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Yes, 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
by draw_down 5y ago
Yes, 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/