Wait so the kill switch is really just a suggestion that is then handled in the card”s firmware?
I guess that’s how things like cameras status led is compromised?
I guess that’s how things like cameras status led is compromised?
Most webcam use firmware control over the led: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggRU9gGVRzE
Also/IIRC, the old webcam issue was some cameras had ~1s delay between first image to LED on, and zero for last frame to LED off, so initialization or configuration change commands could be mashed to allow LED to light in user unhelpful ways: e.g. only lit for imperceptible length of time or intermittently lit as shown. Apple and few other vendors modified this behavior as well as added a minimum LED on duration while after this went on media. It's still "controlled by software", sure, not like tapped off of CMOS imager power supply, but not like implemented in /lib/modules/webcam_comforting_led.so.1, either.
I made the video on the webcams, these are quite modern ones. Nearly all of them have special UVC commands that allow reading and writing the internal CPUs memory (a lot are 8051 based). You can find the register that controls the led GPIO and control it freely. Only on one of them I did not find a way to modify the led behavior without modifying the firmware to add an extra command.
The author taped the switch readout pin (mPCIe pin 20) at the card side, and the card was so designed that it assumes the switch is set to not-kill when the switch is not present at all.
We do not know how deep the mechanism goes within the card. It is only shown that the card do work if the pin is open.
I think with billion dollar budget year after year, you pretty much go for firmware level attacks thees days. 0click 0day as-a-service is private economy and.. cheap and very different from what they want: long term backdoor access to everything, without the possiblility to spot it in user space or OS.
(No wifi killswitch on Framework laptops at this time.)
Because it is practically not possible with current hardware. Theoretically it is possible to design PCIe hot-plugging but no WiFi card/driver supports it.
Maybe it is possible to do over Thunderbolt but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Of course there are USB WiFi chips but they are much worse in every aspect than PCIe ones.