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Quoting Guilherme Rambo

Simon Willison's Blog / 3/17/2026

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Key Points

  • Guilherme Rambo explains that the MacBook Neo's software-based camera indicator light runs in the chip's secure enclave, making it almost as secure as a hardware indicator.
  • In practice, this means a kernel-level exploit would still not be able to turn on the camera without the indicator appearing on screen.
  • The light is rendered in a privileged environment separate from the kernel and is blitted directly onto the screen hardware.
  • The remark is shared as a quotation by Guilherme Rambo in a message to John Gruber, posted on Simon Willison’s weblog on March 16, 2026.
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16th March 2026

Tidbit: the software-based camera indicator light in the MacBook Neo runs in the secure exclave¹ part of the chip, so it is almost as secure as the hardware indicator light. What that means in practice is that even a kernel-level exploit would not be able to turn on the camera without the light appearing on screen. It runs in a privileged environment separate from the kernel and blits the light directly onto the screen hardware.

Guilherme Rambo, in a text message to John Gruber

Posted 16th March 2026 at 8:34 pm

This is a quotation collected by Simon Willison, posted on 16th March 2026.

apple 129 hardware 12 john-gruber 38 privacy 65