Pa. school spied on students via laptops.

Apple's laptops have cameras built into the screen for easy video chatting. They are not easily noticed, and I first discovered this by messing around with a laptop a couple of years back at a store, and suddenly seeing myself. Later, having set up laptops for my kids, I was amused when the computer offered me an instant candid portrait of myself to use as a user icon if I wanted.

I assume many other modern laptops have something similar.

Most savvy users know about the cameras, but how many know that someone handing you a computer can put a "trapdoor" in that lets them use the camera without you knowing it?

I don't have a camera or a microphone on my everyday desktop. Call me paranoid if you want, but it's not beyond imagination to think that someone could fire a Trojan into a PC giving access to its AV capacity.