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Comment by mhoad | Hacker News Reader

WTAF? Was this supposed to be some kind of security thing?

This misreads the room so badly on where people are at in 2021 when it comes to the idea of tech companies and consumer privacy.

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This looks like part of their push to passwordless. Decent camera plus TPM means that FaceID style unphishable FIDO2 credentials can become default moving forward.

It also means that you can't use computers running Windows 11 inside secure areas.

> It also means that you can't use computers running Windows 11 inside secure areas.

It means you can't use computers running retail editions of Windows 11 inside secure areas.

These kinds of requirements will absolutely not be mandatory under enterprise / volume licensing.

And how do you handle letting someone else use your machine?

That's not really the best argument in favor of passwords.

You install Linux and tell Microsoft to fuck off with their stupid ideas.

So nice to be beaten to the chase. It's almost eerie reading a sentence that is nearly verbatim to what just went through my head.

> This misreads the room so badly on where people are at in 2021 when it comes to the idea of tech companies and consumer privacy.

(Some) Tech people, politicians, and politicos, sure.

The average person still uses Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Twitter, Google services, and/or believes Apple's marketing on respecting user privacy.

Also, this is 2 years out. Either there will be major changes between now and then which will result in a change to this decision, or there wont. I wouldn't put my money on the former.

I know several pretty 'average' computer users with a piece of tape in front of their laptop camera.

The article is light on details, but of course there's always this:

> For those concerned with privacy, this means a trip to the office supply store to grab more tape with which to cover up the pesky little lenses.

Good luck with that https://old.reddit.com/r/blackmagicfuckery/comments/kaxn0j/s...

Also good luck taping up the microphone.

Even if not, if the camera is required for login/screen unlock, have fun removing and reapplying that tape several dozen times a day.

It's not. You can use a PIN or a password.

Isn't the remote made out of IR-transparent plastic? The privacy shields you tape onto a webcam should be IR-opaque. (Or they should be redesigned).

I believe best practice to disable a microphone is superglue over the membrane.

-I am surprised not more vendors of laptops have done like Lenovo does (at least on the X1 series) - there's a plastic slider which goes over the lens, showing a bright orange dot when it has disabled the camera.

Seems so cheap, simple and useful that there probably is a patent keeping others from doing it. Sigh.

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