December 13, 2006
The BEST iSight security use yet
Posted Dec. 13, ’06, 6:49 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | Security
When I came across this tip at macosxhints.com today, my jaw dropped. It has to be the most brilliant use of the iSight yet. Seriously. It describes how to make your iSight snap pictures any time someone tries to log into your Mac and fails. Now you can catch your jealous roommate in the act.
It requires a tiny bit of technical knowledge, but the author of the hint has repackaged the required code as an installation package to make it easy. For those interested in how it’s done, it’s a little bit of a Unix hack. Basically, it uses a script that watches the end of a log for a failed login attempt and when the appropriate line is written, your iSight is invoked and takes a picture.
No doubt you could hack this even further to upload the pictures to somewhere on the net. That is left as an exercise for the reader.
1 Comments
Leave a comment
Recent Entries
About MacUser
MacUser is your source for news, info, and opinion about Apple, the Mac, and the iPod. Our dedicated team of bloggers covers everything that is relevant to Mac users — and, okay, some stuff that’s not quite relevant, but is still a lot of fun.
Subscribe/RSS
- Blog Posts
- Blog Comments
- Podcast (RSS) (iTunes)
Tip us off!
- Email: macuser [at] macuser [dot] com
Recent Comments 
- the truth on iPod touch users get second classed again with the omission of new Maps features
- James Katt on Apple levels DMCA on iPodhash project
- AdamC on Apple levels DMCA on iPodhash project
- sf addict on Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes afoot at MacUser
- Paul Norton on iPod touch users get second classed again with the omission of new Maps features
- me on iPod touch users get second classed again with the omission of new Maps features
Categories
- Apple (234)
- Advertising (162)
- Events (235)
- Huh? (182)
- Humor (259)
- News (148)
- People (258)
- Rivals (405)
- Speculation (167)
- Steve Jobs (172)
- Stores (206)
- Apple TV (58)
- Business (451)
- Games (143)
- Geekery (460)
- Hardware (935)
- Accessories (79)
- Intel Macs (162)
- Ihnatko (18)
- Internet (463)
- Legal (244)
- MacUser (95)
- Macalope (8)
- Money (177)
- Music (344)
- Podcasting (100)
- Photography (74)
- Security (246)
- Software (1544)
- Updates (538)
- Tips (352)
- Troubleshooting (189)
- Video (403)
- Windows (219)
- iPhone (199)
- iPod (602)
- iPod Accessories (96)
- iPod Software (61)
- iTunes (128)
- iTunes Store (443)
Archives
- November 2008 (92)
- October 2008 (138)
- September 2008 (151)
- August 2008 (177)
- July 2008 (175)
- June 2008 (171)
- May 2008 (185)
- April 2008 (234)
- March 2008 (217)
- February 2008 (215)
- January 2008 (239)
- December 2007 (169)
- November 2007 (164)
- October 2007 (187)
- September 2007 (167)
- August 2007 (195)
- July 2007 (152)
- June 2007 (223)
- May 2007 (243)
- April 2007 (286)
- March 2007 (288)
- February 2007 (250)
- January 2007 (266)
- December 2006 (244)
- November 2006 (293)
- October 2006 (307)
- September 2006 (250)
- August 2006 (268)
- July 2006 (288)
- June 2006 (293)
- May 2006 (297)
- April 2006 (351)
- March 2006 (366)
- February 2006 (110)
- January 2006 (107)
- December 2005 (23)
Mac Publishing Sites
Links
Sounds great. However, two essentials for me are:
1. No noise on taking the photo
2. No iSight light on snapping either
Otherwise, a thief who knows he has been snapped is perhaps more dangerous than one who doesn't and may resort to more extreme measures to take the computer with him.