Mastodawn

A friendly reminder to never trust manufacturers privacy protections.

I was recently attempting to get an external camera functioning, so I started polling various video devices sequentially to find out where it appeared and stumbled across a previously unknown (to me at least) camera device, right next to the regular camera that is not affected by the intentional privacy flap or "camera active" LED that comes built in.

I had always assumed this was just a light sensor and didn't think any further about it.

The bandwidth seems to drop dramatically when the other camera is activated by opening the privacy flap, causing more flickering.
This was visible IRL and wasn't just an artifact of recording it on my phone.
I deliberately put my finger over each camera one at a time to confirm the sources being projected.

A friend of mine suggested this may be related to Windows Hello functionality at a guess but still seems weird to not be affected by the privacy flap when its clearly capable of recording video.

dmidecode tells me this is a LENOVO Yoga 9 2-in-1 14ILL10 (P/N:83LC)

Command I used for anyone to replicate the finding. (I was on bog standard Kali, but I'm sure you'll figure out your device names if they change under other distros):
vlc v4l2:///dev/video0 -vv --v4l2-width=320 --v4l2-height=240 & vlc v4l2:///dev/video2 -vv --v4l2-width=320 --v4l2-height=240

#Cyber #Security #Infosec #Lenovo #Privacy #Hacking

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Matt Organ Feb 10

Well that was an unexpected twist.
Dammit Physics!

I decided to put some regular black electrical tape over the camera to block it whilst keeping a neat finish. Turns out IR passes straight through electrical tape 😂

I did consider whether its because of the adjacent backlight and so I tried blocking that too, however most of the rooms I sit in have enough ambient IR to not matter.

I'm considering something more "glass like" since that seems to reflect IR much better but the seems a pain.
Anyone else have a better solution they've found?

Its probably at the point for me that its "good to know but can't be bothered" but there's just so many interesting and unexpected outcomes I felt compelled to satisfy my curiosity and share.

#Cyber #Security #Infosec #Lenovo #Privacy #Hacking

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maxy

@Slater450413 You could try aluminium or copper tape, or use electrical tape to fix a small piece of aluminium foil. That should block any light short of gamma rays, I think.

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Matt Organ Feb 22

@maxy Fair point, hadn't considered copper tape, I might give that a go. 👍

I'd been thinking next time I find a smashed phone screen protector, I'd take a small piece of that. I based that theory purely on seeing how bad IR security cameras are from behind glass.

The electrical tape experience I had reminded me of a YouTube clip I saw recently where a germanium coin had a similar outcome.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Chx2hnZrUAQ?si=uUrHtl46_CCF_wy-

This Metal Is Completely See-Through

YouTube