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An indicator light hardwired is nice but I apparently can't trust hardware manufacturers to design it properly. My work laptop (HP Dragonfly) has a physical blo
by connicpu 2y ago
An indicator light hardwired is nice but I apparently can't trust hardware manufacturers to design it properly. My work laptop (HP Dragonfly) has a physical blocker that closes over the camera when I haven't explicitly pressed the button that enables the camera. The blocker is black and white stripes so it's very obvious when it's covering the sensor. This should absolutely be the security standard we all strive for with camera privacy.
- kiwijamo 2y agoInteresting, my work HP Probook does not have that functionality. I wonder why HP chooses to do this only for some laptop lines.
- MaxikCZ 2y agoMoney.
- zeroping 2y agoSupporting that theory: my HP EliteBook does have a slide-over cover. (It could also be contention between thickness of the display vs enterprise customer sensitivity to cameras)
- throwaway984393 2y ago[dead]
- nox101 2y agoI suspect most people don't want it. I can imagine lots of people calling customer service "Q: why doesn't my camera work?", "A: Did you open the cover?" There's just a valid an argument to do the same for phones. How many phones ship with camera covers and how many users want them? You can get a stick on camera cover for $5 or less if you want one. I have them on my laptops but not on my phone. They came in packs of 6 so I have several left. https://www.google.com/search?q=camera+cover+laptop https://www.google.com/search?q=camera+cover+laptop
- moffkalast 2y agoI had that exact discussion with somebody recently, and it took me a few minutes to realize that their laptop had a physical camera cover that somehow disables camera permissions in windows too. So yeah, happens a ton I would imagine.
- dvngnt_ 2y agoi miss android popup cameras.
- netsharc 2y ago> I can imagine lots of people calling customer service "Q: why doesn't my camera work?", "A: Did you open the cover?" In some over-engineered world, when the camera cover is engaged the webcam video feed would be replaced by an image of the text "Slide camera cover open" (in the user's language) and an animation showing the user how to do so.
- longdustytrail 2y agoThis doesn’t seem that wild to me. Zoom already prompts me to unmute my microphone when I cough.
- nrp 2y agoWe have that on the most recent generation of Framework Laptop. When the hardware privacy switch is engaged, the image sensor is electrically powered off and the camera controller feeds a dummy frame with an illustration of the switch.
- vaylian 2y agoIs there a video or some images of this somewhere? I would love to see a demonstration.
- netsharc 2y agoI looked it up on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6AsIqAmpeQ&t=1145s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6AsIqAmpeQ&t=1145s And adding 2+2, the man being interviewed (Nirav Patel) is the same man who replied to my comment (HN user nrp), i.e. the man who actually did the overengineering. If you rewind to 17:03, he talks about the changes of what the switch does (previously: USB disconnection, now: as he described in grandparent comment).
- neuralRiot 2y agoProbably the camera “power” is always on as any other microcontroller on the same board, but is only active when called through the control bus or an interrupt, having an LED tied to the power rail would keep it on all the time whenever the lapop is on.
- grishka 2y agoThen tie it to some signal or power rail that only gets enabled when the camera is in use, and that must be enabled for the camera to work, e.g. when there's power to the sensor itself.
- dole 2y agoThe Dell Latitude business laptops now have a wired led and wired switch. Besides the white led, there’s no indication which is on or off, and I don’t trust any of the software or firmware chain to be reliable. (score one for macs being transparent and prescient)
- jorvi 2y agoFor some inexplicable reason Dell has chosen to mark the button as "mute mic" (mic icon + X). So if the LED on the keyboard is lit up, the microphone is off, or rather, the microphone muting is on on. Brilliant design.
- shiroiushi 2y agoDell should go back to the basic design of the Latitude E6400, but with modern electronics and screen of course, and drop the optical drive. The keyboard on that laptop was fantastic, and the single captive screw on the back panel was great for serviceability.
- gregmac 2y agoYeah, the physical barrier is key. It's not that hard, and provides absolute certainty. As indicated by this thread, software experts (rightly) don't trust software by itself enough. It's by the same rationale software people are proponents of electronic voting machines printing physical, verifiable paper copies of votes. My Latitude 7440 has a physical slider switch that covers the camera, in addition to turning it off in a software-detectable way (it shows "no signal" and not just a black screen once the slider is about 50% covering the lens). My only criticism of this is that it's subtle and at a glance hard to tell the difference between open and closed, but I guess you just get used to the slider being to the right. I was just testing and the white LED comes on when I open something that wants to use the camera, even when the cover is closed. This seems like a useful way to detect something (eg malware) trying to use the camera, and is a good reason to not bluntly cut power to the entire camera module.
- aendruk 2y ago> The blocker is black and white stripes On my ThinkPad it’s instead painted with a red dot. Because, obviously, the conventional meaning of a red dot appearing on a camera is “not recording”.
- darig 2y ago[dead]
- BuildTheRobots 2y agoNot just the weird meaning, but on my last Thinkpad the red dot and the slightly red glean of the camera lens look surprisingly like each other. Even worse I managed to get the cover in a position where it looked like it was closed, but the camera could still see.
- d1sxeyes 2y agoSame on my Dell Latitude. Seems a very odd design decision. They've also centrally aligned the switch so that it's not immediately obvious from the switch position whether the cover is iver the lens or not. Super annoying.
- FridayoLeary 2y agoTo be fair a red dot is a design feature of lenovo. So at least it fits in nicely with the overall look of the laptop.
- j1elo 2y agoI just looked up to my "Lenovo Performance" webcam and saw its red dot [1] looking at me... some product designers have a worrying lack of awareness about de-facto standards and user expectations affecting the UX. [1]: https://imgur.com/Kowt8WJ https://imgur.com/Kowt8WJ