Hacker News Reader

I don't think it's wise to trust any such "privacy setting".

What devices really need is a hardware switch allowing us to physically disconnect cameras and microphones.

I've never understood why this was not introduced as a standard when laptop cams/mics started being built-in.

How can you trust a hardware switch any more than a software switch? Granted you can take your hardware apart to inspect it, but:

- can you put your laptop together again? (especially tablets) - will you be able to see the switch innards to ensure it is disconnected? - who will bother?

Someone could take apart such a switch once and verify that it works, and then tell everyone else who owns such a device. With software, this is very hard, and when software can be updated at any time it is impossible.

Because 99.99% of people wouldn't use that switch and then would call tech support because they accidentally switched it off and now their camera wont work. It already happened with those stupid WiFi hardware switches...

I'd say that will happen for some time after you introduce hardware switches. But it will certainly wear off. I don't see that as a valid reason.

>But it will certainly wear off

There've been WiFi hardware switches for 10+ years and it's not showing any sings of wearing off.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com