PanicLock
macOS has no Touch ID kill switch like iOS, so I built one
Details
- External ID
- 46914607
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- PanicLock
- Website domain
- github.com
- Launched
- Feb. 6, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 10
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.5316711590296496
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
Enrichment
- Theme
- cross-device control and OS utilities
- Vertical
- Security
- Function
- Hardware & robotics
- Audience
- B2C
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- macos touch id kill switch
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
Yes This is a lightweight macOS utility script or Swift menubar app that invokes macOS internal CLI commands or APIs (such as `bioutil` or PAM configurations) to disable Touch ID via shortcut or trigger.
Discussion
4 comments analyzed.
Concerns raised: Disk encryption keys not removed from RAM, only locked screen, No instant purge keys command, shutdown is slow, Difficult to implement full key removal from memory
Feature requests: Remove disk encryption keys from memory on lock, Purge keys from RAM functionality, Similar state to logout that clears keys
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 404 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #205 of 405 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 94 days after the earliest competitor.
- Shoo! · ph · 2026-09-15 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.54
- Lockpaw One hotkey to cover your Mac screen without putting it to sleep · hn · 2026-03-23 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.51
- emu · github · 2026-09-25 · 34 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- AirCard-Injector · github · 2026-09-21 · 17 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- procyon · github · 2026-09-16 · 60 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- airlift · github · 2026-09-14 · 181 upvotes · similarity 0.49
- MacStatusBarAndDock · github · 2026-09-26 · 12 upvotes · similarity 0.48
- LockScreenRestore · github · 2026-09-27 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.47
Other launches for this product
Same idea, different domain
Nobody's really built a hardware & robotics tool for Horizontal yet.