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Just so you know, switches in something as complicated as a laptop have a good chance at being connected to a processor , with firmware being the thing that determines what the switch does. So you still need trust, even with a physical switch.

Source: write firmware for a living, and write drivers for physical switches.



That's a good point. I'm guessing that people calling for a "hardware switch" implicitly mean one that cannot be overridden by firmware.

I.e., a traditional switch inline on the circuit(s) connecting the camera / microphone to the rest of the system.


On MacBooks Apple says their microphone disconnect is "done in hardware alone", so it might be that closing the lid disconnects something physically.


It doesn’t need to be a switch. My current work laptop is an HP. It has a little plastic camera cover that slides back and forth to cover the camera.


It should be implemented with the same robustness as if the user's life depended on it.

As an analogy, you wouldn't implement a car brake by running it through some firmware. Instead, you'd preferably make a direct physical connection between the pedal and the actual brake.




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