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All smartphones sold in Korea are required to make shutter sound when taking a photo, to prevent spy cam using a phone in a public place. If you buy an iPhone i

All smartphones sold in Korea are required to make shutter sound when taking a photo, to prevent spy cam using a phone in a public place. If you buy an iPhone in Korea there is no way to turn it off.

al_ramich 8y ago
what about video? and I think small/hidden devices are of more concern...
- kbumsik 8y ago
  It makes sound only when start recording. Small cams are actually regulated by the government (you need to get a permission to buy one) but of course there are black markets.
dogma1138 8y ago
That used to be pretty common in all smartphones in the early days I was surprised that the feature was removed same goes for the mandatory recording LED. On Android ofc you can always disable them if you root or flash your phone.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- kbumsik 8y ago
  On top of that, iPhone makes shutter sound when taking a screenshot as well. I heard jailbreak also could disable them but not sure it is possible lately.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    The iPhone isn’t making any shutter sounds when silent these days, not sure when they were removed I remember the 3G having those and not being able to disable them.
chillacy 8y ago
There was an article on HN about a dev who played the inverse shutter sound when taking a photo, which would destructively interfere with the OS camera sound (this was iOS) before being output by the speakers, resulting in no audible sound.
- Ntrails 8y ago
  That's actually a beautiful solution
- casefields 8y ago
  It's there to let the moral panic-ers feel safe. It doesn't take much effort to remove the shitter sounds.
- grawprog 8y ago
  It's also possible to silently take pictures in the background using termux on an android phone with one line. >Usage: termux-camera-photo [-c camera-id] output-file Take a photo and save it to a file in JPEG format. -c camera-id ID of the camera to use (see termux-camera-info), default: 0
- codedokode 8y ago
  It can be fixed by adding little randomness into builtin shutter sound. Or by adding a LED that is physically connected with camera voltage supply.
  - jerf 8y ago
    A better fix is for the camera to take full control of the audio output for the duration. It can override volume and such while it's at it. It's still kinda a stopgap, though. If one is a dedicated creeper, opening a cell phone and disabling a speaker is intro-level electronics hacking, hardly even worthy of the term. I mean, I've accidentally disabled the speaker on my laptop once because I sealed it up after a hard drive swapout and simply forgot to hook the tiny speaker wires back up afterwards.
AstralStorm 8y ago
It is a joke, a piece of tape over the speaker effectively silences any phone sound.
codedokode 8y ago
That is the right thing, but might be a bit annoying. They should also add a LED showing that the photo or video is being filmed.

All smartphones sold in Korea are required to make shutter sound when taking a photo, to prevent spy cam using a phone in a public place. If you buy an iPhone in Korea there is no way to turn it off.

al_ramich 8y ago

what about video? and I think small/hidden devices are of more concern...

kbumsik 8y ago
It makes sound only when start recording. Small cams are actually regulated by the government (you need to get a permission to buy one) but of course there are black markets.

dogma1138 8y ago

That used to be pretty common in all smartphones in the early days I was surprised that the feature was removed same goes for the mandatory recording LED. On Android ofc you can always disable them if you root or flash your phone.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kbumsik 8y ago
On top of that, iPhone makes shutter sound when taking a screenshot as well. I heard jailbreak also could disable them but not sure it is possible lately.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  The iPhone isn’t making any shutter sounds when silent these days, not sure when they were removed I remember the 3G having those and not being able to disable them.

chillacy 8y ago

There was an article on HN about a dev who played the inverse shutter sound when taking a photo, which would destructively interfere with the OS camera sound (this was iOS) before being output by the speakers, resulting in no audible sound.

Ntrails 8y ago
That's actually a beautiful solution
casefields 8y ago
It's there to let the moral panic-ers feel safe. It doesn't take much effort to remove the shitter sounds.
grawprog 8y ago
It's also possible to silently take pictures in the background using termux on an android phone with one line. >Usage: termux-camera-photo [-c camera-id] output-file Take a photo and save it to a file in JPEG format. -c camera-id ID of the camera to use (see termux-camera-info), default: 0
codedokode 8y ago
It can be fixed by adding little randomness into builtin shutter sound. Or by adding a LED that is physically connected with camera voltage supply.
- jerf 8y ago
  A better fix is for the camera to take full control of the audio output for the duration. It can override volume and such while it's at it. It's still kinda a stopgap, though. If one is a dedicated creeper, opening a cell phone and disabling a speaker is intro-level electronics hacking, hardly even worthy of the term. I mean, I've accidentally disabled the speaker on my laptop once because I sealed it up after a hard drive swapout and simply forgot to hook the tiny speaker wires back up afterwards.

AstralStorm 8y ago

It is a joke, a piece of tape over the speaker effectively silences any phone sound.

codedokode 8y ago

That is the right thing, but might be a bit annoying. They should also add a LED showing that the photo or video is being filmed.