Mac Isight Hack
Released in 2002, Apple’s iMac G4 was certainly a unique machine. Even today, its hemispherical case and integrated “gooseneck” display is unlike anything else on the market. Whether or not that’s a good thing is rather subjective of course, but there’s no denying it’s still an attention grabber nearly 20 years after its release. Unfortunately, it’s got less processing power than a modern burner phone.
Which is why [Tom Hightower] figured it was the perfect candidate for a retrofit. Rather than being little more than a display piece, this Intel NUC powered iMac is now able to run the latest version of Mac OS. He even went as far as replacing the display with a higher resolution panel, though it sounds like it was dead to begin with so he didn’t have much choice in the matter.
The retrofit starts off with a brief teardown, which is quite interesting in itself. [Tom] notes a number of unique design elements, chief among them the circular motherboard. The two banks of memory also use different form factors, and only one of them is easily accessible to the end user. Something to think about the next time somebody tells you that Apple’s “brave” hardware choices are only a modern phenomena.
Apple iMac G5 1.9 17' (iSight) Specs. Identifiers: iSight - MA063LL/A - PowerMac12,1 - A1144 - 2081 All iMac G5 Models All 2005 Models Dynamically Compare This Mac to Others. Distribute This Page: Bookmark & Share Download: PDF Manual The Apple iMac G5/1.9 17-Inch (iSight) follows the design of its predecessors with the entire computer placed behind the flat-panel display in an. Screenshots on the Mac are pretty awesome, and there are three ways to take a screen shot with your Mac: Command + Shift + 4 and you’ll get a crosshair that you can drag with your mouse to capture exactly what you want.; Command + Shift + 4 at the same time and then let them go, then hit the Spacebar. Now you can click on any window you want and take a shot of that entire window, shadow.
Mac Isight Hacks
There was plenty of room inside the iMac’s dome to fit the NUC motherboard, and some extension cables and hot glue got the computer’s rear panel suitably updated with the latest-and-greatest ports and connectors. But the conversion wasn’t a total cakewalk. That iconic “gooseneck” put up quite a fight when it was time to run the new wires up to the display. Between the proprietary screws that had to be coerced out with a Dremel to the massive spring that was determined to escape captivity, [Tom] recommends anyone else looking to perform a similar modification just leave the wires on the outside of the thing. That’s what he ended up doing with the power wires for the display inverter.
If you like the idea of reviving old Apple hardware but don’t want to anger the goose, you could start on something a little easier. Like putting an iPad inside of a Macintosh Classic shell.
Webcam hacking is typically the domain of cable TV, where NSA-like cyberwizards slap a few keys to tap into any camera in the world. In reality, we figure, it isn't anything like that at all--hackers probably need physical access to the computer to easily install spy software, and what are the chances of our webcam getting hacked, anyway? In fiction and in reality, we still expect a warning sign. On Macs, it's that little green light next to the webcam that proclaims 'I'm on.' But what if that gets hacked, too?
That's exactly what's happened with a range of old Macs, making the concept of webcam happening a little bit creepier. Researchers from John Hopkins University published their findings in a paper simply titled 'iSeeYou: Disabling the MacBook Webcam Indicator LED.' The opening abstract states 'This enables video to be captured without any visual indication to the user and can be accomplished entirely in user space by an unprivileged (non-root) application.' If you have a new-ish Mac, don't panic--this hack is for older iSight cameras, although it's possible that newer Mac cameras have their own vulnerabilities.
Mac Isight Hacked
Photo credit: Flickr user reticulating via Creative Commons
Many assumed that the LED 'on' lights on Mac and MacBook webcams were hardwired to the camera, meaning there's a cut-and-dry on-off relationship between the two. When the camera's imaging chip is on, the LED gets power. When it's set to standby, it doesn't. And that is how it works--except there's a layer of software controlling the whole thing.
Image credit: Matthew Brocker and Stephen Checkoway
Ars Technica explains: 'When the driver for the webcam is loaded, the host PC uploads a small program to the USB controller (it has no permanent firmware storage of its own, so it has to be uploaded each time the camera driver is loaded). This small program in turn configures the imaging chip. The imaging chip doesn't have too many configurable properties, but one thing that it does have is whether it pays any attention to the standby input.
'Apple's own drivers set a configuration where standby is respected. But other configurations are possible—such as one where the chip ignores standby entirely and always produces image data.'
The researchers wrote software that told the webcam something different. It told the software to ignore the standby input, while making sure the standby line in the circuitry was always active. That way, the LED was permanently disabled--the proper connection was made to keep it powered off--and the camera still functioned normally.
iMac G5s, early Intel Macs, and MacBook Pros used the iSight camera until about 2008. If you're using one of those computers, there is a silver lining: the researchers also made a kernel extension to prevent their hack. It's called iSightDefender, and you can download it from github for free. You can also use a sticker.
