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Comment by Reptur | Hacker News Reader

Should just be a hardware switch you can flip. We should be able to decide whether the webcam or mic is physically connected.

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Exactly. Its like companies are allergic to phisical switches.

Except HP, Lenovo, Framework, Purism...

Costs more and you can't create back doors

There is a physical switch. It's the lid. It's not even a soft switch, the article clearly specifies that it's done in non-reprogrammable hardware logic, which is immune to tampering even by Apple who has bootloader signing keys.

That's a pretty poorly designed switch, if your intention is to turn off the microphone while otherwise using the system. It's better than not having any way to disconnect the microphone, but strictly inferior to any system where you can toggle the desired state at any time.

Everything has a cost. Physical switches that are frequently used are among the first to fail. This is partly why iPhones got rid of the home button in lieu of Face ID. Now, macbooks automatically start up when the lid is opened - this saves an extra button press to the power button. Over the lifespan of the device this reduces wear and tear on common buttons significantly.

What would be nice is physical switches that are easily replaceable - but this also impacts a device's water-proofness and thinness. And the market prefers those two factors over switches, generally.

> This is partly why iPhones got rid of the home button in lieu of Face ID

Home button went non-mechanical the year before Face ID was introduced FWIW.

I see what you are saying. But a switch to turn off/on the microphone would not be used as frequently as a home button. This is why Apple still has the ring/silent switch on the iPhone. This was introduced with the first iPhone and still exists today.

This is one of my favourite features on my Framework laptop. I use it primarily for video conferencing when working from home. It is no nice that I can flip the switches and then don't have to worry about Google trying to automatically turn my camera or mic on.

That creates a worse product for the user. It adds an extra switch to the design which complicates it, and it leads to situations where the mic isn’t on but the user doesn’t know why.

What Apple came up with works perfect as it adds some privacy while affecting the user in no way. This is also combined with permission dialogs for mic access and an indicator light showing the mic is in use.

> It adds an extra switch to the design which complicates it, and it leads to situations where the mic isn’t on but the user doesn’t know why.

This could be solved with a simple dialog box telling the use to check the switch.

> What Apple came up with works perfect as it adds some privacy while affecting the user in no way.

Far from perfect. Anything except physical disconnect switches can be overridden with software, and companies like Apple can be compelled to cooperate with creating back-doors. Which opens up those same back-doors to bad actors figuring out how to use them.

if there is a button in software, it can be hacked _in software_

this is in hardware and cannot be tampered with. apple also doesn't make backdoors, haven't you heard of what happened with the FBI?

You misread, I was replying to him saying "This is also combined with permission dialogs for mic access and an indicator light showing the mic is in use."

Ah yes, "dialog box solves problems" must have been how we got cookie prompts.

> situations where the mic isn’t on but the user doesn’t know why.

When I disable the Mic/Camera on my Librem 5, I have a notification on the screen that shows they are disabled. Same with my laptop. When I disable wifi, if I go to the notification area, it says "Disabled by hardware switch". So....there are ways to do this.

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