Apple's T2 chip will prevent hackers from eavesdropping on your microphone

Re:Apple's T2 chip will prevent hackers from eavesdropping o... by ridgeguy on Sunday November 04, 2018 @06:45PM (#18378716)

Physical switch could be done with a very small magnet behind the lid surface and an opposed micro-reed switch (or other magnetically actuated on/off device) buried behind the body surface. No surface penetrations, no exposed moving parts (reed relays are hermetically sealed).

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Re:Apple's T2 chip will prevent hackers from eavesdropping o... by brirec on Sunday November 04, 2018 @10:47PM (#18379735)

Reed switches are pretty damned huge when working at the scale of a laptop.

Not to mention it would make the case of the computer microphonic — bump it hard enough and that’ll be transmitted through the reed relay.

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Re:Apple's T2 chip will prevent hackers from eavesdropping o... by ridgeguy on Tuesday November 06, 2018 @10:01PM (#18396830)

Yeah, I agree. Reed switches might even resonate with music played through laptop speakers. This needs a no-moving-parts magnetic sensor.

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Re:Apple's T2 chip will prevent hackers from eavesdropping o... by djrogers on Sunday November 04, 2018 @07:07PM (#18378795)

And a magnetic switch is far too easily defeated

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Re:Apple's T2 chip will prevent hackers from eavesdropping o... by jws on Sunday November 04, 2018 @09:48PM (#18379506)

My parent’s table pads do precisely that. After a particularly baffling family tech support call I drove over. Their kitchen table pads magnetically lock to stay nicely aligned, and also either put a laptop to sleep, or keep it awake when closed depending how you place them.

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Re:Apple's T2 chip will prevent hackers from eavesdropping o... by bdamm on Sunday November 04, 2018 @10:34PM (#18379690)

How? The point is to prevent invisible eavesdropping not prevent some spook on the table from hacking you.

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