Dell Adding Hardware Privacy Driver For Linux

[rastersoft]

For old people? Took awhile for me to explain the red light on the PS4 means off to my dad and he still doesn't like it. "Well if it's off it should be off. I don't want another f'n light in my room at night. And who TF wants that hibernate crap with the extra bright light?"

I fully agree with him, and I'm "only" 45 years old. If something has only "hibernate mode", why do you have to add a light? Different thing is if it has "hibernate" and "power off", but if "turning it off" always means "hibernate", then TURN THAT F... LIGHT OFF!

[CochainComplex]

If people would start putting their clothes back on in front of their computer, better yet, stop having sex in front of it.............

True - no fancy software hardware would have prevented this situation

https://nypost.com/2020/08/27/government-official-caught-having-sex-with-during-zoom-meeting/

[M@GOid]

I remember of a security flaw on Apple laptops, where there was a exploit on a light indicating camera activity. It could be turned off but the camera was still recording. So yeah, software based kill switches looks like a security flaw waiting to happen.

https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/36569

[CochainComplex]

This kind of stuff is the staple of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Cyber Security Research Center. So a quick Internet search with keywords "Ben Gurion Hard DIsk microphone" gave me an article with a link to the paper on arxiv.org:


DiskFiltration: Data Exfiltration from Speakerless Air-Gapped Computers via Covert Hard Drive Noise

Edited to correct.
The above is wrong: it refers to the use of the Hard Disk to exfiltrate information as a kind of audio transmitter, not receiver.

The previous writer (kpedersen) was correct in referring to an IEEE paper

IEEE: Hard Drive of Hearing: Disks that Eavesdrop with a Synthesized Microphone ( DOI: 10.1109/SP.2019.00008 )

Nonetheless, the Ben Gurion Cyber Security Research group do some interesting stuff.

Scary - one reason more to buy ssd.

[kyrios]

Why is a driver needed for a hardware kill switch ?

[Vistaus]

For old people? Took awhile for me to explain the red light on the PS4 means off to my dad and he still doesn't like it. "Well if it's off it should be off. I don't want another f'n light in my room at night. And who TF wants that hibernate crap with the extra bright light?"

What is "old"? I am 28 years old, but I fully agree with your dad.

[skeevy420]

What is "old"? I am 28 years old, but I fully agree with your dad.

I agree with him too and I'm 35...36 in 26 days. As annoying as it is, I'm just more understanding than him that they're using the colors as a form of notification. It isn't really an old person thing, but it kind of feels like it when you see mostly younger people, teens and people in their 20s, being the ones into flashy lights and RGB GPUs and all that stuff.

I hated my Roku TV in my bedroom when I first bought it a couple years ago. I didn't realize that it had this bright, bright white status light dead center on the bottom about 3 inches long with no options to turn it off so my bedtime routine ended up being stacking the first two books from the Vampire Chronicles up front of that light...couldn't tape it up because they placed the IR sensor in there...the bastards. About six months or a year later a firmware update added the ability to turn off the light bar. I was so happy.

The PS4 is like using plugin-free GNOME or my Roku TV-- you have one way of doing it and if you don't like it you might as well consider yourself up the creek w/o a paddle because you may or may not get that feature.

[Nille_kungen]

Wouldn't it be better to add hardware switches? no need for drivers and everyone can trust the security.
Like ThinkShutter that also is an hardware switch and cuts of camera, if one slides it a bit more it also cuts the microphone or a separate switch for mic.

[k1e0x]

If it's a hardware kill switch... why does it need a driver? It's off, you killed it.. what are you driving?

: skeptical :

[ssokolow]

If it's a hardware kill switch... why does it need a driver? It's off, you killed it.. what are you driving?

: skeptical :

Apparently the driver lets the OS read the status of the hardware kill switch and independently control the status LED... which isn't good for a security tool but I suppose it has uses similar to my hack for inverting the Numlock LED on X11.