this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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Transistors are simple electronical devices. They don't run software. You can control their inputs with another device (such a microcontroller) that does run software. You can also control their inputs with a button. You can't control their output with software.
I don't know how an Amazon echo is wired up, but if you just have a button connected to the gate of the transistor, it works basically the same as a mechanical switch.
No, as I just said in the comment you replied to, it's backwards. Software controls transistors.
The important difference is that a mechanical switch cannot be maliciously switched on by software. It has to be done physically and intentionally.
There is absolutely no requirement that a transistor be controlled by software. They can be controlled by physical switches.
Transistors have no registers. They have no arithmetic logical units. They have nothing. They are so simple they can be made up of less than 100 atoms. Transistors have to be connected electrically to other device. Any reverse engineer can trace what it is connected to and it's behaviour cannot be programmed. If you know that it's a transistor and you know the inputs, you can know the output. The same cannot be said for a device which runs software, you'd have to additionally know what that software does, which is incredibly more complicated.
Software is ran by microcontrollers. Transistors can be connected to microcontrollers. But they can also be connected to buttons. If there is no microcontroller, there is no software.
I don't understand what any of that has to do with this conversation.
Well, you claim that transistors can be controlled by software, and I claim that it is no more capable to run software than a mechanical switch.
It's about as likely that the transistor is attached to a pin that sends an interrupt to the processor and it then applies a soft mute as it is the transistor is attached to a flip flop or register that toggles the mic getting power physically.
My guess would be it's controlled by software rather than directly by the hardware because then they can do whatever they want with the button via firmware or software updates. This includes nefarious stuff like a fake mute mode, or more innocent stuff like special behaviour on a long press vs short press.
You could just connect the switch to an input pin on the processor. I don't see how a transistor makes this scenario more likely.
I don't know why you keep saying this so let me try for the third time:
A transistor does not run software, software runs transistors.
Please tell me. How exactly does software "run" a transistor?
The software is what decides when to send the signal to switch them on and off.
Now tell me, how does the software communicate with the transistor? Wifi? Bluetooth?
There is no "communication". Transistors don't have that capacity, they're just switches.
Heh