It is my pleasure to announce the latest version of the iSight Disabler, version 3. This new version adds support for disabling your iSight under Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. The script remains nearly identical to version 2.5 of the AppleScript, adding only another file to which the permissions are changed.

It seems that part of the backend updates to Leopard adds a new VDC driver for the USB iSight beside the old Tiger-based QuickTime one. All I did was change the script so it modifies the permissions on the two files at once instead of just on the one file as was necessary under Tiger.

Now, keep in mind I have NOT tested this on Tiger. By all means, it should work as it still disables the old Tiger driver (I have to disable both because it will use either of the drivers under Leopard) but since the new driver doesn't exist in Tiger, it shouldn't cause any issues... but like all free software, no guarantees.

For more information about the iSight Disabler, see the the article for version 2.5.

Apparently, iSight Disabler has been rated "Excellent" by findmysoft.com. Since they asked so nicely, I'll put up a link back to them.

Download

You can download version 3 of the iSight Disabler here or by visiting the Downloads section of techslaves via the menu on the left side of the page. Alternatively, you can cut and paste the following block of code into Script Editor and save it:

-- Intel Mac iSight Disabler
-- Tested on OS X 10.5
-- Tested on 1st generation MacBook
-- Version 3
--
-- All this does is change permission on the iSight driver files. From normal 'a+r' and 'u+rx' when enabled to 'a-rwx' when disabled.
--
-- cense@techslaves.org

display dialog "Intel Mac iSight Disabler
brought to you by techslaves.org.

Version 3
Support for Leopard

You need to restart applications which use the iSight driver(s) after applying these settings." buttons {"Enable iSight", "Disable iSight"} with icon stop

set userChoice to button returned of result

set iSightDrivers to "/System/Library/QuickTime/QuickTimeUSBVDCDigitizer.component/Contents/MacOS/QuickTimeUSBVDCDigitizer /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreMediaIOServicesPrivate.framework/Versions/A/Resources/VDC.plugin/Contents/MacOS/VDC"

if userChoice = "Enable iSight" then
    do shell script "/bin/chmod a+r " & iSightDrivers & "; /bin/chmod u+rx " & iSightDrivers with administrator privileges
else if userChoice = "Disable iSight" then
    do shell script "/bin/chmod a-rwx " & iSightDrivers with administrator privileges
end if