Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

larrysanger.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 200 posts

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#121

Post by lucb1e »

HALtheWise wrote: post #101

Am I the only one who has far more sensitive content visible on the screen and filesystem of my computer than through its camera? I feel like, at least for the threat models that I consider likely, if someone manages to hack my laptop and get (for example) microphone access, the thing I am most worried about is that they will use acoustic analysis of keystrokes to recover my banking password, not that they will hear…

> far more sensitive content visible on the screen and filesystem of my computer than through its camera

I mean, yeah, being hacked (and thereby compromising your screen/HDD's contents) is an issue in the first place and keyloggers are only a few lines of code, but I don't think there is anything wrong with controlling the parts that you can control.

You can't make a physical "no keyloggers for this piece of text, please" switch, but at least they can't hear you talk to a close friend or watch you walk by as you get into the shower (though the latter is a bigger risk for women than for the more common HN visitor, I guess). You're not the first comment I see wondering why we even want this, and it's really weird to see. Why would we not want this?! I don't think that, just because we have webcam stickers, we suddenly stop caring about malware altogether. I think even (metaphorically) my mom understands that if you tape your webcam, a virus can still steal the bank login that is happening on her computer. Even if she doesn't really get the concept of a process, malware, and a web browser in the first place, taping a cam does not make everything on a computer virus-proof.

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#122

Post by lucb1e »

everdrive wrote: post #114
btashton wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I trust my WiFi cards disable pin, but not the "soft button" on my laptop that triggers it via the OS? I get that there is more software when it goes through the OS, but I trust that a whole lot more than the firmware on the WiFi card. This is from the same group that tries to explain how they don't use proprietary firmware blogs by using the Redpine chips just because the blog is already flashed on it rather…

In Android, you actually can't trust when the OS says the WiFi is "off." Yes, the network is not connected, but google is still tracking SSIDs.

You can turn that off, though. Not that I trust it to work, but at least legally you can deny that.

Do you happen to know about GPS? Because my phone sometimes picks up GPS faster than should be physically possible (knowing a thing or two about how GPS works), and sometimes it takes a normal amount of time. I have GPS turned off almost all the time, don't have a Google account logged in, everything I can deny to Google apps I have denied, nothing weird seems to be running in process lists... any idea where to even start looking?

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#123

Post by deytempo »

zw123456 wrote: post #4

Note that a physical switch can be overridden just as easy as a soft switch, the vendor can just put a soft switch in parallel with it and you would never know it. The hard switch could turn off the display, speaker etc. while the processor and radio can stay on.

Wouldn’t the packets still need to flow through the kernel?

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#124

Post by lucb1e »

kerng wrote: post #69

It's interesting that no laptop vendor seems to have made a physical webcam cover included by default- to me that seems like a no brainer that most customers would benefit from. Edit: Thanks for all your comments. It seems that there a few vendors that do offer webcan covers by default now. Definitely will have to check those out.

To everyone doing confirmation bias replies: yes, I'm sure we can find lots of instances where a cover came with the laptop. My old EEE PC netbook also had one (and it kept falling open if I put it in my backpack on its left side). Adding them, however, either fell out of style or was never common to begin with, and the more interesting question to answer is why that is when clearly so many consumers care for it.

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#125

Post by e9 »

rolph wrote: post #50
rudolfwinestock wrote: post #24

Janie Crane: “An off switch?” Metrocop: “She'll get years for that. Off switches are illegal!” —Max Headroom, season 1, episode 6, “The Blanks” https://www.maxheadroom.com/index.php?title=Episode_ABC.1.6:...

a real life blank reg here. I live in an RV operate a MESHNET and do everthing i can to foster a common persons free decentralized infrastructure. As mentioned elsewhere ive been taping cameras and stabbing microphones for years now.

Tell me more about how I can get involved

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#126

Post by kiallmacinnes »

everdrive wrote: post #114
btashton wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I trust my WiFi cards disable pin, but not the "soft button" on my laptop that triggers it via the OS? I get that there is more software when it goes through the OS, but I trust that a whole lot more than the firmware on the WiFi card. This is from the same group that tries to explain how they don't use proprietary firmware blogs by using the Redpine chips just because the blog is already flashed on it rather…

In Android, you actually can't trust when the OS says the WiFi is "off." Yes, the network is not connected, but google is still tracking SSIDs.

To be fair, the WiFi connection is off, it's just the radio is not... It's not so much a lie, rather it's an implementation that covers the average persons expectations 100%, but keeps something they might not want, but weren't thinking about when they pressed that button.

To be clear, I don't like the behaviour.. but it's not misleading, it just doesn't cater to everyones desires.

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#127

Post by askvictor »

HNKingpin wrote: post #79
svrtknst wrote: post #75

While physical switches would be nice, and I generally am a fan of them, IMO they still require trust in the manufacturer. If I don't trust their software switches, why would I trust their hardware switches?

You should be able to see the effects, no? At least in cameras (the light won't be flashing).

Microphones are much more the worry; you can't cover them up like a camera, and are omnidirectional.

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#128

Post by kiallmacinnes »

lucb1e wrote: post #122
everdrive wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Android, you actually can't trust when the OS says the WiFi is "off." Yes, the network is not connected, but google is still tracking SSIDs.

You can turn that off, though. Not that I trust it to work, but at least legally you can deny that. Do you happen to know about GPS? Because my phone sometimes picks up GPS faster than should be physically possible (knowing a thing or two about how GPS works), and sometimes it takes a normal amount of time. I have GPS turned off almost all the time, don't have a Google account logged in, everything I can deny to Goog…

Most phones use Assisted GPS. It's a combination of cell tower triangulation and GPS. You'll get a potentially inaccurate "GPS" location based on the cell towers and signals you can see, and this will eventually turn into a real GPS lock.

As I understand it, this cell tower location actually helps achieve a real GPS location faster that would be normal - but I'm unsure how that would work .. I'd be guessing at best ;)

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#129

Post by areyouseriousxx »

HALtheWise wrote: post #101

Am I the only one who has far more sensitive content visible on the screen and filesystem of my computer than through its camera? I feel like, at least for the threat models that I consider likely, if someone manages to hack my laptop and get (for example) microphone access, the thing I am most worried about is that they will use acoustic analysis of keystrokes to recover my banking password, not that they will hear…

Obtaining compromising video and/or audio of you or someone you care deeply about will often be more than enough to obtain things like banking information and file access.

Re: Vendors must start adding physical on/off switches to devices that can spy on us

#130

Post by Proven »

They don't have to do shit.

The thing is info harvesting subsidizes the cis of hardware and as we well know from the Android phone market (and how privacy oriented phones have been doing) there simply isn't enough demand to even justify a 3 cent plastic hardware switch. They sell 1 million devices, 10K people use the hardware switch, and 100K people have a support issue because they mistakenly turned their WiFi off.

So why would they include it?

If it's valuable to you, buy a niche device - it'll cost you and extra $50 or whatever, but hey you'll have your privacy.

Post reply on HN