There were a lot of concerns about the phones' cameras when they began to spread.

Had they been framed like this, and those concerns expressed more loudly, we'd probably have camera covers integrated in all phones now.

Instead we're left to pretend that it's implausible that our Chinese phone takes a peek every once in a while, or that we're infected by spyware which does it.

If you haven't grown with camera phones you've probably experienced discomfort at a camera constantly pointed at you, for a while.

It wasn't a dumb feeling, and it wouldn't be absurd to go back to a saner state of things at some point.