21–30 of 554 posts
I assumed that most if not all of these webcam LEDs are wired in series with the power to the camera itself. Which then makes it impossible to disable them. Who designs this LED to be software addressable?
Of course it can. Cameras and microphones and write enable must have physical switches, not software ones. When will people learn? Never. Me, I unplug the camera and mike when not in use.
Different persons learn this at different times (or never).
But then market dynamics come into play, as well as the current state of the legal code / enforcement.
Of course it can. Cameras and microphones and write enable must have physical switches, not software ones. When will people learn? Never. Me, I unplug the camera and mike when not in use.
Your preferences are not everybody's. Personally, I'd be totally fine with a camera and microphone LED that is guaranteed to activate whenever there is power/signal flowing from either.
> Me, I unplug the camera and mike when not in use.
That's a bit hard to do on a laptop that has both built in.
I thought the whole point of these camera LEDs was to have them wired to/through the power to the camera, so they are always on when the camera is getting power, no matter what. Having the LED control exposed through the firmware completely defeats this.
"Job done boss!"
That's it. That's what happens. Nobody ever reviews anything in the general industry. It's extremely rare for anyone to raise a stink internally about anything like this, and if they do, they get shouted down as "That's more expensive" even if it is in every way cheaper, or "We'll have to repeat this work! Are you saying Bob's work was a waste of time and money!?" [1]
[1] Verbatim, shouted responses I've received for making similar comments about fundamentally Wrong things being done with a capital W.
Of course it can. Cameras and microphones and write enable must have physical switches, not software ones. When will people learn? Never. Me, I unplug the camera and mike when not in use.
For what it's worth, my Lenovo laptop has a manuel shutter slider button on the side that actually physically covers the camera (and it must also does something driver wise because windows considers it unplugged). It's so easy and convenient that I always use to off the camera. Many of lenovo have that even included their gaming laptop line (it's actually even better and more convient on that one, thanks to the large…
A post-it note works if you don't have a slider.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I might be out of the loop, but I thought that was only for some machines - I remember the LED being wired that way being a selling point for MacBooks at some point, as a privacy feature. It definitely should be the standard, though!
[flagged]
I can see why some people might be concerned about the camera, but I'm far more concerned by the microphone. There's far more sensitive and actionable information that can be gathered from me that way! I'm glad that macOS started putting a light in the menubar when the microphone is in use, but I'd prefer to have unhackable hardware for that instead.
For what it's worth, my Lenovo laptop has a manuel shutter slider button on the side that actually physically covers the camera (and it must also does something driver wise because windows considers it unplugged). It's so easy and convenient that I always use to off the camera. Many of lenovo have that even included their gaming laptop line (it's actually even better and more convient on that one, thanks to the large…
Taping your camera doesn't necessarily look like anything. I have a small piece of electrical tape over my webcam, and it blends in so perfectly with the background that other people probably wouldn't see it unless they were specifically looking for it. (I personally just leave the tape there all the time, because if I need to videoconference, I’d rather connect my mirrorless camera with a much better lens and sexy b…