Off topic: Accessing iSight camera from another user via vnc

privacy concerns aside?

Really?

Just walk upstairs & check on your son.

I don't think spying on them is really going to help the father son relationship.

Either that or there's something wrong with the iSight camera.

I don't think I've ever tried using the camera to spy on someone using their computer though so can't say for sure ;)

Thanks for the parenting advice. I would like to see if he's asleep. No privacy issues. The network is secure.

Since it is an off topic discussion I feel comfortable saying it's not a privacy issue until you ask the person being spied upon.

You could always restrict their logon times on their computer, etc, which would be a lot less invasive.

But to answer your question the camera is only available to the user whose console session is logged in and session is displaying on the actual physical screen. For privacy reasons. To prevent this exact kind of thing.

I'm pretty sure Apple disabled remote camera activation in the wake of this court case:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District

Heading really off topic now but this is the type of product you'll be looking at: [Motorola MBP36S Digital Video Monitor](Motorola MBP36S Digital Video Monitor)

Although intended for babies.

+1 for parent controls

Apple parent controls

I can understand that you might want to know if they are asleep or not before you enter; you wouldn't to wake them up just as they are drifting off, but being your own child there won't be any privacy issues. As suggested, you could just as easily have a digital video monitor, so using the mac is no different except the idea that you could be doing it secretly and the dedicated monitor is obvious.

Of course, did you ever do anything like this as a child? Did your parents do anything to provide a video feed from your bedroom? How have you turned out [rhetorical]? There are times they will be a cheeky monkey, but is a video really required. It's great as a child to sometimes do these things and as long as they generally behave themselves, probably not worth having a video feed. Torch under the bed with a comic? It's just a modern day equivalent.

It is indeed possible to get a snapshot from the camera, users logged in or not, but I'd say think before you really choose to use this. Certain companies have used such things for stolen laptops, but probably touching on a tricky area even under those circumstances. Might retrieve the stolen goods, but probably end up with a reverse lawsuit against privacy.

imagesnap

Could be used in an office though, when the office is shut, for CCTV style purposes, perhaps, or your home machine when you are on holiday.

My suggestion:

Ssh into the machine and type:
say -v princess go to sleep

You call your son princess? The topic of the conversation may have taken a sudden change of direction.

brew install imagesnap

You can trigger the iSight from the command line. They will see the green light flicker though, I believe that's part of the hardware and can't be disabled.

@sean Well, I have two daughters so it would be correct. But that's not what princess does.

The say command can use different voices so you can use the -v option to select a voice. Studies show males reposnd better to female voices. So essentially the command will say in the princess voice "Go to sleep"

Makes for a great prank on your coworkers if you sit close to them. Just ssh into their machines and use the say command to have a conversation with them. I had a co-worker once convinced his machine has a new AI companion module installed.

Very familiar with the say command. Just 'twisting words' to make a joke. Perhaps a smiley may have helped!

@sean yes...a smiley would have helped.