[lvs]

Anecdotally, I do see a large number of lay people with tape over their laptop cameras. Enough stories have filtered into the press about RAT malware and whatnot that there is likely to be some endemic insecurity about a camera pointed in your face across a fairly broad section of the populace.

[jsjohnst]

Yet those tinfoil folks who cover the camera do nothing about the microphone. Since ~2009, it’s been impossible to turn on the camera on an Apple laptop/monitor without the light turning on, yet there’s no indication of something using the mic.

[pessimizer]

> Yet those tinfoil folks who cover the camera do nothing about the microphone.

You say this like it's a "gotcha," but what exactly could somebody with no technical knowledge do about the microphone? If you're trying to say that if there were an equivalent to electrical tape but for the microphone, people wouldn't use it, then I don't even think you honestly believe that.

Also, it's bizarre that in a world that ratting has existed, you'd compare covering the camera on your laptop with a piece of electrical tape to paranoid schizophrenia.

[jsjohnst]

> but what exactly could somebody with no technical knowledge do about the microphone

Take an old pair of wired headphones with mic, cut the cord off, plug in connector. There’s better solutions, but that’s the easiest if you are nervous.

> paranoid schizophrenia

I made no such comparison

[jsjohnst]

To clarify for the down voters, I didn’t mean to insult, I meant to imply it was an unfounded fear (as most tinfoil conspiracies are). Most folks I’ve talked to who do it, didn’t know about the impossibility of turning on the camera without the light on current gen hardware. When I told them about the very real risk of listening to audio without any similar visual indication they were rightly alarmed. I’m actually calling for the ability to either have a hardware mic cutoff or at minimum a visual indication similar to how the camera does.

[lvs]

Regardless, that average people are cautious about their electronic privacy is something to applaud, not discourage. If you are trying to train people out of fearing their cameras, then you're doing a bit of a disservice.

In particular, your claim is false for phone and tablet cameras. These devices do not have visual indicators of camera operation. Furthermore, the only reason for an industry-wide adoption of laptop camera LEDs was consumer fear of them. If that fear erodes, there is no incentive to maintain the hardware feature and no governmental regulations governing such hardware.

[jsjohnst]

> your claim is false for phone and tablet cameras

Yet nobody seems to care about them (unless forced to care by their employer). The exact same folks I see in work environments with the tape on the Apple laptops are the same folks with nothing on the phones/tablets (and previously mentioned mics, where as at least on iOS you always have a visual indication of that). If you really care about privacy, you learn the different ways to protect yourself. If instead you have a different motive, you instead just grab a piece of tape and call it done.