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You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off

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Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off

#181

Post by hunter2_ »

markstos wrote: post #102
georgyo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two different problem here. 1. When the mic is soft muted, information is getting sent to the conference provider which could leak information about private matters. 2. When the mic is not muted all information is definitely going to the conference provider in a way they can decrypt so they can mix it. That is to say that when using most conference software, you have already granted then access to c…

End-to-End encryption for group video and audio is now supported. I'm not sure it works or who is supporting besides Signal, but it is apparently not not required that the conference provider decrypt the streams to mix them. https://mashable.com/article/signal-end-to-end-encrypted-gro...

> it is apparently not not required that the conference provider decrypt the streams to mix them

I don't believe this could be true, and the linked article doesn't have the word "mix" anywhere. I imagine that there is no mixing happening until after decryption on the client device. Of course this means that every audio source goes to each recipient discretely, which means more bandwidth, but audio (especially near-silent moments therein) is lightweight enough for reasonably sized groups. Obviously this same n^2 scaling issue happens with the video anyway which is never mixed.

Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off

#182

Post by autoexec »

brodock wrote: post #163
joshuaissac wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Audited data privacy is a core selling point of enterprise communication systems like Slack and Zoom Is Zoom audited? Zoom had been lying for about having end-to-end encryption, for example, until they were caught by the US Federal Trade Commission. Surely, something like that would have been discovered earlier in an audit, if they were audited and the audits were worth something. They were also sending data to thi…

They also kept microfone on after closing calls, and reverted after getting caught https://thinksproutinfotech.com/news/zoom-update-fixes-macos...

Seriously, who in their right mind is using Zoom at this point? They've been "accidentally" collecting people's data, disclosing people's data to others, and have been caught lying so many times there's nearly zero chance that it's just total incompetence and even if it were, why use something made by people who are that bad at their job?

There are so many alternatives, how is it Zoom has any business at all?

Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off

#183

Post by IshKebab »

qq66 wrote: post #176

The reason they do this is to give you that little warning "You're muted" when you speak while on mute (if they weren't listening to the mic, they wouldn't know that). This is such common behavior (even with the warning!) that I think a videoconferencing app without such warnings would be virtually impossible to use.

Yeah how can you write an article about it without mentioning this obvious and innocent reason? Disingenuous clickbait.

Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off

#184

Post by e40 »

ghostpepper wrote: post #172
Sakos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it feels like most people here aren't reading the article. > The researchers then decided to see if they could use data collected on mute from that app to infer the types of activities taking place in the background. Using machine learning algorithms, they trained an activity classifier using audio from YouTube videos representing six common background activities, including cooking and eating, playing music…

"They found that all of the apps they tested occasionally gather raw audio data while mute is activated, with one popular app gathering information and delivering data to its server at the same rate regardless of whether the microphone is muted or not." The way I read that is, only one of the apps actually sends audio data to the server when the mic is muted. I'm not sure why they don't say which one, and I'm not sur…

> I'm not sure why they don't say which one

Yeah, that's very annoying.

Zoom, for example, will tell you, when you are muted and you begin to speak. It's a very nice thing.

I have a microphone (that wasn't expensive) that has a hardware mute. I use it when I really want to make sure I'm not heard, even for "speaking" detection.

Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off

#185

Post by SllX »

trelane wrote: post #174
SllX wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s something to be aware of. The first time I had ever heard of Zoom, it was long before the pandemic and it was about how Zoom was a videoconferencing app that was installing an http server (read, a security hole on the user’s computer) which remained even if you deleted the app. This was to “improve the user experience” so that it could quickly reinstall itself if you clicked one of their web widgets to start a c…

My first introduction to Zoom was their malware-like pre-install install. https://twitter.com/c1truz_/status/1244737672930824193

That was March 2020?

This is from July 2019: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/07/10/zoom

After they were called out, supposedly they fixed it, but that tweet you just linked looks like more of the same nonsense which goes right back to my original point: reputation matters. If the first could be taken as honestly naïve, the second proves it was not. Zoom doesn’t go on anything I own or control.

Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off

#186

Post by throwawayboise »

autoexec wrote: post #182
brodock wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also kept microfone on after closing calls, and reverted after getting caught https://thinksproutinfotech.com/news/zoom-update-fixes-macos...

Seriously, who in their right mind is using Zoom at this point? They've been "accidentally" collecting people's data, disclosing people's data to others, and have been caught lying so many times there's nearly zero chance that it's just total incompetence and even if it were, why use something made by people who are that bad at their job? There are so many alternatives, how is it Zoom has any business at all?

> how is it Zoom has any business at all?

Zoom was the first videoconferencing software I experienced where the first 15 minutes of the meeting was not spent with "can you see me," "can you hear me," some people falling back to dialing in to a speakerphone, and one or more out-of-band calls to various participants to troubleshoot problems.

Zoom was click a link. And it worked. Nobody cared much about anything else beyond that.

Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off

#187

Post by worik »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #114
Sakos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it feels like most people here aren't reading the article. > The researchers then decided to see if they could use data collected on mute from that app to infer the types of activities taking place in the background. Using machine learning algorithms, they trained an activity classifier using audio from YouTube videos representing six common background activities, including cooking and eating, playing music…

> How is this not extremely concerning for anybody who cares about privacy? Because they're not actually doing that? These researchers did everything they could think of to come up with the most concerning headline. I imagine someone, somewhere is going to make a video conferencing app that closes the audio interface every time you press mute. I also expect few people will use that option because it adds additional l…

> ....and I don't believe Zoom (or anyone else) is interested in whether or not I'm eating while muted.

But the detectives with a search warrant are pleased to be able to listen to your private conversations.

The secret police who do not need a warrant (or legality) are glad to be able to listen too.

The staff at Zoom are happy to spy on you, probably, for a small reward.

A proper mute removes those concerns. A mute that does not mute is inviting a lawsuit

Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off

#188

Post by throwawayboise »

worik wrote: post #187
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is this not extremely concerning for anybody who cares about privacy? Because they're not actually doing that? These researchers did everything they could think of to come up with the most concerning headline. I imagine someone, somewhere is going to make a video conferencing app that closes the audio interface every time you press mute. I also expect few people will use that option because it adds additional l…

> ....and I don't believe Zoom (or anyone else) is interested in whether or not I'm eating while muted. But the detectives with a search warrant are pleased to be able to listen to your private conversations. The secret police who do not need a warrant (or legality) are glad to be able to listen too. The staff at Zoom are happy to spy on you, probably, for a small reward. A proper mute removes those concerns. A mute…

If these are your threat models, your microphone should have a hardware mute switch, and you should at least have something opaque to cover your camera.

Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off

#189

Post by notreallyserio »

ghostpepper wrote: post #172
Sakos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it feels like most people here aren't reading the article. > The researchers then decided to see if they could use data collected on mute from that app to infer the types of activities taking place in the background. Using machine learning algorithms, they trained an activity classifier using audio from YouTube videos representing six common background activities, including cooking and eating, playing music…

"They found that all of the apps they tested occasionally gather raw audio data while mute is activated, with one popular app gathering information and delivering data to its server at the same rate regardless of whether the microphone is muted or not." The way I read that is, only one of the apps actually sends audio data to the server when the mic is muted. I'm not sure why they don't say which one, and I'm not sur…

There's a weird culture around reporting problems without reporting names. You see it a lot here on HN and occasionally in media. I'll never understand. Why bother talking about corporate misbehavior (or etc) and not back it up with the basic, minimal data you could provide?

Re: You’re muted – or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when mic is off

#190

Post by trelane »

SllX wrote: post #185
trelane wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first introduction to Zoom was their malware-like pre-install install. https://twitter.com/c1truz_/status/1244737672930824193

That was March 2020? This is from July 2019: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/07/10/zoom After they were called out, supposedly they fixed it, but that tweet you just linked looks like more of the same nonsense which goes right back to my original point: reputation matters. If the first could be taken as honestly naïve, the second proves it was not. Zoom doesn’t go on anything I own or control.

Yep. I don't trust them at all.
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