MaxikCZ 10 hours ago

A capacitor can hold enough charge to power led for noticable amount of time even if powered for a brief moment, no logic needed

3
squarefoot 8 hours ago

I don't think they would waste a high value capacitor just to keep a led lit for longer, also a led directly lit by a capacitor would be noticeable by slowly dimming when the capacitor discharges. It's more likely that the signal driving the led comes out of a monostable implemented in code: pin_on() drives the led on; pin_off() waits n secs then drives the led off.

altairprime 5 hours ago

This is Apple, so that assertion isn’t guaranteed valid like it would be for non-enterprise HP or Lenovo. They absolutely would invest in a capacitor if that’s what it takes, as they are maximally focused on camera privacy concerns and have made a point of that in their security marketing over time; or else they wouldn’t be allowing hardware security engineers to brag about it, much less talk publicly about it, at all.

EDIT: It’s not just a capacitor, it’s a full custom chip, that can’t be software-modified, that keeps the light on for 3 seconds. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42260379

HeyLaughingBoy 4 hours ago

Logic on an already existing ASIC is going to be cheaper than a capacitor.

MrDrMcCoy 18 minutes ago

This is counter-intuitive enough to warrant further explanation.

RA2lover 10 hours ago

The trick is to keep using the camera until that capacitor is discharged. I'm pretty sure most cameras can run at voltages below a LED's forward voltage nowadays.