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1) physical kill switch for camera (as in, it breaks the power or data connection to it, physically) or at least a physical cover. 2) physical kill switch for
by hc-taway 6y ago
1) physical kill switch for camera (as in, it breaks the power or data connection to it, physically) or at least a physical cover.
2) physical kill switch for the microphone
These are very much not "nerd" concerns, either. I see a lot of non-techies with stickers over their laptop cameras.
[EDIT] teachers in particular spread the "put a sticker over the camera" practice, in my experience, both before and during the pandemic. The last thing they need is to be responding to some student message late at night and accidentally snap a picture or start a video chat. That could easily be career-ending, and they wisely don't trust software safeguards to prevent that. Yet they do want the camera, sometimes. Not having a kill-switch or cover built in sucks.
- hadrien01 6y agoIn addition to a kill switch, it would be great to have a switch that affects 1) the physical device 2) the OS switch and 3) the Teams/Zoom/Webex switch. Regularly we have people in meetings forgetting one of those switches (the physical switch being on the headphones) and trying to talk without being heard.
- deadmutex 6y agoThis is great -- most people skip over the last use case. But it seems like very useful to have. It seems that option #1 is mainly used because it is easy, and we might not fully trust #2 and #3? (Not because of evil doing, but because of bugs, and unlikely case of hacks).
- vbezhenar 6y agoOS just needs to know about that switch state and report it to apps if necessary.
- sandworm101 6y ago>> or at least a physical cover. I want a mechanical microphone switch too. Being seen can be embarrassing but being caught saying something can end your career instantly. See that school board that all had to resign after they were caught badmouthing parents.
- deadmutex 6y agoI don't know how a mechanical microphone switch would have helped in that case. That seemed to be a UX issue. The board was on a call with other members, and didn't realize that there was another participant. Some news stories just called it a "hot mic" issue because it is easy to glance and get an idea of what the story is about, but that's not exactly what happened.
- dv_dt 6y agoAn external microphone with a physical push to talk button would be a pretty perfect UX if that is your worry.
- atoav 6y agoAlthough this might not be simple enough for typical users a (On)-Off-On toggle switch (momentary in one direction, latching in the other) would be perfect for this.
- cbm-vic-20 6y agoAnd trusting that the internal mic is actually off.
- dv_dt 6y agoGood point, my work-from-home "laptop" is a desktop I built so I guess I'm pretty sure there is no internal mic .
- drcode 6y agoOf course, let's not forget that the core problem here is the "end your career instantly" part, not the design of the microphone.
- sandworm101 6y agoJust because something will end your career if overheard doesn't mean that it was something bad. Think of a lawyer on a long zoom call. What if they answer a client call and that conversation is pickup up by the zoom computer? Or what if someone in my office asks for login/account info and that conversation gets pickup by zoom? Or a system administrator sitting through a long zoom meeting about pension plans who accidentally has a side conversation about security issues on the production server. These are everyday acceptable office conversations that, if broadcast to zoom accidentally, can end a career far faster than looking unkempt on a webcam.
- skrtskrt 6y agoLots of companies distribute their employees laptops with a little plastic slider to shutter the camera, so it's further than not-just-nerds - corporate IT decisionmakers are recognizing the need too.
- tfandango 6y agoIn fact last year when it was okay to meet your benefits providers in person, one of them handed out plastic stick on webcam covers you could slide back and forth with their logo on it.
- hc-taway 6y agoTrouble is, lots of laptops are subtly (or not so subtly) damaged over time by extra stuff being closed in the lid. Apple laptops, notably, but plenty of others too. It'd be much better for it to be built-in. Covers also ruin the (absolutely wonderful and hard to do without, once you're used to it) True Tone feature on Apple laptops, so they'd need some kind of secondary ultra-low-res never-exposed-as-a-real-camera color-temp sensor to properly support either built-in or add-on camera covers or kill-switches while still letting that work. (I'm basically agreeing and elaborating, not correcting you, since your point isn't that that's a great solution, but that it's more proof that more than just security geeks and computer nerds consider this a problem)
- llampx 6y agoI'm disappointed that Apple hasn't seen fit to put a physical camera cover on their webcams like recent Thinkpads.
- tokamak-teapot 6y agoIf you're on MacOS, open 'Audio MIDI Setup' and look at 'Built-in Microphone'. You can tick the 'Mute' box next to 'Master' and your microphone is now muted independently of Teams, WebEx, or whatever. It's not a physical switch, but it's a good second safeguard. Teams is even polite enough to tell remind you that you're muted because it can detect this. A slightly folded post-it note also works well as a camera cover that's easy to remove and easy to replace if you lose it. I also find that when I'm about to join a call and my video's dark pink (rather than black), it's a good reminder I have my 'shutter' in place and haven't noticed, despite it being physically in front of my face.
- WalterBright 6y agoSoftware switches are always hackable. Never ever rely on one. Half of hacking exploits would go away if there was a physical write enable switch on device ROMs.
- filleduchaos 6y agoPeople's threat model isn't always some malicious hacker with access to their machines. The vast majority of the time people simply want to be sure that the video conferencing software they deliberately installed on their non-compromised machine isn't accidentally transmitting the sound of them eating lunch to the call they deliberately joined. I'm not sure pushing back on tips about how they can reasonably accomplish that because "software solutions can be hacked!" is particularly helpful.
- WalterBright 6y agoBecause it seems every day I read about some software hack draining away all the information on a "secure" computer. "Secure" software is a fantasy. Hardware switches are secure.
- lukifer 6y agoAs much as I'd still like a physical mic kill-switch on MacBooks (if any company has its interests aligned with privacy-signaling, it's Apple), this is a very useful tip, thanks for sharing!
- monocasa 6y agoOne issue is that laymen know enough to not trust that switches are true kill switches, but don't generally have the skill set necessary to verify for themselves what their hardware has in that regard. A piece of tape is a very low technical skill system that you know will cut off a video feed.
- 6510 6y agoTransparent casing with the wires running to a slightly to large mechanical toggle switch that switches all wires. Then it looks like someone went out of his way getting it right.
- hellbannedguy 6y agoI would like to see prisoners provided with in transparent laptops. Take away the lithium battery if worried.
- Koshkin 6y agoDoes not necessarily work on the microphone though.
- Fezzik 6y agoMy work Laptop is an older ThinkPad and it has a physical sliding camera cover as well as the F4 key which functions as an all purpose mute button for the microphone. The F4 key even lights up when enabled. So these options definitely exist, to some degree.
- sixbrx 6y agomy new Lenovo X1 Extreme has both of those things. I actually didn't notice the F4 microphone toggle before, thanks for the tip!
- originalvichy 6y agoIsn’t it funny people use and hand out camera covers but a mic that can hear the sounds of an entire apartment is forgotten about? :)
- Anon4Now 6y agoNot just non-techies. I use a band-aid (doesn't leave adhesive on the lens) because toggling the video settings on Win10 is a pain in the ass.
- mschild 6y agoThe HP Spectre x360 line has had a physical kill switch for the camera for the last 3 generations. It's a slider on the right side of the laptop. The new gen ones also come with a system wide mute button although I believe that is software only.
- gumby 6y agoA band aid makes a better cover as it doesn't leave gluey residue on what's already a crummy camera.
- clairity 6y agosimilarly, the gentlest grade of painter’s masking tape avoids sticky residue too. electrician’s tape isn’t bad either (the black tape is also less conspicuous).
- euroderf 6y agoOver the long term, masking tape hardens and cements to the surface. Very nasty to try to remove. It is not for long-term use.
- clairity 6y agoi believe all tape does some version of this eventually. i wasn't thinking it would be left on permanently, but possibly on the order of months before being replaced. in any case, something like scotch delicate surface tape[0] was what i had in mind when posting my prior comment. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008BWIR8G https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008BWIR8G
- tehjoker 6y agoThese items are so trivial and so obviously cause consumers angst by being missing that I can only presume the near universal lack of them is an intentional ploy to train people to be used to being on camera so that various additional invasive techno-gadgets can be introduced over time. A "market" would have produced "choice" but we have to stick with tape. It was extremely obvious what they were doing when Google Glass was released without even a glowing video indicator.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- vagrantJin 6y agoHeres a crazy idea. Use a web based video conferencing solution. Close the browser and close everything.