Camoscope

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Camoscope helps interviewers and proctors investigate app windows a participant may be concealing from a screen share, including during online interviews. Run with the participant's knowledge and consent on their Mac, it identifies windows marked as excluded from capture, shows the owning app and available app details, and can show text exposed to Accessibility tools.

It flags on-screen windows for which macOS reports WindowServer kCGWindowSharingState as 0. That flag is a clue to investigate, not a measurement of what a particular screen-sharing or recording app captures.

Installing or importing Camoscope does not scan windows, read app text, or quit apps. It does not send scan results to a server. Those actions happen only when you run the corresponding command.

A result is a reason to investigate; it does not prove what the interviewer's screen-share view contains or establish misconduct. A scan with no results does not prove that every window or browser tab is visible. Compare findings with the actual share or recording before drawing a conclusion.

Intended use and permissions

Run Camoscope locally on the participant's Mac with their knowledge and consent. It cannot remotely inspect a participant's computer from the interviewer's Mac.

• A scan checks window information supplied by macOS. Permissions and the current desktop session can affect what is available.
• --dump, --stream, and the default scan's content preview need Accessibility permission for the terminal or executable running Camoscope. The text may come from other windows of the same app, not just the window reported by the scan. Some apps expose no readable text.
• --quit first asks the selected app to close, then may force it to stop. This can discard unsaved work. It is allowed only for an app found in the current scan and requires permission to control that app. Check the PID before using it. It does not need Accessibility permission and never runs during installation or an ordinary scan.
• Code-signing output is inspection metadata, not a signature validity verdict. Unknown, ad-hoc, or unsigned status alone does not establish that an app is malicious.

Install

On macOS with CPython 3.9 through 3.14 (Apple Silicon or Intel):

python3 -m pip install camoscope==0.1.2
camoscope --version

Public distribution is through compiled macOS wheels only. Linux and other platforms have no compatible wheel. There is no Homebrew release yet.

First check

Run a scan without reading app text:

camoscope --no-prompt --no-content

The command prints a summary and exits. If it reports a window, compare it with what the interviewer can see in the actual share or recording. If it reports no windows, that is only the result of this scan. It does not detect every concealed browser tab or guarantee that every app window is visible.

Usage

camoscope --help
camoscope --no-prompt --no-content  # one scan without app text
camoscope                           # scan with text preview, then interactive menu
camoscope --watch --no-content      # rescan every 2 seconds
camoscope --dump PID                 # show text exposed by the app once
camoscope --stream PID --interval 3  # repeat until stopped or PID exits
camoscope --quit PID                 # terminate the selected process

Use --no-content to scan without reading app text. The default scan tries to show available text for matching apps, so it needs Accessibility permission. A denied permission or failed window scan is an error, not a negative finding. Camoscope prints results to the terminal and does not save them automatically.

PIDs must be positive integers. --interval must be a positive finite number. --quit returns a nonzero exit status if the process cannot be terminated. Scan and Accessibility failures also return nonzero status. The CLI never treats a failed window scan as an empty result.

Permissions and troubleshooting

• Accessibility denied: --dump, --stream, and the default scan's text preview need permission for the terminal or app running Camoscope. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility and allow that app. You can still scan without text using --no-content. See Apple's Accessibility permission guide.
• Scan failed or seems incomplete: run Camoscope from a signed-in desktop session. Check System Settings → Privacy & Security → Screen & System Audio Recording if macOS asks for access. Window information can be limited even when the command returns successfully. Compare against a real share or recording. See Apple's screen-recording permission guide.
• camoscope command not found: use python3 -m camoscope with the same Python you used for installation, or activate its virtual environment.
• Quit refused: Camoscope only quits a process found in the current scan when macOS identifies it as a running app. It will refuse an unknown or changed process rather than send it a signal.

If you need help, use the shared developer contact page.

Release status

Version 0.1.2 is a public beta. Automated tests cover command behavior and important safety cases. A broader comparison with actual screen-sharing and recording apps across macOS versions is still pending. Treat Camoscope as an investigation aid, not a conclusive visibility or misconduct verdict. The PyPI release contains compiled macOS wheels and no source archive. Compiled code can still be reverse engineered.

License

MIT. The license text is included in the distribution.

Support the apps

If Camoscope or another app I build is useful to you, you can sponsor their continued development. For questions, bug reports, or collaboration, use the developer contact page.