Dell Adding Hardware Privacy Driver For Linux

'According to Phoronix, a Dell privacy driver is is being prepared for the Linux kernel. From the report: Beginning in Dell's 2021 laptop models they are providing hardware-based "privacy buttons" to disable microphone and camera support. These new Dell privacy buttons are basically hardware kill switches for the microphone and web camera video stream. The Dell privacy driver sent out on Tuesday for the Linux kernel is about manipulating the relevant LEDs and tracking the status of the hardware-based controls where as the actual toggling of the audio/video support is handled by the hardware. The Dell privacy driver in its current form is talked about for the camera and microphone support but the patch does also note a "PRIVACY_SCREEN_STATUS" bit as well. Presumably they will be extending this privacy driver as well for privacy screen handling around reducing the horizontal/vertical viewing angles of the display. The dell-privacy Linux driver in its initial form can be found via the kernel mailing list. It's great seeing Dell working on this driver punctually for Linux ahead of their next-gen laptops. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/11/04/2216242 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 577-5304 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

On Thu, 5 Nov 2020 16:45:57 +1300, Peter Reutemann quoted:
Beginning in Dell's 2021 laptop models they are providing hardware-based "privacy buttons" to disable microphone and camera support.'
If they really were “hardware-based”, you wouldn’t need a software driver for them. What’s wrong with a physical on/off switch on the power wire? No chance of any software “bug”† circumventing that ... †Because of course the fact that the cutoff could be bypassed somewhere in the depths of some firmware blob was entirely unintentional, and will be fixed in an update sometime, we promise.
participants (2)
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro
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Peter Reutemann