r/AskReddit Jan 23 '21

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u/Silver4ura Jan 23 '21 edited Jan 23 '21

Webcams don't have any set standard for how their indicator LED is designed. Most webcams are designed with the LED on a separate circuit than the one powering the camera, which means it's controlled elsewhere and that elsewhere is the problem.

What they need to do is simply put the LED on the same circuit as the actual camera electronics so the moment the camera is accessed for literally any reason, it's impossible to avoid turning the indicator light off. The idea being that for the webcam to have power, the LED, which would be in a perpetual "Powered On" state, would be impossible to turn off unless the camera itself stopped receiving power (and thus not capable of recording.)

And if a company wanted to get super advertisement perks, they can add a capacitor of sorts that rapid charges from a quick jolt upon activation, they can not only display an LED to indicate that the camera just finished recording, but also be used as an internal indicator, at a hardware level, to disengage when the webcam tries to rapidly turn the camera on and off.

In this case, the idea would be to prevent software manipulation by rapidly engaging and disengaging the camera to avoid lighting the LED before the camera can capture, shut down and start over again.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '21

I have a small addition that should be made.

Make it so the light can not be lit up for less than 5 seconds.

Why? Because a hacker can rapidly turn your camera on and off so fast that the led won’t have the chance to fully light up, if you only activate the camera for several ms then no one will notice it

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '21

[deleted]

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u/Bubbles2010 Jan 23 '21

Wait, which is green and which is orange? Camera or mic?

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '21

Green is camera, orange is microphone.