One of the things I’ve always found uncomfortable about modern tech is the obsession with pointing internet-connected high resolution cameras in all directions, especially on smartphones.
One of the many reasons I went for a Kompakt is that it does not have a camera facing me, unlike pretty much every other phone these days, including the LP3 (which otherwise was a strong contender).
I also don’t particularly like that phones have cameras on the back that can’t be physically covered (unless you get a special case) like e.g. my work laptop has.
As I am keeping a separate smartphone (switched off most of the time) for the camera, I have not only removed the camera app on the Kompakt but also slipped a thin bit of paper into the case to physically cover up the camera.
This sort of action typically gets me labelled as a tin foil hat looney in a world where everyone else is happy sharing absolutely everything about themselves on FarceBook, but I’m owning it.
How do others feel about privacy when it comes to cameras, especially on phones?
Does anyone want to compare tin foil hat designs?
I put a sticker on my laptop camera so I know the feeling. For my Samsung phone I bought an etui with slider which physically covers the camera.
Fun fact: even Mark Zuckerberg puts tape on his laptop camera
Of course, this is all being implemented for the Greater Good ™. And the term “micro-drones” doesn’t even need the “joke” qualifier, as evidenced by a recent study.
This is one of the reasons I’m interested in open hardware (things like the MNT reform) where every component can be user maintained and interrogated. Sadly not a place there the kompakt is, or may ever be (who knows) but it has utility still the same.
I’d love to have a phone without a camera. All I really want is something that makes calls and does texting. I really don’t care about anything else all that much… well, and a user-replaceable battery lol
My old phone had a sliding camera cover (the type people usually put on their laptop webcams) over the front camera. I rarely opened it since I don’t take a lot of selfies. It was mostly just used for apps that required taking a picture of yourself for verification purposes.
I also used a Mic-Lock and mostly kept GPS turned off, sometimes even spoofed it. It’s not paranoia if people really are out to get you and these days that includes pretty much every single big tech company and sometimes even the government.
Cameras are everywhere we go, why should we carry them on out portable devices as well?
Its up to every individual to take control of their own privacy, its not paranoia at all, the end game of pretty much every western country, is mass surveillance. most people carry a 24/7 tracking device in their pocket, the iphone has multiple cameras and sensors that track your eye movements, and monitors, if an add captures your attention, then uses this information to feed you targeted advertising, this is no different to the tech used in Chinese schools to monitor 7 year old children during class and measure their attention during the lesson.
every supermarket has cameras tracking every inch at several angles, set up to monitor where in the store we go, what we look at, what we spend the most time at, every self serve checkout has a camera tracking and monitoring.
the selfie camera to me is a modern craze that seems totally unnecessary, who needs to see a persons nose hairs when they are talking, or the messy state of the room they are calling from, and I could live without the rear camera as well if Im honest.
the front camera has become a tool for companies and government bodies to track our movement and behavior, just like the CCTV camera.
personally I find the Mudita to be a breath of fresh air, the number one reason I bought it, was privacy, the ofline plus mode is a stellar feature, that attracted me to the device from the offset,
