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There's something to be said for the more recent thinkpads that have physical sliders built into the laptop.
by Daneel_ 5y ago
There's something to be said for the more recent thinkpads that have physical sliders built into the laptop.
- draw_down 5y agoYes, if it’s built in then it’s a lot less awkward. You can close the laptop with it on, etc. The practical problems with doing this are bigger than theoretical ones. Ultimately Apple should probably build this in given their “privacy” messaging. But in any case, I think surreptitious microphone access is a bigger problem than this, and there’s no easy solution to it.
- nixpulvis 5y agoWhy can't you make a hardware switch for the microphone too? Both the PinePhone and Librem 5 have this. I would like to see more and more of these physical kill switches, hopefully kind of like the silent switches on my iPhone, but maybe with little sliding locks to keep them in position.
- jptech 5y agoThere used to be a hardware switch for WiFi on laptops not long ago. But being "always connected" took precedence over privacy. Same can be said with microphone and voice assistants.
- nixpulvis 5y agoIDK, my laptop still has a button to disable the radios, but it's on F8 and implemented in firmware (or software?) not hardware. I think there's a pretty healthy market for privacy/security/control-oriented hardware.
- NoImmatureAdHom 5y agoPurism's Librem laptops have hardware kill switches for the radios (wifi, bluetooth), and the camera / mic https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/
- Mordisquitos 5y agoDoes the slider also physically disconnect the microphone, or alternatively is there a separate switch for it? I find this popular trend of webcam sliders for purported security reasons is mere security theatre as long as microphones cannot be physically disconnected.
- MrStonedOne 5y agosomebody didn't read the article
- Mordisquitos 5y agoWhat makes you think I did not read the article? At no point does the article make any mention of microphones, let alone of recent ThinkPads.
- booleandilemma 5y agoI love the slider, but why did they have to put a painted red dot on it? It makes it look as if the camera is on and recording me. It’s unnecessarily jarring.
- NegativeLatency 5y agoA little bit of black fingernail polish could fix that
- booleandilemma 5y agoI agree, but it's my company's laptop :(
- m-p-3 5y agoThe red dot on the builtin privacy slider I have a work is behind the camera's outer lens. I can't paint on it without trying to unglue that and ultimately break it.
- taylorfinley 5y agoWhen I saw the red dot on my wife's Lenovo laptop I immediately thought 'that looks like an IR pass filter.' if a company wanted to have a bypassable privacy slider they could have an IR cut filter behind the lens and an IR pass filter up front. When the bypass needed to be activated the IR cut filter could be moved out of the way (this happens automatically on night vision security cameras, so it's not farfetched). I don't think they would actually use the bypassable filter in everyone's camera, maybe just political dissidents, but having the red dot be the standard would make it less noticable when a bypassable filter is deployed. We just slide it half way, then there's no irritating red dot and the camera is still covered.
- jspash 5y agoI had to google what you were talking about and I agree, that is terrible design! It infers the total opposite of what its purpose is. A little Ghostbusters symbol - even in red - would work much better.