To the few users that disliked this: I didn’t mean it’s not an issue for the affected professionals, just not super sure it’s front page worthy.
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AV Artists Complain Monterey 'Orange Dot' Security Feature Makes Macs Unsuitable for Live Performances
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Certainly, and because of this I wouldn’t expect you to complain about it. But if you did care, I wouldn’t expect you NOT to complain.
A few months ago I was at my local museum they had installed several projectors sideways to cast portraits up on the walls of old displays that had been there years ago when I was a kid, and I was struck by the way it changed the whole look of a 40 year old installation. I doubt in this situation they would be using mic feeds, but it was using old greyscale images and the thought of having to worry about orange dots showing up in that would make the Mac rather unusable for the purpose. At a conference or business display, it isn’t great, but for an art installation it is huge. I’m not an artist, but I can see their issue with this.
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Personal opinions generally don't matter as an audio visual provider. Your client does, and each one has different needs and priorities.
As a tool, a computer outputting a clean feed is a reasonable and expected feature.
Imagine something like this (The Lume, an audiovisual Vincent Van Goh exhibition with 360 degree projectors) with orange dots everywhere.
I don't know which computers they use to run the show but if I was a technical director I wouldn't want to risk the orange dot even if there *was* someone snooping the mic.
Audio responsive video as described by many others above is exactly the situation in which this *will* occur and will be highly annoying.
Gotta give people the option to turn off the dot.
I don't know which computers they use to run the show but if I was a technical director I wouldn't want to risk the orange dot even if there *was* someone snooping the mic.
Audio responsive video as described by many others above is exactly the situation in which this *will* occur and will be highly annoying.
Gotta give people the option to turn off the dot.
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So, it's better to use a different OS that doesn't force junk on external displays? Or all OS's should adhere to filling every display in the world with privacy junk?
Can you articulate to me what problem you think this orange dot is solving on an external display?
Why not both? why do you think it's either or?
There is easy solutions to this - like adding an option to disable this security feature after stern warning and confirmation. Even if it's only for a set time or session.
This is not a matter of personal privacy and/or security. In fact, at a private event this is often a condition of entry or part of a disclaimer. In any public space, you may be recorded by security cameras which may or may not have audio. In a live production setting, you may be captured by production technology as a participant of the audience.
Additionally, you are far more likely to be in earshot of several microphones of other patrons than the microphone of the laptop that is providing the image. In fact, it may be in a completely different room and picking up the sound of the production tech sipping his coffee. Should those other patrons walk around with their screens showing the orange dot too?
If you've been to a concert, read the ticket stub. This sort of stuff is covered in standard disclaimers.
We're on a mac forum talking about event technology. How is this even an argument?
the simple answer is your business does not out weigh my right to privacy. As so many of the posters on here seem to be suggesting Also just because you or the original person from the article didn't bother to test when the betas of an OS came out, on a system that you could test on is not any ones fault but your own. If your business relies on software being usable then you should be testing that your stuff is compatible. It is just a fact of IT life for any business.
I highly doubt that you would consider "privacy junk" if it involved you or your family. what if your child was using an external monitor and that was getting recorded...I would think you might want to know that. But maybe you don't, I don't know.
the poster that I was responding to making a suggestion that just a password would protect an off switch from being abused, really has no idea about IT security or the state of attacks that happen against computers.
This argument assumes a computers sole purpose is a personal computing device. We're talking about a scenario where it's being used as a broadcast device, in a public environment, when an operator has very intentionally provided an audio feed to their device. This is a market that Apple have closely aligned themselves with in the creative space.
My proposal for a fix would be:
1. Orange light always displays on taskbar for internal microphone.
2. User can select whether orange indicator is visible outside of taskbar.
3. User can select whether orange indicator is displayed for external sound input hardware.
Or a whitelist type feature might work. The same as allowing chrome to screen capture, for example.
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So your solution is then that apple should not sell computers to home users. Because that might interfere with a use that a business has
Where did I say that?
My suggestion is to provide privacy centric defaults and provide the user with ways to opt out of particular behaviour, if they choose to.
Like I said, I dont need to spy on anyone, its support for our users. Sometimes all I'm doing is making sure users are following instructions after a roll out (which most dont and end up causing a big screw up). What I dont need is a big banner coming up saying 'I'm watching you!!'.
The orange/green indicators are very nice to have from a privacy/security viewpoint. Don’t think this as a huge issue for the artists, but Apple might find a way to address the issue mentioned by these artists.
and as I keep saying you can't have an opt out that will not get exploited.
Every business is different. Our IT gets inventory of our software and OS versions so they DONT need to watch our screens. And when they do, it’s also for auditing purposes. Suppose you hire an employee that does go rogue and spies on people. You certainly won’t, but it needs to be audited for those that will. It’s very hard to fire people these days.
The orange dot is currently a software feature. It is already exploitable, unlike a webcam indicator which is normally a hardware feature and harder to exploit.
Having a preference for it to appear on an external display (or not) would be no more or less exploitable than it currently is.
Youre right there, every business is different. Which is why you need the option. I once had a department head tell me that they suspect a user is doing nothing but playing online games all day and still doing so after being told. I was able to check and verify that this was the case. In this case its better from a management perspective that that person wasn't alerted that I was able to collect the evidence and that person was promptly told to leave.
It’s also kind of weird when I’m doing a screen recording to show instructional videos to friends or bug reports to developers. Even on my iPhone, there’s that orange dot without context getting distributed in my footage. I’d rather disable it when I’m doing screen sharing or screen recordings.
They could equally address it with a feature, we have no idea what the future will bring.
People thinking this feature is okay seem to not get that the dot shows up for people not using a mac’s internal mic/mic input. If you have a professional audio interface hooked up and that has an audio input, you get this dot. External hardware that is is controlled outside of the OS should not be triggering this dot unless you set the specific input to be your Mac’s audio input in the settings menu. Seems like a great compromise to me.
Orange dot without the ability to disable for the internal mic.
Orange dot IF AirPods, Bluetooth headset, audio interface are connected AND have the Mac set to use them as the default in/out in the sound settings menu. Then you are free to set the external device’s settings in a specific piece of software but not as a system wide device.
Orange dot without the ability to disable for the internal mic.
Orange dot IF AirPods, Bluetooth headset, audio interface are connected AND have the Mac set to use them as the default in/out in the sound settings menu. Then you are free to set the external device’s settings in a specific piece of software but not as a system wide device.