Again, if they are "smart", they can be hacked. That light can be disabled, and even covered.
this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2026
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Not if the power to the recording mechanism must run through the light. There is an electrically engineered way to make sure the light must be powered on before the recording mechanism if it is wired between the power supply and the electronics.
Nothing to hack. Just a wire and an LED.
That’s how the iSight camera in all MacBooks work. That camera cannot be powered on without first powering on the notification LED. It’s integrated into the circuit. Powering on the camera must first power on the LED, and there is no way around that. It’s physically impossible.
and there is no way around that. It’s physically impossible.
As fun as both of those things can be, both together or separately, I wasn’t talking about blocking the camera, but, rather, accessing it illicitly
Thanks for the 90s flashback, though ;)
They mean you can block the recording light
You block the LED. Sharpie also works.
Black nail polish is still a thing in 2026.
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You can still cover the LED. I don't trust these things or the creeps that buy them. They should be illegal.
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Just cut the wire and run a new one past the light directly to the camera.
The user owns this device and can make physical alterations.
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the thing with the macbook is, that the user does not want to be recorded secretly. with meta glasses, the wearer is the recorder.
It could still be 'hacked' in the truest sense of the term. Just on a hardware level instead of pure software. How hard some people will work to be surreptitious creeps should never be underestimated.
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So make that illegal. It's a start.
Sure it can. Murder is illegal, but i can still buy a gun and shoot someone. If you hack your glasses to not comply with this law, you will get whatever punishment the law prescribes.
And existing recording devices with recording indicators can be modified too...this isn't about covering every single edge case, this is about covering the bulk and making the rest actionable.
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a little nail polish.
there's a booming industry already growing to mod them so no indicator shows. https://leafandcore.com/2025/10/25/meta-glasses-creep-mod-gaining-attention/
thousands.
fucking creeeps
The "visual indicator" will tell you when the human wearing them has actively pressed "record".
If Meta wants to "accidentally capture ambient video data" there will be no indication.
That's usually not how these indicators work (but yes, this would have to be made explicit in the law). Usually the way they are wired the camera can only turn on when the light is also on.
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Have the perv light on all the time it's recording. Done.
Don't care, I don't want somebody pointing a camera at me at all times in a civilized society
We haven't even gotten to phase two of enshittification, and these things still haven't exhibited value.
Unfortunately, we're all getting used to having cameras pointed at us at all times. Ring cameras, flock cameras, tesla cameras, etc., etc. We already live in the Panopticon. There is no opt-out, and government personnel can access many if not all of these sources, and target specific people for chronic surveillance. Things will only get worse, unfortunately.
all the more reason to aggressively fight back against it wherever we can
Pops cap off black marker
The fucking DANGER these glasses represent is so disgusting. So many women are going to end up recorded without their permission, stalked, and harassed. That thing about being able to find the name of the person you're looking at? Yeah just because they say they're not going to let that happen means they've already put the tech in place. Why stop at showing just the name? Social media will be just a click away. No doubt in my mind some nasty chud will hack the glasses with AI to unclothe everyone he's looking at.
Dystopian af
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That's not good enough. You can easily get around such things.
it should make a tone every x seconds, like a click when taking a photo (which is required by law in some countries)
It would be neat if someone designed Anti-Meta Glasses. Instead of a camera, it emits a scattered 180 degree IR mesh to make whatever Meta wearing persons video completely useless.
The problem I see with this is that this bill pretty much requires proprietary software to run on those glasses (which right now is the case anyways), which in turn means everything else gets shittier. Making laws like this is stupid, they should make a law that bans those glasses if people do not want to be secretly recorded.
even my own idea here still doesn't go far enough, but there need to be criminal penalties for disabling such a feature that are at least as severe as illegally concealing a firearm
frankly I don't think these should even be legal to manufacture, sell, or possess, but I have zero hopes that that level of regulation will ever happen
Back in the day there were various bits of legislation to make apparent that then-novel camera phones were taking pictures. I remember phones with shutter sounds that could not be disabled by design.
Of course, they could be disabled by methods not in the design.
Ok and why wouldn’t a creep just cover that light with tape or paint?
they will totally make it easy to disable and just call it unsupported user modification which will also let them get out of warranty claims
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