I'm lucky that camera phones are not banned in my college

Yea, something like that + the camera application shouldn't load on pressing the camera key or on opening the lens cover...I can hide the camera app from the menu using applocker(which doesnt prevent application from loading)

It should be a really convincing message too....for example, "The cameras on this device are disabled. Please contact your retailer for more info" or something like this.

so, any help?? is it really hard to disable the cameras?

How about placing a piece of black cardboard paper between the back camera and battery cover, and ducktaping over the front camera?

I already did that But that wont be enough to convince them....even though the viewfinder shows "black" in such a solution, the main goal is that the camera spplication shouldnt load....

The disadvantage of the black paper solution is that, if they decide to remove the paper, the camera comes to life....
But if the camera app doesnt open and a popup message comes up, they'll digest it....as nobody even knows what 'maemo' is.....to doubt about a script or software lock...

A trick to disable the camera program to launch:
/usr/sbin/dsmetool -k /usr/bin/camera-ui
and to re-enable :
/usr/sbin/dsmetool -t /usr/bin/camera-ui

This is what sucks about everything being scattered all over maemo.org. There's already an app, in extras-devel, that lets to make nothing pop-up at the camera lens opening. It's called cl-launcher (if you get it with apt-get), it shows up as Camera Lens Launcher in the Application Manager.

I am not a fan of sending people to extras devel as a whole, but I think for specific apps it's fine. If you're not already using devel, just add it briefly, don't update anything, download Camera Lens Launcher, and the remove the devel repository. The current cl-laucnher is pretty good and stable on my device. Some people have had a boot-loop from uninstalling it though, so it's may be a one-way install.

Then, you can set up a shell script, not my area of knowledge but I can learn it along the way and help you with it. And then find some way to run the script upon camera opening after setting the camera lens launcher to not launch the camera app upon camera opening.

One way I can think of this is setting up the script like a normal app, so that cl-launcher picks it up as an app, and then you can just set it as the preferred application to run upon lens opening in that same cl-launcher. Alternatively, you may be able to use dbus-scripts to respond to a dbus event from the lens opening. (For that matter, I would, with my minimal knowdge, look to dbus scripts to make the official-looking "Camera is disabled on this firmware; please consult your local Nokia carepoint for assistance" notice come up.)

Also use AppLocker to get rid of the of the icon in the app menu.

I'm sorry for being so desperate to get this done but I dont have much knowledge in programming for maemo.....I used lens launcher to disable lens cover.....I need to completely disable the camera app itself....could someone create a working reversible script??

like i said, you could use AppLocker to get rid of the Camera icon (to make things even more believable, find isntructions on how to edit and create new shortcuts and create one with the camera icon that actually launches something that just displays a msg about the camera not being enabled)

Currently I'm using the following solution....
I covered the camera with a black piece of paper..
Hid the camera icon with app locker...
Disabled the lens cover launcher...
used shortcutd to remap camera key.......but there is a prob here.....at times the camera app starts on pressing the camera key even though its remapped...that wont do.

any solutions?? since maemo is quite open, isnt there some way to disable the cameras altogether?? n what about the poput message which can make it more convincing?