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Comment on Nixing the Fix: An FTC Report to Congress on Repair Restrictions [pdf]parent

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Unless you bought an estoteric device with a mechanical hardware off switch, all our cameras and microphones can and likely have been eavesdropped on.

I wouldn’t call electronic lab equipment (like oscilloscopes, bench power supplies, etc) “esoteric”, but it is true that less and less devices do. Power switches on desktop computers are soft switches; The power supply is always on. To fully turn it off, the power supply sometimes has a physical switch on it, but those are at the back of the case.

Pulling the plug on a desktop computer ain't hard. I actually dont have camera or microphone, either on the desktop pc (although headphones can work as a mic, even harddrives can).

All the laptops I have - do have removable batteries (unless you count 2032 cmos ones - that are harder to reach). I have opened all of them, upgraded, repaired (as in mosfets/capacitors), cleaned, etc.

One of the phones has a removable battery(!), still. Pretty much any other device/appliance has a plug or a mechanical switch (or both).

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