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Comment by xiaq | Hacker News Reader

It could be for compliance with Japanese law which forbids taking photos without a shutter sound? This in principle doesn't apply when you're not in Japan, but after unlocking Samsung has no way to tell.

Edit: reading the article about SONY (https://www.xda-developers.com/sony-xperia-android-pie-unloc...), DRM keys seems to be a more likely cause, which drcursor's comment also mentions.

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BTW there is no law in Japan about shutter sound, makers are following the consensus by their own will (don’t want to be the only ones to not follow)

This is usually just a trivia, but in these cases it’s informative on what length makers feel obligated to go to protect that shutter sound part. Which is, not much in general.

If you use a foreign SIM card it won’t follow that rule, same for some of the capture modes, etc.

Note: India actually has a law over this which is (to emphasise how serious the law is) even coded into AOSP (not on the camera app itself), where it won't allow you to silence the shutter if either you're roaming inside India (regardless of the origin of your SIM card) or you have an Indian SIM card (regardless of where you are roaming).

I can't remind a similar law on any East Asian country though.

Huh? There's no such law. I have turned off the shutter sound option in every single phone I've purchased here in India so far.

I have use multiple phones with Indian sim card with no shutter sound.

I searched around in the AOSP source code but nothing jumped out. Can you link to the code?

Here's PR to remove the shutter sound for Japan: https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_frameworks_...

India looks same implementation: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/...

If this were the case, then why doesn't every phone have the same restriction? And why would it make its first appearance from a Korean company on a phone for the American market?

Different legal opinions and Samsung being more risk-averse I guess?

However reading the article about SONY (https://www.xda-developers.com/sony-xperia-android-pie-unloc...), DRM keys seems to be a more likely cause...

Some devices sold in Japan is unlockable. It's unlikely to start such regulation in 2021.

Videos: exist

Japan's cybersecurity minister was proud of never having used a computer (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/15/japan-cyber-se...). What do you expect from such ignorance? Laws that make sense (like holding creeps accountable)?

> Japanese law which forbids taking photos without a shutter sound?

Why???

IIRC people secretly taking upskirt photos in trains was a significant/frequent problem

So "Silent Camera" app is popular. It basically just take a screenshot from preview, but now it's enough for some use case thanks to higher resolution of screen. (Some apps are advanced maybe, not using screenshot) Some conference presentation orders people to avoid shutter sound by using silent camera app.

... who can just turn the video on and off really quick (or even write a very simple app to turn the video on for one frame).

O_O I am shocked. That's really bizarre

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