This is exactly what I do with my tobii eye tracker. I'm a bit paranoid about what it can see so I have it plugged into a USB hub with power buttons that I just disable when I'm not using it.
this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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Asklemmy
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Saving a picture and posting it somewhere.
I see people making screenshots of their whole phone's screen and posting them just to show a picture. In reality, maybe 90% of the time, if you see a picture on the screen of your phone, you can save that picture, with no pointless information around it, no black bars and so on. Even if that's not possible, Android for example has been doing something from the recent apps screen that lets you extract a picture from an app's screen - and that's arguably even easier than doing a screenshot.
Unplug your inbuilt webcam?
Some laptops now have physical privacy shutters for that - and for those that don't, you can get one that you can stick on top.
That still leaves the microphone.
The actual simple and sane solution would just be to require indicator leds hardwired to the literal power supply lines of the camera chip/microphone, so they're physically impossible top turn off while recording.
But that would require US or EU legislation.
Majority of "webcam" use is in laptops, tablets and phones, grandpa... No "unplug the damn thing" to be found?
They often come equipped with a privacy slider to cover the lens. Or you can just put a sticker on them.
They don't "often come with" I'd say it's fairly rare, and especially in the last generation of computers that most have now.
Also, what you mention are all steps above and beyond OP's direction to "just unplug it" and they come with compromises - I.e. A shutter cover isn't a HW disconnect, two very different things. And, a sticker isn't really removable temporarily when you actually do need the camera deliberately. Certain high end laptops have a purported physical HW disconnect toggle or even some "flip around" cameras that are only deployed when needed, but again, few and far between.
Sorry if I was wrong about the prevalence of such protections. My perception may be biased because the notebooks used by our company are all equipped with a switch or shutter of some sort. (HP brand, IIRC) Regarding your second point, however: surely a shutter physically obscuring the camera lens is just as effective as disconnecting the camera when it comes to protecting the user's privacy?
Yes, common that folks in more privileged positions can have these skewed views on products, like, "Uber is a pretty good service and a good value..." but you only pay on your corporate expense account... When normal people need a ride now, it's $80 for a 14 minute ride that used to cost 25-30 bucks. Someone's we can just live fully different realities from most people.
You often forget to close camera shutters (they are often tone on tone and designed to be more invisible, or they can fall open/off. The microphones are also often located near/in camera modules, so a slide shutter can give a false sense of security, but you can still be heard even if not seen sometimes. I do hope it gets to a point where HW disconnect is the norm
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