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Comment by neltnerb | Hacker News Reader

Indeed, I'm a little surprised Apple didn't follow the Thinkpad approach of simply having a sliding piece with an aperture that extremely obviously blocks the camera. Surely Apple can't seriously think their users would be confused by this and complain... I don't think my desktop computer's webcam is likely to get hacked either but I'm still going to unplug it when I'm not using it.

Complex systems are hard to secure.

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I can see Jony Ive's head exploding: "Sullying my perfect, smooth, invented-new-aluminum-machining-technology-to-make-it-possible masterpiece with some latch?! Why don't you go work for Dell."

The original iSight camera had a leaf shutter. It's not a foreign concept to them.

The original iSight had a hundred times more depth and also happened to be an external camera. Bringing it up here is irrelevant.

It's not irrelevant, it's information that allows any reasonable person to conclude that Apple implemented a solution before and has since decided to exchange that simple and effective failsafe for a marginally thinner product. I can't physically control whether I have a naked camera pointed at me all day but hey, at least my laptop can fit into a manilla envelope, right? Right? Totally worth it.

It’s irrelevant to bring up iSight’s shutter because they are totally different products. It was literally hundreds of times larger than the cameras we’re talking about here; so it makes no sense to expect a shutter on these just because iSight had them more than a decade ago. That’s like saying that a racecar should have folding seats because a minivan might have it and they are both vehicles.

There are a number of ways to do it, other than a sliding latch, in case Apple wants to avoid adding thickness to the screen.

1. Electrically blurred glass. 2. Polarizing filters 3. Power kill switch, in hardware. But I guess Applw will balk at this too.

A peace of plastic in front of the camera is really simple to understand and trust - the rest you need to know about tech and trust someone did it correctly.

None of those have the advantage of (for the end user) extremely obviously blocking light.

I'm pretty confident after the 2008 camera exploit they engineered the camera to wire the active light directly to the camera power source, which I think is what you're talking about with #3. #1 and #2 seem kind of irrelevant to me. Unless it manually operated (in that case, why not use a physical switch?) it behaves the same as the green indicator light, relies on #3, and after its turned on it's already capturing.

I wonder, do the ThinkPads with that feature have a thicker lid than Apple laptops? I suspect they be thicker anyway because of the touchscreen, which would then provide a few millimeters more room for a shutter. But I'm completely speculating.

I have a new X1 Carbon, and I don't have a MacBook to compare but I can't imagine needing my laptop to be lighter or thinner. It easily fits into any bag and I can carry it with one hand with no worry.

I will gladly trade a millimeter of thickness for increased functionality. It's the same thing where apple will ruthlessly optimize for thickness to the point where they can't cool the CPUs. They literally prefer form over function, as if the tool I use all day every day is an art piece.

as if the tool I use all day every day is an art piece.

Isn't that part of the appeal of Apple products? People will gladly spend more because of the looks, not the functionality.

They probably don't do that because it implicitly says "we don't trust our software to be secure"

But they have hardware disconnects for some of their sensors.

Think different.

It is the mentality not the thinking. In china no one trust anyone really. Hence security strangely is no 1 priority. Hence the cover is in Lenovo portable, but not apple. You are guilty somehow somewhere and to be checked out, and vice visa.

Like fish said to be the final species to discover water, one mainlander comes to hk and surprise to see us so relax about security. What the law even assume people are innocent until proved otherwise ...

the mentality of hermit in One of the largest population of ... hermits. You just put on your shell.

As now become one of the hermit by force and talked as a hermit, may I suggest they just do it away with the camera. Use a wireless or usb based one. No hacking possible.

Economically (if not ethnically) trust is important as it lower the transaction costs. Chicago school heritage I guess of pre NSO HONG Kong. I switch to my two mac Mini of intel and arm. Unfortunately still have the old 3 cable apple monitor (work well with both 2018 and 2012 MacBook Pro) that have a camera. Guess a cover is ok.

I think you'd have to pay extra to buy a laptop without an integrated camera and microphone, not to mention there likely being no options that are also actually high performance laptops.

Yeah, not ideal.

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