Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.wisc.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 353 posts

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

#261

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

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

#262

Post by _n_b_ »

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…

In their actual paper[1] they identify it as Webex.

[1] https://wiscprivacy.com/papers/vca_mute.pdf

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

#265

Post by krnlpnc »

I highly recommend a basic XLR interface/mic combo.

These connect via usb and along with improved sound quality give physical volume and mute buttons.

Internal mics can then usually be disconnected from the motherboard if comfortable working inside a computer.

It shouldn't cost more than $100-200 to get started.

Why trust an open mic any more than an open webcam?

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

#266

Post by abel_ »

Gigachad wrote: post #246
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #11

> “With a camera, you can turn it off or even put your hand over it, and no matter what you do, no one can see you,” says Fawaz. “I don’t think that exists for microphones.” Maybe it doesn't exist on whatever sleek glassy slabs they're working with, but the old Thinkpad, Elitebook, and Precision workstation laptops I have around me at the moment all have dedicated microphone mute buttons (the Precision has a Fn key c…

I'm going to guess the hardware switches and key combos went away because they are too confusing for users. I remember constant complaints of "Internet doesn't work" because the wifi hardware switch was turned off. And as the saying goes, if the majority of users are using it wrong, it was designed wrong. I think Apple picked the right middle ground by making access to the mic and camera a permissions request as well…

The problem with software-controlled permissions is that nation-state actors (who have unbounded resources) can snoop on your private matters with significantly greater ease.

At least with a hardware switch, someone would have to physically intercept the air waves in the room you're in. In software, the surface for OS-level vulnerabilities is massive, and state sponsored mass surveillance just gets easier.

Sadly, this is a trade-off we have made as a society for "ergonomics".

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

#267

Post by hndamien »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #10

I feel like they're trying to make an insidious suggestion about the usage of these. IMO, there's likely a good reason - user experience. At a hardware level, grabbing the microphone can take time. Even worse that timing is inconsistent across devices, workloads, etc. That leads to a bad experience when unmuting and needing to delay your commentary. The solution to this is to keep the microphone on, but mute at a sof…

It could also be for background noise suppression when unmuted. This isn't a giant privacy concern, just be clear about what the mute button actual does for all the privacy people. Generally, when I'm on a Zoom call, I'm not expecting ridiculously high privacy, and expect my recipient and the service to have access to the conversation. If not, I would use Session.

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

#268

Post by eli »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #205
notreallyserio wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> You see it a lot here on HN and occasionally in media It makes some sense here on HN where people often post under their real names and want to think carefully before badmouthing a former employer, or otherwise picking a fight. I agree that journalists have little excuse.

this is a press release about a new study not a news article

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

#270

Post by [deleted] »

ivanhoe wrote: post #243

I actually like how Zoom can warn you that you're muted if you start talking, happens to me all the time. And that obviously wouldn't be possible without keeping the access to the mic. So the light being on is OK for me. However continuing to stream the sound to the server is a huge problem, if it's really what's happening - but we can't confirm that without knowing which app is in question...

[deleted]
Post reply on HN