Stefan Mileschin

The fruit themed toymaker Apple's legendary sloppy security has been bought into the spotlight again after it was revealed that you can turn on the laptops camera without the owner knowing.

Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf contacted the FBI after she received two nude photos of herself by e-mail which had been taken over a period of several months.

The untouchables found that the person who had taken the snaps was a high school classmate, a man named Jared Abrahams. Abrahams's had software on his computer that allowed him to spy remotely on her and numerous other Apple fangirls. Abrahams pleaded guilty to extortion in October.

Laptops with built-in cameras have a privacy feature that turns on a light when the camera is being used. In the case of PCs, security experts say that there is no way to deactivate the warning light. However it appears that in the case of Macbooks someone has worked out how to do it.

In fact the FBI recently admitted to the Washington Post that it has known how to do it for years. This is despite the fact that Apple assured its users that the camera had a "hardware interlock" between the camera and the light to ensure that the camera couldn't turn on without alerting its owner.

http://news.techeye.net/business/mac...-spy-on-owners