Meta closed the loophole for secret filming using smart glasses

Meta has once again patched a hole in the security system of its smart glasses — this time the one that allowed you to secretly film people simply by covering the indicator light with your finger after starting recording.

The trick that everyone knew about except the camera class=»notranslate»>__GTAG8__

The idea of ​​the indicator in Ray-Ban Meta, Oakley Meta and Meta AI glasses is simple: while the LED is on, shooting is in progress, and others should know about it, explains xrust. The problem is that until recently, smart electronics checked the status of the light bulb only at the moment the recording started. I blocked the diode with a finger or a sticker — the camera simply refused to turn on. But if you first honestly start shooting with the indicator open, and only then cover it with your hand, the device did not notice this substitution and continued to record video as if nothing had happened.

Meta Vice President for AR Alex Himel admitted this in a post on Threads: some users were deliberately looking for a way to bypass the protection in this way. According to him, the update, which is now being rolled out to devices, closes this hole too — the camera will instantly stop recording if the LED is blocked after the start, and not just before it.

Second round in two months

class=»notranslate»>__GTAG7__This is not Meta's first attempt to clean up covert filming. Previously, the company had already released a mandatory update that blocked recording if the indicator was physically damaged or sealed in advance. At the same time, services and life hacks appeared — some offered paid “firmware” or accessories to bypass the indicator — and, according to Meta, some of these offers have already been discontinued after the rules were tightened. At the same time, the company blocked several accounts on Instagram that specialized in publishing videos filmed in exactly this secret way.

In parallel with the patch, Meta launched an advertising campaign: in Los Angeles there is already a billboard explaining to passers-by what the light on the glasses means — with a caption in the spirit of “these glasses are not made only for the person who wears them.” The company promises to repeat such commercials and billboards in other cities where eyewear sales are especially high.

A lesson from the nineties, only with glasses

It’s funny that the scheme for bypassing the indicator almost literally repeats the old trick with the first-generation PlayStation console: the console checked the authenticity of the disc only when loading, so gamers turned on the licensed disc, waited for the game to start, and then replaced it with a pirated copy on the fly — the system no longer double-checked the contents. Thirty years later, the same test-only-at-the-start principle has resurfaced in AI-enabled wearables. Technologies have changed beyond recognition, but the logic of bypassing protection has not.

Developers should remember this story as a teaching example: any check «once at startup» sooner or later turns into an invitation for those who are looking for a way to bypass it.

Not everyone considers the fix sufficient

There was some skepticism. An Android Central reviewer criticized Meta's approach, calling it reactive: in his opinion, protection against such an obvious trick — covering the light bulb with your hand — should have been built into the design from the very beginning, and not completed with patches after the fact. MakeUseOf went further, calling the whole story with the indicator a “chain of patches,” where each update appears after someone has publicly disclosed the loophole, and not before.

Himel himself counters differently: according to him, only a small minority of users try to bypass the protection, and the very fact that they have to go through such tricks proves that basic protection works. The company also explicitly admits that firmware updates alone will not solve the problem: most casual passers-by simply do not know what the glowing light on the temple of the glasses means — hence the billboards with explanations, and not just the code.

What does the Russian user have to do with it

Ray-Ban Meta and other models of the line are not officially sold in Russia, but this does not prevent them from selling through parallel imports and marketplaces — the topic of smart glasses with a camera is discussed no less lively here than in the West. And the issue of hidden video recording for the Russian audience is even more acute: taking into account the current regulations on the protection of personal data and the growing number of scandals around hidden cameras in public places, any device capable of recording people without their knowledge automatically falls into the zone of increased attention — both from regulators and from the owners of cafes, gyms and offices themselves, where the wearing of such glasses is often simply prohibited by the rules of the establishment.

So for those who have already brought such glasses from abroad or are looking at buying them, the update from Meta is not just a technical detail, but a signal: the industry of smart gadgets with a camera is still finding the balance between convenience and privacy literally on the go, patch for patch.

engadget.com
androidcentral.com
techtimes.com

Xrust Meta closed the loophole for secret shooting with smart glasses