
Google Forcing Nest Cameras’ Visual Indicator Light To Be On - revicon
https://www.mattcrampton.com/blog/Google_forcing_nest_cameras_visual_indicator_light_to_be_on/
======
remote_phone
As a Nest owner with multiple cameras, I find it hilarious that no real
features have been introduced in years, and this is what they come up with
instead.

If they would spend more time shipping features I might not care as much but
they have done nothing and instead they ship this stupid “feature”. They don’t
allow us to train the cameras to ignore moving trees or shadows, repetitive
noise like birds cawing, or fix their “familiar face” functionality. I’ve had
complete strangers identified as being a familiar face, and I’ve also had cars
identified as a familiar face.

Google is a terrible consumer product company.

~~~
Urgo
My thoughts exactly! I've had outdoor nest cameras for a couple of years now
and was expecting at some point it'd learn that the trees moving or bugs
flying across the camera were not interesting but nope...... we get this...

It seems like I'm not the only one annoyed at nest lately though. I actually
backed a indiegogo last week called Camect that hopefully will fix a lot of
these issues and you don't even need to replace the nest cameras, though you
can if you want to. I recommend checking it out!

~~~
fredley
Nest thermostats are also very stupid. The 'smart' mode tries to build a
schedule of activity based on how much you walk past the specific spot on the
wall where your thermostat is, and predict when to heat the house based on
that. It's garbage, we (and everyone else I know) just sets a schedule like a
normal thermostat.

Given Google has access to my and my partner's calendars, why not link them
and use that instead, and cut the AI shit?

~~~
joezydeco
Or the weather. Or the real time price of electricity. Or high-demand periods.
Or the learned heat retention capability of a particular home. Or a ton of
other things that have never been implemented.

~~~
fredley
Given how much potential there is to make a vastly superior Nest-like
thermostat, why hasn't anyone done it?

~~~
greedo
Because the market is actually pretty small for expensive thermostats. I
bought the original version of the Nest thermostat because I wanted to
remotely control it via my phone. Most of the smart features are horrible, the
AI is dumb, and the fact that controlling it depends on a server that may be
EOL'd scares me.

Most thermostats are in the neighborhood of $25-$50, so $250 for a thermostat
that offers marginal utility is a hard sell.

~~~
redbeard0x0a
Everybody who gets a smart thermostat needs to keep their old one in a box for
the day the server gets EOL or the device and/or network gets hacked. When
that happens, you aren't going to be able to go to HomeDepot and buy a new
dumb thermostat.

~~~
joezydeco
Dumb thermostats will always exist. You could also preemptively wire one up
right now in series with your smart thermostat to act as a safeguard against
extreme settings.

~~~
fredley
One in series and one in parallel!

------
drusepth
This seems equivalent to security theater in response to misplaced fear and
mistrust over cameras in general. I understand why they felt pressured to make
this change (and the "good" PR it results in), but I can't help but shake the
fact that, well, it doesn't actually _do_ anything.

Bad actors will just disable the light in a myriad of ways. People will still
mistrust cameras because the light can be disabled. Drawing over the light
with permanent marker (or doing something temporary like putting tape over it)
doesn't even create a small barrier of entry for people secretly recording. If
they want to secretly record, it's not significantly harder now than it was
yesterday.

The only thing this is supposed to accomplish is appeasing people that don't
understand technology yet make a ruckus over Google disrespecting privacy. Now
Google can say "no look, we do!" and those people will complain about
something else.

~~~
floatingatoll
Other than physical access to the camera (at which point they will more likely
just install their own cameras), how _precisely_ could attackers disable the
light in any plausible ways? I’ll offer one for free:

1) “Forcing Google to do so through a government court order that leads to a
firmware update to that specific camera”

What other methods besides “issue Google-signed firmware to the device” are
you implying exist (“a myriad of ways”), that are obvious enough to be taken
for granted without further explanation?

I can’t see them, and so unfortunately I must request that explanation.

~~~
Someone1234
> how precisely could attackers disable the light in any plausible ways?

The light is software controlled, as this very change clearly demonstrates.
The fact Google can turn and off the light at a whim suggests an attacker
could. Your defense of this being possible is based on a vague theory of
infallible security.

You even seem to use a fictional quote to that end:

> What other methods besides “issue Google-signed firmware to the device” are
> you implying exist

Who are you quoting? What are you quoting? And where can I read up on google's
infallible firmware signing strategy that you're implying has the ability to
block exploits and bugs?

Despite claims to the contrary you're less "requesting an explanation" and
more making several unsupported security claims, then asking people to refute
your claims as if they were factual in nature.

If this device was as secure as you imply that would be quite unique for smart
home devices in general, and software in general for that matter.

~~~
floatingatoll
Nest historically used firmware updates to do this stuff, I see no explanation
why Google would vary that practice for something they’re doing to gain trust.
They _could_ be so absurdly stupid that they software control that lamp off
from their servers as a permanent solution, but I think they have more wits
about them than that. As you point out, it’s a terrible idea; and it’d wreck
them in the press if that was their final answer.

~~~
bigiain
That is not an answer to the question you were asked.

"And where can I read up on google's infallible firmware signing strategy that
you're implying has the ability to block exploits and bugs?"

I have no clue where on the scale of "state action" -> "bribed/coerced
insider" -> "disgruntled ex google employee" -> "Elbonian strip kiddie" you
need to be to "control that lamp", but I'm 100% certain that the reality is
that the capability to revert this new lamp behaviour is not exclusively in
the hands of authorised Google employees...

It's exactly the same as the current encryption bullshit. If there's a
backdoor for law enforcement, there's a backdoor. If there's a remote way for
Google to update the Nest software - there's an exploitable remote way to
update the software.

~~~
pingyong
>If there's a remote way for Google to update the Nest software - there's an
exploitable remote way to update the software.

This is (quite obviously?) wrong. One doesn't imply the other at all in any
way shape or form. If this were true, there wouldn't be a single device on the
planet, including phones, servers, etc. with remote update functionality that
would be secure, ever.

Also

>If there's a backdoor for law enforcement, there's a backdoor.

duh? But I think what you are trying to imply is that "there is a backdoor
that criminals could use" \- which is also wrong. As long as the
implementation is correct and the key isn't leaked, this is completely secure.
Of course it'd be insane to have one key being able to unlock essentially all
communication within a huge system, because chances are it might be leaked
eventually, but that has absolutely zero impact on the fundamental possibility
of making this system secure.

~~~
davemcg3
> If this were true, there wouldn't be a single device on the planet,
> including phones, servers, etc. with remote update functionality that would
> be secure, ever.

You're so, so close to waking up from the matrix. Very excited to have you
join us in the real world soon! Follow the white rabbit.

------
jedberg
This feels like a double edged sword. On one hand, yay, now I'll know for sure
that the camera is on and I'm being watched.

On the other hand, we know that the light is obviously software controlled, so
now we're going to get people used to the idea that "light on == camera on/
light off == camera off", and then when the camera gets inevitably hacked,
people will be a lot less cautious if the light is off, assuming the camera is
off.

~~~
scrungus
i think the obvious solution would be to have the light in series with the
power to the camera, so that in order for the camera to be on, the light will
also have to be on

~~~
vilhelm_s
Early macbooks tried to do something like this, but got it wrong. The camera
unit had a bunch of pins, including a "STANDBY" pin which turns off the
sensor, and they wired the green LED directly to the standby pin.

But then in 2013 some researchers figured out that actually the camera unit is
an entire system-on-a-chip, with a configuration register accessible on an i2c
bus, so they could write some malware which first re-configures the camera to
ignore the standby signal, and then turn it on...

The paper notes that many camera units have a separate power connection for
the CMOS sensor itself, which would be more secure. And I hope later-model
macbooks have fixed it. But I guess this shows that it possible to get even
seemingly bullet-proof solutions wrong.

[https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569](https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569)

(As a more practical problem, I have also seen suggestions that it's possible
to turn on the camera, take a photo, and turn it back off again too quick for
the LED to be noticable, and if you do that several times per second you could
capture low-frame-rate video without the green light, so even a hardware
solution might not be perfectly secure.)

~~~
ghostly_s
Your wording implies more-recent Macbooks no longer bother with this security
feature. I believe I've read elsewhere they actually switched to a custom
control board which renders this hack impossible. Is that not the case?

~~~
vilhelm_s
I didn't mean to imply that, sorry.

------
dollar
I love that Google’s commitment to privacy is mucking with the LED on a camera
instead of anything, you know, meaningful.

Like, maybe not tracking your every movement, search, interest, thought, fear,
and desire to turn you into clicks for money?

Or hey, maybe give you total control of the information they collect on you?

Nah, let’s turn the LED on and tout our commitment to privacy!

~~~
halflings
> Or hey, maybe give you total control of the information they collect on you?

What's wrong with "My Activity"? It gives you access to all data stored in
your account and lets you delete all or pieces of it.

[https://myactivity.google.com/](https://myactivity.google.com/)

~~~
ToFab123
Hopefully, sooner rather than later, a Google-Snowden will emerge revealing
the truth about Googles data collection and truth about if that data really is
being deleted.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
Maybe I'm an optimist, but that seems like it'd be high risk for very low
gain, given the likelihood that almost nobody ever even looks at that page let
alone deletes stuff, and the penalties for lying about deleting things,
especially in Europe, would probably be pretty steep.

~~~
orbifold
That page also lets you „pause“ your activity recording. I would be pretty
pissed if that didn’t work, because so far that means that it shows me no
actual recorded information (they still have my emails though)

------
herf
I have two of these cameras in a window, so they can see outside. Keeping the
LED on all the time makes them useless at night from reflections, so I always
turn it off.

It seems really wrong that I am "allowed" to add electrical tape, but not to
click a checkbox.

~~~
glennon
Same config -- right inside a window. It took three layers of tiny tape
squares to conceal the light on mine today. The cameras run pretty hot and the
adhesive is going to make a gooey mess.

~~~
sixothree
I use AC foil tape for this sort of thing. It's expensive but there are so
many project uses.

------
mbrumlow
Do I not own these cameras? I don't think they should be able to retroactively
change this behavior.

As a consumer of 5 of these things I hate them glowing at me. Any sane person
should simply assume that if a camera is aimed at you it is recording...

~~~
smt88
Genuine question: how do you feel about Apple preventing Japanese users from
disabling the camera "click" on iPhones when they first came out?[1]

1\. [https://www.wired.com/2008/07/pervert-
alert-j/](https://www.wired.com/2008/07/pervert-alert-j/)

~~~
tomschlick
Pretty sure that's by law in Japan.

~~~
saagarjha
As far as I can tell, it's merely convention and not the law to have this
sound in Japan.

~~~
mbreese
Here’s an article that seems to explain this better. Not sure if it is
accurate, but I think it is. TLDR; it is a carrier requirement for the market.
Not a law, but still a required feature.

[https://articles.inqk.net/2018/02/09/japan-iphone-
shutter.ht...](https://articles.inqk.net/2018/02/09/japan-iphone-shutter.html)

------
notus
But it's my camera

~~~
social_quotient
This should be the top comment.

If a car mfg forced driving lights remotely and killed your ability to run and
operate the car without the driving lights I feel like this issue would get
more clear resistance. The workarounds are cute but the alarming issue is that
we paid for these things with XYZ capabilities and specifically someone
thought this feature was good enough to build and ship and maintain for years.
Now that feature is removed, I guess this invalidates the previous use case to
have had it. It seems fair that new cameras would have this “feature” baked
in, old cameras notta. Same use case for the car scenario.

~~~
qball
>If a car mfg forced driving lights remotely and killed your ability to run
and operate the car without the driving lights I feel like this issue would
get more clear resistance.

This actually already happens: case in point, Tesla
([https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/attachments/notifications-
co...](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/attachments/notifications-copy-
jpg.289910/)).

I find the lack of negative press over this disturbing, to say the least- this
_will kill_ someone someday.

~~~
bigiain
Tesla have also shown themselves to be untrustworthy with this capability:

[https://electrek.co/2016/03/05/tesla-hacker-musk-
replies/](https://electrek.co/2016/03/05/tesla-hacker-musk-replies/)

------
BuddyKallipygos
What use case are they trying to solve for? It's confusing to me. Especially
this:

>On Nest Cam, Dropcam, and Nest Hello, the status light will blink when the
camera’s live video is streamed from the Nest app. The setting to turn this
off will be removed.

So now someone trying to break into my house will know that no one is looking
at them on the camera so it's all clear?

Edit for formatting, sorry, I don't post ever.

~~~
peteretep
> What use case are they trying to solve for?

Watching a house-guest/renter getting naked

~~~
ridaj
No, because that's worked around with tape on the led. I think the use case
that they are trying to solve for is to avoid camera owners unintentionally
recording activities of other people who are unaware that they are being
recorded, and then ending up with footage that they probably wished they
hadn't captured because it makes them feel pervy. Maybe parent setting it up
for security but ending up with videos of their teenage kid making out...

------
SethTro
This is a great change particularly with respect to guests being in other
houses (visiting friends, Airbnb, ...)

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
So no more /r/airbnbporn?

------
cracauer
Those LEDs should be in-series with the camera's sensor power circuit. No
software control at all.

------
cptskippy
Just so we understand it correctly. The LED is software controlled and
therefore it being illuminated or dark signifies only that it's illuminated or
dark and nothing more.

------
hexo
"When the camera is on, the status light will glow blue." Blue?? Really?! At
least - one can always use black tape and "turn it off" for good.

------
jakewalker
We use Nest cams for a baby/child monitor at nighttime. Haven’t seen the
change yet, but I suspect it will make it so that this use case no longer
works.

~~~
timdorr
Just put a small bit of electrical tape over the LED. Problem solved.

~~~
ALittleLight
I think some people prefer the asthetics of their electronics without tape

------
ru999gol
I'm the total minority here obviously but anyhow..

First of all if you have a camera indicator light that you can turn off in the
software what you have is a very fundamental lack of understanding in the
first place. There is no point in indicator lights at all if you are let them
be controlled by software.

Second anyone who is using a cloud camera has automatically forfeit all right
to his or her privacy, if you are this monumentally idiotic this insanely
stupid to trust a random cloud provider with hundreds to thousands of hours of
footage of your private home, you are so irresponsibly ignorant you should be
arrested for it. Your children should sue you for the horrible privacy
violation you committed on them and you should have to go to prison.

~~~
Dayshine
Uh, we're talking mainly about doorbell cameras, or using these cameras for
security.

------
esotericn
I've never seen a nest camera in the wild.

I do however have a little USB webcam with LEDs that cannot be disabled. I
taped over them with black tape so as not to draw attention to the camera. The
proper version of this would just be to like, desolder them or whatever.

Is there any reason this wouldn't work? Perhaps if the camera is forced to be
displayed prominently like on a front door you'd see that it'd been obscured?

~~~
phnofive
Probably depends on the camera board, but mechanically disabling the LED is
either going to mysteriously disable the entire device, or be undetected, or
the designer specifically accounted for that and something else happens.

As long as you’ve got your iron hot, you could replace the LED with a D(iode):

[https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/111219/remov...](https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/111219/remove-
an-led-from-a-circuit)

------
sdca
It should announce its presence on an interval too. What if someone camoflages
the camera in some Christmas lights? What if you're blind?

~~~
knd775
No one would buy this.

------
pronouncedjerry
[https://twitter.com/dontbuynest](https://twitter.com/dontbuynest)

------
css
> As part of that commitment, we explained that you will always see a clear
> visual indicator when your Nest cameras are on and sending video and audio
> to Nest.

Since the LED is now always on, this sounds like a euphemism for "you can't
turn the camera off anymore"

------
anonu
Was there a catalyst for this change?

It's a bit annoying that the byproduct of always being connected is that
companies can control a product you own...

I suppose you don't really own it if it's connected to a cloud service and
that service is 90 percent of the functionality

------
Animats
If they were really concerned about privacy, they'd have a motorized cover for
the camera.

(That has potential as a product. Especially for things like Amazon's inside-
your-house door camera.)

------
t0mbstone
Nothing a little piece of black electrical tape won't solve.

------
FerretFred
In over a year of Nest Outdoor Cam ownership, I can safely say that only one
visitor has noticed our camera, despite its size, design and position. The
lack of a lit LED idiot light has been instrumental in this and now Google
have f _cked it up. So it 's black tape time, and f_ck you Google - stop
making decisions on my behalf!

------
sprite
They should offer to buy back every camera or grandfather in existing cameras.

------
Overtonwindow
Couldn’t you just put a small piece of electrical tape over it?

------
exabrial
Right, unless the CIA asks nicely

------
m3kw9
Black tape

