For years the company Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), praises the security of its products, but a recent case made public in the USA reveals the fact that nothing is as safe as it seems. In a process filed by the authorities against a criminal was revealed the fact that he had managed to write a special software that allowed him to activate the camera iSight of a Mac to record nude images of a woman whom he intended to blackmail into the idea of not making those pictures public. Although Macs normally have a green light positioned next to the camera, which lights up when the camera becomes active, the software written by the man activates the camera without that light becoming active and without the victim knowing.
While controlling a camera remotely has long been a source of concern to privacy advocates, conventional wisdom said there was at least no way to deactivate the warning light. New evidence indicates otherwise. Marcus Thomas, former assistant director of the FBI's Operational Technology Division in Quantico, said in a recent story in The Washington Post that the FBI has been able to covertly activate a computer's camera — without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording — for several years.
The actions committed by the American criminal are also supported by a former deputy director of the FBI, stating that the federal agency used similar techniques to obtain evidence related to various criminals. The technique has been around for several years and although for now it is publicly known that only Macs released before 2008 are affected, there are probably hackers for new units as well. For Apple we are talking about a major problem, because activating the camera without the user's knowledge is a very serious violation of the right to privacy, and Apple will be seriously criticized in the media if it does not find ways to block hackers' access to the fraework that controls the Macs room.
UPDATED: It seems that the protagonist of the crime we talked about at the beginning of the article is Cassidy Wolf, Miss Teen USA, and the criminal is a computer science teacher at the famous Johns Hopkins educational institution.
