green light is a problem. The author is saying that he's
| unknowingly activating the camera app by simply touching the
| app icon, which in turn activates the green light and makes him
| think something nefarious is going on. However, this is a false
| positive that can contribute to alert fatigue and cause users
| to entirely ignore the green light.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| I didn't even realize there was a green dot until now.
| sxg wrote:
| There's also an orange light for the microphone.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| TIL
| NotPractical wrote:
| Non-preloaded apps can't access your camera feed unless they are
| open in the foreground (zero days aside, but you're probably not
| interesting enough to burn one on).
| sehugg wrote:
| More annoying is that it's really difficult for me to unlock the
| phone with the side button without activating Siri. Seems like
| there's often a lag when waking the phone that causes a long
| press to be detected even with a short press.
| mabedan wrote:
| Quite sure it's done in order to speed up the camera app
| performance and reduce the time to first photo time. The camera
| module requires some tenths of a second to boot up and it makes
| sense to start that process at the earliest indication of user's
| interaction. In this case, a touch-down is a good indication,
| even if user ends up swiping instead of touch-up. The same thing
| happens in the lock screen, if you hold your finger on the lock
| screen and move 1 pixel to the left, the camera module starts up
| even if you don't finish your swipe to camera gesture.
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Yeah, makes total sense why they'd do it, but in my case it was
| increasing "alert fatigue" (why is my camera on?) and so I
| moved it.
| dfgfddfg wrote:
| I bet this is in the new version 26. That version is so garbage
| and I regret updating. 95% of the time, when I open the phone,
| it doesnt unlock my phone with face and I have to enter PIN.
| Sometimes I cant take photos also. In the browser, when I touch
| the address field nothing happens and I can go on and on and
| on. Just leave the shit as is, people. Its like if I have a
| screwdriver in my workshot and every other month, when I come
| back to use it, you change some bullshit, so I have to operate
| it slightly different. Fuck that
| reddalo wrote:
| No, I confirm that this camera behavior also happens on iOS
| 16. But I agree that iOS and macOS 26 are the worst thing
| Apple made in a long time.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| Also happens on iOS 18
| dgoldstein0 wrote:
| Wouldn't surprise me either. I know a guy who worked at Apple
| on iOS perf and the one time he was telling me about it years
| ago, it was "camera app doesn't start fast enough, so we
| reworked memory management". Apple really cares about the
| camera.
| gregoriol wrote:
| We should sue Apple for this: their Camera app gets an unfair
| advantage here compared to third-party camera apps.
| isodev wrote:
| Yup, all the gimmicks I have to do in my app to distract
| users from the camera loading...
| rangestransform wrote:
| No thanks, the time from locked to first capture is already
| too long on my 15 pro
| Nevermark wrote:
| The point of the suit would be for the camera to operate
| faster in all apps.
| andai wrote:
| I think ChatGPT has a similar feature. I was amazed how the
| reply starts coming in literally the moment I press enter. As
| far as I can tell that is only possible if all the previous
| tokens I submitted have already been processed. So when I
| actually submit the message, it only needs to update the inner
| state by one more token.
|
| i.e. I think it's sending my message to the server
| continuously, and updating the GPU state with each token (chunk
| of text) that comes in.
|
| Or maybe their set up is just that good and doesn't actually
| need any tricks or optimizations? Either way that's very
| impressive.
| port3000 wrote:
| The 'flash' / no or low-thinking versions of those models are
| crazy fast. We often receive full response (not just first
| token) in less than 1 second via API.
| altbdoor wrote:
| > I think it's sending my message to the server continuously
|
| It is, at least I see it for the first message when starting
| a new chat. If you open the network tools and type, you can
| see the text being sent to the servers on every character.
|
| Source, from spending too much time analysing the network
| calls in ChatGPT to keep using mini models in a free account.
| ibaikov wrote:
| Support systems often do this - they stream message and
| agents already see what you are typing. I know a few banking
| apps that do this.
| throwawaymobule wrote:
| IIRC, apple has a patent from years ago for keeping a camera
| module in a semi-active mode when the phone isn't entirely idle
| to make starting it faster.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| The absolute best phone-camera-wise was the SNAFU in the past
| where every access to the camera would turn the green light on...
| Except for one obscure company that happened to have a free pass.
| I don't remember the details and won't bother to check but it
| went a bit like this: _" Jack's Petrolhead Garage is the only
| company in the world that can turn the phone's camera on WITHOUT
| the green light turning on"_. Some people eventually found out
| about this and it made headlines.
|
| Then of course the damage control started --and those always
| turning a blind eye to the state's wrongdoings are surely going
| to still damage control this--: "oh but Jack is the nephew of the
| cousin of that engineer at this company and historically they
| helped us write one of the first app using the camera".
|
| Or whatever bullshit nonsense explanation they came up with.
|
| If you ask me: Jack's Petrolhead Garage (name I made up) was a
| NSA front and you can shove your excuses where the light doesn't
| shine.
| adastra22 wrote:
| You got a source? Because th green light isn't controlled by
| software. The LED is directly wired to the camera power. You
| cannot use the camera without the little green light turning
| on.
| saagarjha wrote:
| There's no LED on iPhone
| lostlogin wrote:
| Are saying it isn't an LED or that there isn't a light?
|
| My 16 has a light for camera and anther for mic. No idea if
| it's an LED.
| saagarjha wrote:
| It's a dot on the screen
| krisoft wrote:
| > Because th green light isn't controlled by software. The
| LED is directly wired to the camera power.
|
| You got a source for that? Or a clarification about which
| iphone version you are talking about? Because on my iphone 15
| the green indicator light next to the camera is not an LED
| but a UI element on the screen. Source: I put my phone under
| a microscope just now and can see the individual pixels in
| this supposed "LED". Happy to provide the image if
| interested.
| saagarjha wrote:
| You should probably find a link to this.
| samlosodesign wrote:
| You saved me from wiping my phone this morning - thanks. I kept
| seeing the dot when but the privacy report only said "camera".
| This gives me a lot of reassurance.
| pjs_ wrote:
| Anyone else find that the iPhone camera app crashes about half
| the time these days? It's killing me...
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Mine works fine.
| danielscrubs wrote:
| Same
| clcaev wrote:
| I inadvertently trigger the camera all the time, perhaps due to
| sweaty hands. Thank you.
| gcr wrote:
| I was under the impression that sophisticated iOS malware like
| Pegasus can access the camera without turning on the dot. This is
| certainly possible on MacOS.
| tyre wrote:
| Are you sure about this for Macs? My understanding of recentish
| models is that the power for the camera passes through the
| light, so it's impossible to turn on the camera without the
| light.
| saagarjha wrote:
| It would require a pretty advanced exploit for this.
| dgellow wrote:
| Which is what Pegasus is/was
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)
| saagarjha wrote:
| Not really
| kmeisthax wrote:
| That may have been possible and even easy on older hardware but
| modern Apple hardware makes this way more of a pain in the ass.
| They have a whole separate hypervisor (SPTM), kernel, and
| userland running in a higher set of guarded privilege levels
| from the standard ARM exception levels.
|
| Compromising the camera dot on modern iOS requires compromising
| SPTM, which is equivalent to a full jailbreak. Most modern iOS
| spyware doesn't actually go as far as that, it just does enough
| exploitation to get the data they want.
|
| None of this applies to macOS, which doesn't use SPTM, because
| the whole point of SPTM is to enforce iOS code signing and
| lockdown rules.
| ceroxylon wrote:
| I put all of my apps into category folders at the top row, so I
| can see my background photo that I really enjoy. Once you do this
| for long enough, it is jarring to see the chaotic placement of
| app icons all over the screen on most people's devices.
|
| Also I never use the camera app icon, I swipe left from the lock
| screen 99% of the time, and the remaining 1% is from things like
| auth apps opening it to scan QR codes for new accounts, etc.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| Launching apps with one tap instead of two is a lot more
| important to me then the background picture.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I think iOS 26 is also just broken when it comes to the
| indicator, sometimes I've quit the Camera app and I've noticed
| the indicator will stay in use whenever I'm on Springboard. Not
| sure what they did this year to break it :/
| csomar wrote:
| If it's not a bug, then that's an information for you that the
| Camera is being used by whatever process is going on out there.
| Maybe if someone chimes in if they have knowledge about the
| green dot? Is it part of the OS as an app/process or does it
| have a parallel system independent of apps running?
| walterbell wrote:
| On iPhone 16+, it uses Secure Exclave,
| https://9to5mac.com/2024/06/03/m4-ipad-pro-security-
| feature-...
| isodev wrote:
| When I dismiss the camera app, I still see green dot for a
| bit, then it switches to orange (microphone?) before it
| disappears completely. The little enclave is cute but *OS
| 26 has been so full of bugs that can you really say all
| this is working safely and as intended?
| walterbell wrote:
| Apple's new Secure Indicator Light (SIL) mechanism. When
| using the microphone or camera, the corresponding
| indicator dot is effectively rendered in hardware, making
| it a lot less likely that any malware or user space app
| would be able to access those sensors without the user's
| knowledge.
|
| If this mechanism isn't working as intended, Apple pays
| $100,000 to $2,000,000 bounty for bugs that breach
| security boundaries which protect sensitive user data or
| sandboxes.
|
| https://security.apple.com/bounty/categories/
| isodev wrote:
| That's cool but someone needs to find said bugs and Apple
| is not exactly open for audit. Given the critical nature
| of smartphones, I think corps of this magnitude should be
| subject to oversight and clear and transparent external
| evaluation of such sensitive systems.
| halapro wrote:
| This is such ridiculous scaremongering.
|
| If you use your phone and take photos with it, then what
| difference does it make that it uses the camera when you unlock
| it? If your phone is compromised, you're already cooked.
| csomar wrote:
| I have noticed it but I am bit split on this: I'd rather have
| this indicator on _every time_ the camera is activated in anyway
| rather than Apple making it more "efficient" by hiding whatever
| activity is happening with the camera.
|
| It's a signal that I eventually got used to and the fact that it
| makes me alert for even a couple of seconds, I consider that a
| plus.
| jmward01 wrote:
| I'm at the point where I want a pop-up for every time my phone
| wants to use location/camera/mic/contacts. Or at least more
| options to require this for individual system services/apps.
|
| Also, while we are at it, why can't I disable network access
| entirely for some apps? If I have a game that doesn't need the
| internet then it doesn't need the internet and I don't want it to
| have access to the internet, ever. I have been putting my phone
| in airplane mode just to use some of the apps and not have them
| phone home. This is a clearly missing (intentionally not added?)
| privacy feature.
| gyomu wrote:
| > why can't I disable network access entirely for some apps
|
| Agreed, the only reason we don't have a streamlined version of
| Little Snitch (very flexible network monitor) built in to the
| OS is that it'd destroy billions of revenue for the advertising
| industry.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > it'd destroy billions of revenue for the advertising
| industry.
|
| Excellent.
|
| What hidden consequences am I missing? I don't see a
| downside.
|
| I spent too much time fortifying devices and blocking their
| shit from getting in.
| luplex wrote:
| you're missing the fact that OS developers like ads,
| because they want the OS to be a platform where devs can
| make money.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I avoid ad supported apps, so if those devs move to
| companies that I support, it might actually help me?
|
| If it damages the the OS, that's a problem for me on a
| Mac/ios but not so much with Ubuntu.
|
| It's not that long ago that I was paying for OS updates
| (that seems wild, I had to go and check). If it went back
| to that and I had no ads, it would be a straight win.
| gyomu wrote:
| > I don't see a downside.
|
| You don't, Apple does :)
| why-o-why wrote:
| About 5 years ago I purged as many apps as I could. I still
| have some I need for my job, especially on my work-issued
| iPhone, but excluding those apps I have exactly 5 apps on
| my phone. Everything has a website.
|
| I've heard that native apps are more secure than webapps,
| but in my experience Firefox is a more reliable steward of
| security, and App permissions are too obscure to really
| understand: it is harder to make a malicious webapp than it
| is to make a malicious native app. Is that a fair
| statement?
| j16sdiz wrote:
| The same API needed for Little Snitch can be used for
| surveillance. See Facebook/Onavo.
| kuekacang wrote:
| I'm sure no API and only built-in control is more
| favorable. Digressing, built-in mixer is nice to have too.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> disable network access entirely for some apps_
|
| NetGuard can do this via "local VPN" on GrapheneOS/Android,
| https://netguard.me/
|
| iOS Lockdown app provides device-wide adblock by destination
| host, but not per-app outbound rules.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| 1Blocker lets you run a local VPN for iOS. It's defaulted to
| in-app trackers. But you can also just bulldoze all of an
| app's endpoints.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> bulldoze all of an app 's endpoints_
|
| https://support.1blocker.com/en/articles/9720640-how-to-
| enab...
|
| Does the user need to add endpoints manually for each app,
| after identification by Charles Proxy?
| lostlogin wrote:
| > I'm at the point where I want a pop-up for every time my
| phone wants to use
|
| I'm in the EU on holiday. It's amazing how quickly you get used
| to the damn cookie popup that appears on every single site.
| Having it for apps wouldn't seem likely to be more intrusive.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| > Also, while we are at it, why can't I disable network access
| entirely for some apps?
|
| This is possible in GrapheneOS and is super nice. I use a
| keyboard app that I like but disable network access to ensure
| that it doesn't send private data anywhere.
| jech wrote:
| It's also possible in LineageOS and its derivatives.
|
| But it's not very useful in practice: if an application
| doesn't need networking for its core functionality, then
| there usually is an open-source equivalent that does not use
| the network in the first place. The few applications that
| lack a good open-source equivalent (public transportation,
| proprietary messaging protocols, banking) don't do anything
| useful without network access.
| upboundspiral wrote:
| Being able to block network access gives me peace of mind
| regardless if the app is proprietary or open source. Humans
| are fallible and life can get in the way (maybe the app has
| old dependecies with vulnerabilities, or any other random
| thing that I don't want). Being able to set the permissions
| I want only has upsides.
| jech wrote:
| Oh, fully agreed.
|
| What would be more useful, however, would be the ability
| to selectively block network connections: for example, to
| allow the public transportation app to access its API
| endpoint, but not the advertising and tracking endpoints.
| I don't think LineageOS allows that, and I don't know if
| Graphene does.
| rchaud wrote:
| You can do that on websites with Firefox and UBO.
| Unfortunately not many transit authorities consider the
| website as a firsr class citizen anymore.
| xuki wrote:
| > why can't I disable network access entirely for some apps
|
| Apple kind of do this in China. Each app on Chinese iPhone
| needs to ask for permission when they access WiFi for the first
| time. Combine with cellular blocking, you can effectively block
| internet access for an app.
| why-o-why wrote:
| FWIW: Me too. I want 100% transparency and I have no problem
| clicking a dialog every single time. My credit card company
| sends me a lot of alerts and I have no issue spending 5 seconds
| skimming an email if it means not getting scammed.
| c16 wrote:
| While we're talking about silly(?) iOS design decisions, the one
| I can't get over is allowing users to change lock screen timeout
| without pin/faceid via Settings > Display & Brightness > Auto-
| lock. This should really be under Face ID & Passcode or Privacy &
| Security.
|
| From a phone getting taken from your hand perspective, this is
| the first thing they will change.
| mikaelsouza wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this.
|
| I don't have the camera app in my app grid, but sometimes I see
| the green dot and have no idea what is triggering it. I even
| disabled the camera permission for all apps and started to turn
| it on from scratch only for apps I find necessary, but didn't
| know what was triggering it.
|
| I am not why this logging thingy isn't enabled by default, but I
| am very happy it's possible to turn it on.
| queuep wrote:
| When the phone is locked, and you swipe from the bottom and
| upwards, you have the camera on the bottom right on the lock
| screen.
|
| Putting your finger there while swiping up triggers the camera.
|
| So for me I get this green dot every time I unlock my phone
| which is very annoying and feels like a privacy issue.
| mikaelsouza wrote:
| Oh... You're totally right. I was just able to reproduce
| this.
|
| Maybe that's the reason I sometimes get a green dot when I am
| unlocking my phone.
|
| Tyvm for sharing this. IIRC, it's possible to change the
| camera icon in the lock screen to something else. Since I
| never use this button (I am one of those weirdos that use the
| camera control button instead), I think I'll change to
| something else.
| martini333 wrote:
| Or just go to Control Center and see that only the Camera App was
| using the camera...?
| reorder9695 wrote:
| I would love it is my phone and laptop had hardware switches that
| were on the power or data lines for the camera and microphone,
| it's all well and good the software telling me the things aren't
| on but unless it's open source I can't verify that. With hardware
| switches someone could at least disassemble the device to ensure
| they were actually effective, and a software bug couldn't get
| around the fact that the microphone doesn't have power if the
| switch is open.
| jdiez17 wrote:
| Being open source is technically not required to verify this.
| It's possible to prove or disprove security claims by reverse
| engineering, and iOS specifically is already a popular target
| for professional/academic RE.
|
| Of course, a hardware switch is always more secure.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I don't have the app visible at all.
|
| I just use the side button or the pulldown screen.
| Argonaut998 wrote:
| Also affects the camera icon on the Lock Screen (bottom right).
| It also affects a partial left swipe gesture too which is very
| easy to do when the screen is touched
| juancn wrote:
| That explains a mystery green dot I saw the other day.
|
| That's looks like pre-warming being used to speed up camera
| launch.
|
| It has been available since iOS 15 if you're curious.
|
| - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/about-the-ap...
| Beestie wrote:
| A while ago, I moved everything on my iPhone home screen to
| screen 2 (and everything on screen 2 to screen 3, etc.) and
| emptied the quick access bar at the bottom (no phone app, msg app
| - just an empty box). There are zero icons (literally nothing) on
| my home screen except the wallpaper. One of the best things I've
| ever done on my iPhone.
| mosselman wrote:
| What was your reason to do this and how is it one of the best
| things you've done on your iPhone? I am very intrigued by the
| concept.
| Beestie wrote:
| I felt like as soon as I opened my phone, everything on the
| home screen was clamoring for my attention: new text
| messages, new emails, new calls, new reminders, alerts,
| alerts alerts.
|
| Now, when I open my phone, I get a peaceful empty screen. If
| I scroll right, I can see the ocean of alerts (if that's what
| I'm ready to tackle) or I can swipe left to a screen with a
| few shortcuts for phone or browser (Orion).
|
| In short, I put the chaos in a box that I only open when I
| want to. Might sound trite but it's made a big difference. I
| also turned off the thing that opens the phone as soon as I
| pick it up. Now, half the time I pick it up, I look at,
| decide I can live without all the chaos and put it back in my
| pocket.
|
| I guess my orig post triggered because with a blank home
| screen, I can't accidentally activate the phone camera.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| An alternate strategy is to turn off most of those alerts.
| When I open my home screen I see a bunch of icons, but only
| two of them are allowed to show the little red circle with
| a number in it: Phone and Messages. I picked those since I
| am habitually up to date on them. So the number is usually
| quite low, usually below 5.
|
| I also do not allow most apps to put banners on the screen
| (locked or unlocked), or beep, or buzz the phone. Almost
| all my apps have notifications turned off completely. If I
| want to know the status of my email, I open the email app.
| If I want to see what's new in Instagram, I open Instagram.
| Etc.
|
| But the point is, those checks happen on my schedule, not
| when I'm prompted.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I hid the Camera app icon entirely and instead I get to the
| camera from the quick-access menu I get by swiping down from the
| top-right corner. (I think Apple calls this the Control Center.)
|
| I did this so that using the Camera only takes one swipe (down)
| no matter what screen I'm on.
|
| I just confirmed that the Control Center icon also lights up the
| green dot at first touch. However, incidental touches are
| probably more rare and unlikely in this menu.
| tekno45 wrote:
| Are there any other examples of this UX pattern?
|
| Pre-loading at an precursor to user interaction.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-03 23:02 UTC)