7 ms·

Most of those camera caps don't disable the mic though, which can also be problematic on its own...

sxg 5y ago
Are you implying that even a microphone is too much of an invasion of privacy? There’s a trade off between security and usability, and while that balance is different for every user, this one seems a bit of an outlier. How would this even work in practice? I’m assuming a switch to disable the mic isn’t viable since if you can’t trust the mic, you can’t trust a switch. I’m not even sure a mic cover would actually work. The only solution seems to be to create a laptop without a microphone and just use an external mic. Is there a market for that? It seems inconvenient enough to lose the mainstream market. Video chatting is a common enough use case for the corporate market that this just seems infeasible.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  There is no reason to assume that you can't trust a switch. A microphone is, essentially, available to every program installed on the computer at any time without the switch. Plus adding a physical switch is not hard or expensive. You can even integrate it with a switch for the webcam.
- epistasis 5y ago
  A hardware switch is something that can be trusted. However a software microphone switch can't. Having a physical, visible, mute button for a laptop would be an incredible boon to video conferencing. Rather than having to shuffle through all the awful, terrible, hard to decipher button for "mute" on the plethora of poor visual designs of video conference UIs, a clear and physical button on the laptop would be sooo helpful. No more finding the mouse cursor, navigating it to the button and clicking, you can just move your finger directly to the button on the keyboard that controls whether people can hear you. Given the huge number of audio faux pas from mute buttons, I'm surprised nobody has added one of these yet...
  - NieDzejkob 5y ago
    It is a feature present on some headsets, though...
    - dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
      It's tangential to not having the control over the built-in mic.
  - vel0city 5y ago
    For that huge number of audio fax pas that happens today, why would a physical switch have stopped it when clearly they already aren't using the mute button that already exists on their machine? Most laptops already ship with a button that mutes the built-in mic input and yet people seem to ignore/forget/not realize its there. IMO making that switch physical wouldn't affect most consumers because most consumers still wouldn't end up using it.
    - epistasis 5y ago
      Maybe it's the computing word I live in, but I've never seen a laptop with a mute button for the built in mic. That's what I'd like to see!
      - vel0city 5y ago
        On Thinkpad keyboards, the mic mute button is usually Fn+F4 or around there. It usually includes a little red LED to show if the mute is active or not. On HP Elitebooks, its usually Fn+F10 or thereabouts. I've seen a few Dell's with that feature but it has been pretty rare. I guess looking around at models for sale these days the mic mute option is somewhat rare. I'm mostly used to Thinkpads and the recent non-Thinkpads I've owned have had it, so I kind of assumed it was a common feature these days. Interesting its more rare than I originally thought.
        epistasis 5y ago
        Thanks very much for that info. If those think pads can run Linux smoothly, that's almost tempting to leave the mac laptop world.
- pmontra 5y ago
  I do have an external USB mic which is much better quality than the internal one. Of course I very rarely carry the USB mic with me when I'm not at home so I still use the internal mic sometimes. The old headsets with a 3.5 mm jack with mic and speaker were the best. I didn't see any laptop with that kind of mic plug since many years ago. The jack is only for speakers. A free and a little crazy idea for any laptop designer reading these comments: how about a detachable mic? Maybe USB C, maybe even a non standard plug. The advantage is that it's self evident when it's off, no need to inspect the hardware switch. The problem is that it could be lost. A solution would be a small safety strap, maybe transparent plastic.
  - vel0city 5y ago
    A lot of laptops that only have a single TRS jack have the microphone as an additional ring on it.
epistasis 5y ago
I'm far more concerned by what a microphone could overhear than what a camera could see. There's very little actionable visual information in an office compared to the aural information.
ocdtrekkie 5y ago
I think that's a fixable endeavor. My point is mostly that Microsoft probably isn't pushing a method to spy on people, so much as it's establishing that since most people need videoconferencing these days, they don't want any budget hardware vendors cutting out the front-facing camera to save $5 in parts. Most laptops already have them.

sxg 5y ago

Are you implying that even a microphone is too much of an invasion of privacy? There’s a trade off between security and usability, and while that balance is different for every user, this one seems a bit of an outlier. How would this even work in practice? I’m assuming a switch to disable the mic isn’t viable since if you can’t trust the mic, you can’t trust a switch. I’m not even sure a mic cover would actually work. The only solution seems to be to create a laptop without a microphone and just use an external mic. Is there a market for that? It seems inconvenient enough to lose the mainstream market. Video chatting is a common enough use case for the corporate market that this just seems infeasible.

tomjen3 5y ago
There is no reason to assume that you can't trust a switch. A microphone is, essentially, available to every program installed on the computer at any time without the switch. Plus adding a physical switch is not hard or expensive. You can even integrate it with a switch for the webcam.
epistasis 5y ago
A hardware switch is something that can be trusted. However a software microphone switch can't. Having a physical, visible, mute button for a laptop would be an incredible boon to video conferencing. Rather than having to shuffle through all the awful, terrible, hard to decipher button for "mute" on the plethora of poor visual designs of video conference UIs, a clear and physical button on the laptop would be sooo helpful. No more finding the mouse cursor, navigating it to the button and clicking, you can just move your finger directly to the button on the keyboard that controls whether people can hear you. Given the huge number of audio faux pas from mute buttons, I'm surprised nobody has added one of these yet...
- NieDzejkob 5y ago
  It is a feature present on some headsets, though...
  - dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
    It's tangential to not having the control over the built-in mic.
- vel0city 5y ago
  For that huge number of audio fax pas that happens today, why would a physical switch have stopped it when clearly they already aren't using the mute button that already exists on their machine? Most laptops already ship with a button that mutes the built-in mic input and yet people seem to ignore/forget/not realize its there. IMO making that switch physical wouldn't affect most consumers because most consumers still wouldn't end up using it.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Maybe it's the computing word I live in, but I've never seen a laptop with a mute button for the built in mic. That's what I'd like to see!
    - vel0city 5y ago
      On Thinkpad keyboards, the mic mute button is usually Fn+F4 or around there. It usually includes a little red LED to show if the mute is active or not. On HP Elitebooks, its usually Fn+F10 or thereabouts. I've seen a few Dell's with that feature but it has been pretty rare. I guess looking around at models for sale these days the mic mute option is somewhat rare. I'm mostly used to Thinkpads and the recent non-Thinkpads I've owned have had it, so I kind of assumed it was a common feature these days. Interesting its more rare than I originally thought.
      - epistasis 5y ago
        Thanks very much for that info. If those think pads can run Linux smoothly, that's almost tempting to leave the mac laptop world.
pmontra 5y ago
I do have an external USB mic which is much better quality than the internal one. Of course I very rarely carry the USB mic with me when I'm not at home so I still use the internal mic sometimes. The old headsets with a 3.5 mm jack with mic and speaker were the best. I didn't see any laptop with that kind of mic plug since many years ago. The jack is only for speakers. A free and a little crazy idea for any laptop designer reading these comments: how about a detachable mic? Maybe USB C, maybe even a non standard plug. The advantage is that it's self evident when it's off, no need to inspect the hardware switch. The problem is that it could be lost. A solution would be a small safety strap, maybe transparent plastic.
- vel0city 5y ago
  A lot of laptops that only have a single TRS jack have the microphone as an additional ring on it.

epistasis 5y ago

I'm far more concerned by what a microphone could overhear than what a camera could see. There's very little actionable visual information in an office compared to the aural information.

ocdtrekkie 5y ago

I think that's a fixable endeavor. My point is mostly that Microsoft probably isn't pushing a method to spy on people, so much as it's establishing that since most people need videoconferencing these days, they don't want any budget hardware vendors cutting out the front-facing camera to save $5 in parts. Most laptops already have them.