Windows 11 laptops will require front facing camera in 2023
tweaktown.com
tweaktown.com
What a load of hyperbolic junk this is. Microsoft is trying to ensure consistency for people that buy Windows laptops. We can debate whether that is a smart move or not, but descending into 1984 fear-baiting is just nonsense.
Putting tape on camera's leaves residue and we all get stuck in Zoom calls these days.
Put a small piece of clean paper over the lens to protect it, then tape over that.
For those calling the 1984 references over the top fear mongering, I'd just ask one question: Why does Microsoft even care about users having a camera? When you answer that, I'd probably respond with "Nope, not a strong enough reason to be a requirement for Windows, try again." Rinse and and repeat. It's happening in China, it's happening at Amazon...
That's the next logical step, for "security", of course.
This kind of thing is absolutely mandatory in this day and age. If you don't let commodity OS makers set any limits on the hardware to ensure a consistent experience, it will be very hard for them to compete with integrated solutions.
If there was some kind of a suggestion of MS self-dealing here, then maybe the concerns would make sense. E.g. requiring the laptop to have a MS-manufactured camera. But there isn't. It is clearly just an attempt to set a consistent minimum bar on the UX.
Combining these three factors, the direction W11 is heading to does not look as genuine as they describe it. And if so, the descend from OEM requirement to OS requirement could happen sooner or later. I wholeheartedly hope they do not though.
Over the past few years we've seen Microsoft adopt increasingly user-hostile practices when it comes to privacy. It's not unreasonable to be concerned that this initiative will morph into something nefarious.
We went from "you need to have a network interface so you can activate the OS" to "Track all the things and phone home" in less than a decade.
I'm not a Windows fan or anything like that. Don't even use Windows as one of my main systems. I'm just dealing with it so I've seen some of these things.
Goes into more detail as to what they collect.
Browsing data, devices connected to the system, what you type, or transcribe via text or ink (speech to text, handwriting to text etc), what applications you're running and for how long.
> The opt-in/out is part of the setup process (in the cases I've seen) so it's not hidden away.
It gets reset _literally_ every time they push out a larger update. They prompt you with a modal form that defaults to tracking turned on (even though I had it turned off to begin with). Guess someone at Microsoft figured out that the tech-literate among us were turning that setting off as soon as our non-tech-literate family/friends took their PCs out of the box around the Christmas tree.
It kind of is, though. It's a classic slippery slope fallacy. Collecting user telemetry and spying on users via webcams you force hardware manufacturers to install in machines are miles, miles, miles apart from each other. I'm not trying to defend MS's telemetry collection here, I don't like it either. But the extrapolation is hyperbolic.
>The company has developed a way to track your gaze to make sure you're actually looking at the PreShow commercial. The app also places a green border around the edges of your screen to confirm that it sees you. If you look away for too long, or leave your seat, the ad automatically pauses and you'll get a red border around your screen.
This horrific shit is all ready to go, I think there is no hyperbole or irrational slippery slope at all
Debian didn't impress me when I upgraded my main workstation recently. A long list of important prompts and not so important prompts, enough to make me click "ok, whatever, get on with it". (Oh, and even Debian also requires a network interface and contains a phone-home package. Getting security fixes without a normal network interface is a Challenge, and security fixes aren't really optional these day.)
I’d say security fixes are rather optional these days if you have no network interface.
You certainly can buy a new laptop on Amazon, open it, remove the WLAN antenna, glue the USB plug(s) and need no security fixes. But at that point you're far from the mainstream. And I am impressed by how Microsoft manages to provide decent security in a user-friendly way, one that expects little unrealistic behaviour and doesn't restrict the term "user" to people far from the mainstream.
IMO the author overindexed on making vague allusions to telescreens ("1984-style future [...] laptops, desktop PCs, TVs") and criticising Microsoft for its "Productivity Score" (a different discussion entirely).
Even the argument for consistency is tenuous; its already consistent. Microsoft says that all laptops must have DDR memory, at least 4gb. Its the same thing; you don't need memory, technically, to run an OS. Its just better that its there, and operating systems can be more sophisticated knowing that you've got it.
Hardware shutters is what people should push for imo
Ah yes, that's absolutely what it is, not an attempt to match what is already standard on every Apple laptop.
Average people don't generally attribute the quality of the products to Dell, Acer, Lenovo, etc, they generally just lump it all together as "Windows" or "PCs". When they go out shopping purely on price and buy a $400 laptop only to get it home and find out a few months later they can't video call with their kids with their "new" laptop, they don't think "Wow, that's on me for buying such a cheap laptop!" or "I can't believe Dell sold me something that doesn't even have a webcam!". They think "Wow PCs suck maybe my friend was right and I should just buy an Apple."
People consistently compare a $400 Windows laptop to a $2500 MBP to say "PCs suck!" or a $300 Android to a $1400 iPhone to say "Androids suck!". Ensuring some minimum baseline of quality there is generally going to help Microsoft's brand and, frankly, the average uninformed consumer.
There's nothing stopping OEMs still shipping absolute garbage hardware and just putting Ubuntu on it so everyone can complain that Linux sucks instead. There's nothing stopping you from taking that and putting Windows on it yourself. There's nothing stopping you just putting a piece of tape over the webcam.
That MS chose to mandate cameras instead of hardware off-switches or disabled Management Engine backdoors to "protect their brand" should tell you everything.
I would assume that is self-evident.
A green dot next to the camera is not good enough.
is not secure. Must have physical switch, not software.
I do agree though that a physical hardware switch is better, especially for the microphone. I see no real reason why Apple couldn't put a parts bin iPhone mute toggle switch on the side of a MacBook. I don't think it would look out of place.
I haven't seen a single laptop manufactured in the past 15 years that doesn't have a webcam built-in.
The actual good news is requiring it to be HD, so the days of potato quality video calls are soon over.
Besides, a lot of manufacturers are now shipping cameras with physical covers, I expect that trend to continue
This is just an opening to put more and more biometric stuff into the OS itself. How will Windows 11 behave if I disable the camera via software? Will it just turn it back on? Will it throw an error or refuse to work if I tape over it? These implications are what actually concern me.
It's some kind of fundamental law of digital meetings.
It also didn't have camera.
Not a large list of current ones, but several of note. Quite a few current Asus Zephyrus models.
Most Windows laptops sold today already have a front facing camera, and I expect camera covers to become as standard as cameras are.
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.
Plus adding a physical switch is not hard or expensive. You can even integrate it with a switch for the webcam.
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...
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.
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.
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.
Makes sense to me. People bundle their hardware experience with what they consider a windows machine vs. an apple machine.
Windows 11 is shaping itself to be extra-special regarding that, unless my workplace requires it I believe I will just stick with Linux after whatever reason happens force me to stop using Win7. My wife computer is already Linux-only, no dual-boot.
Security updates do not prevent software from running.
If the former, then I don't see the big fuss, but if the latter, then no thanks. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Disabling and removing any recording capability at the hardware level is a requirement before you can even bring a laptop into the facility. Microsoft is well aware of this, and whatever this requirement actually is will definitely not apply to enterprise versions of Windows for this reason.
It is possible to get some exceptions to policy. My wife has hearing aids with radio capability, for instance. But they needed to be audited, and she had to prove they were 1) medically necessary for her job, and 2) the radio protocol only worked with the vendor's own devices and couldn't call out to something like a Bluetooth or WiFi receiver.
There are so many of them on Amazon, searching for laptop camera cover slide.
And I don't even use Windows. I run Ubuntu but I want to be sure that the camera doesn't see anything when it's supposed to be off.
This is just a concession that must be made before you're permitted to pre-install Windows for your customers.
well, seems like someone didn't understand, what a TPM module can actually do and what it's used for.
So I still unplug it when not in use.
Microsoft mandating that hardware OEMs not ship garbage laptops that don't have webcams makes a lot of sense. Otherwise there are going to be complaints that the integrated Teams video calling they're advertising as a big feature doesn't work.
Can't recall seeing any