On Apr 10, 2012, at 5:59 PM, Adrienne Porter Felt wrote:

> I'd like to propose the following based on discussions at Berkeley & with
> others about camera access:
> 
> -- The OS provides two trusted UI buttons.  One has a photo icon, and the
> other has a recording icon.  Applications can embed these icons into their
> UIs but cannot write over them.
> -- When the user presses one of these buttons, a photo is taken or
> recording begins.  The result is returned to the user.
> -- When the app takes a photo, some notification briefly appears on the
> screen (on top of any other UI, including full-screened apps) to indicate
> that a photo was just taken.
> -- When the app is recording, a notification appears on the screen for the
> duration of the recording.  Again, the notification is on top of any other
> UI, including full-screened apps.  We recommend the notification be a
> blinking red light since that is a standard warning that a device is
> recording.
> -- Applications can continue recording in the background but the
> notification will persist.
> -- If the user clicks on the recording notification (ie the blinking red
> light) he/she is given the option of halting the recording.
> -- Applications can register timeouts for taking photos instead of
> recording, but the UI will make it appear as if the app is recording the
> whole time.  This is to satisfy apps that take time-lapsed photos without
> additional user intervention (e.g., an app that you mount to the front of
> your bike that takes photos at 5 minute increments), but without incurring
> the battery drain of needing to record the whole time to catch those frames.

Hi Adrienne,

So after sleeping on this I think this model is pretty compatible with what I 
sent out, modulo the idea of the "magic buttons".  I don't have a strong 
opinion about this from a security standpoint, but I do wonder about the 
feasibility of enforcing a specific button style.  How do we determine a 
size/shape/look&feel of this button that will work with a wide variety of apps? 
 I browsed around a bit and it seems like camera apps use a wide variety of 
button shapes/colors for the shutter.  

What about an app that wants to take a picture on a time delay, say once a 
minute (but doesn't want a video feed)?

It seems like the consistent recording notification indicator is the key 
security mitigation.  Is the required button due to concerns a user might be 
tricked into enabling the camera without realizing they are?  Or is this a more 
specific concern for web content rather than installed apps?  As with anything 
HTML, clickjacking is a concern.
  Lucas.



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