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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

#41

Post by prettyStandard »

Freak_NL wrote: post #24
Godel_unicode wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teams has a notice that it pops up if you're talking and on mute, and there's another for if you're not on mute but your mic is producing no signal (mic has it's own mute). I find those super helpful, personally.

I hate the latter, because I use a keyboard shortcut to mute/unmute the microphone on the OS-level. This works fine with Google Meet, but in Microsoft Teams I have to use the button in its UI because that pop-up gets in the way (also: Teams not working at all in Firefox, what's up with that?).

It's BS. I changed my user agent to Chrome and it worked just fine.

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

#42

Post by Arnavion »

Freak_NL wrote: post #24
Godel_unicode wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teams has a notice that it pops up if you're talking and on mute, and there's another for if you're not on mute but your mic is producing no signal (mic has it's own mute). I find those super helpful, personally.

I hate the latter, because I use a keyboard shortcut to mute/unmute the microphone on the OS-level. This works fine with Google Meet, but in Microsoft Teams I have to use the button in its UI because that pop-up gets in the way (also: Teams not working at all in Firefox, what's up with that?).

Yes, I have the exact same situation, and had to resort to uBlock Origin's element zapper because of how annoying that popup is. Of course it's an alphabet soup of minified CSS classes, so I assume it'll break the next time they update the UI.

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

#43

Post by vladvasiliu »

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 generally hate my HP laptops' hardware, but this is one of the features that I really love and wish more computers had.

On the one I'm typing this on, the key actually sends a standard Media Mute signal, that can be used under Linux (complete with the LED coming on when it's muted). Ironically, this needs special drivers under Windows.

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

#44

Post by lxgr »

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…

On my Thinkpad, this was still just interpreted as an OS-level keyboard shortcut, as far as I remember.

A solution that actually (logically if not physically) deactivates any built-in microphone would arguably be at least as important as a "webcam shield".

Apple does this for the built-in microphone for their newer laptops, but that benefit is immediately negated when e.g. connecting a USB webcam that also contains a microphone.

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

#45

Post by bqmjjx0kac »

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…

Do these mute buttons actually hardware-mute the mic or do they send a keycode to the OS?

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

#46

Post by David »

frutiger wrote: post #21
somehnacct3757 wrote: post #2

Google Meet at least it's very obvious to tell they do this because if you talk while muted, they will show a pop-up saying that you're talking but you're muted. Whether this functionality is justification for more nefarious data usage remains to be seen.

Couldn’t this be done by using some ML on the video stream?

That's way more computationally expensive and only available if the camera is on (and the user's mouth is visible).

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

#48

Post by schroeding »

qiskit wrote: post #13

Isn't it common knowledge by now that cameras and microphones are still "on" even if you disable it at the software level? Zuckerburg has been taping webcam/microphones/etc for a while now. Though being the CEO of a major corporation requires you take privacy more seriously. https://www.macworld.com/article/228326/mic-drop-how-to-keep...

Probably not in the general population, I would guess from my friends and family. Or they just don't care, also possible. ^^

Even those that used to tape over webcams (some started doing so after the Snowden revelations in '13) gave up on that during the pandemic, due to video call after video call and "webcam taping fatigue". Webcam shutters in non-business laptops would be great. :D

Audio is another beast and way harder to solve, as there is no tape or (cheap) shutter that can really block a microphone, and physical disconnects are probably not a feature in most customers eyes, as they have no optical feedback, like webcam shutters. So they could, to most people, maybe only be a source of "why does my audio not work - ah, the stupid button" frustration. :/

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

#49

Post by rom1v »

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 always use the key mute button on the Thinkpad, but anyway it can be muted in the system menu easily (at least in XFCE).

(In fact, I just checked in Gnome, the menu does not expose microphone volume, it's only available from the settings window.)

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

#50

Post by ortusdux »

I am generally against new government regulations, but I would most likely support a law that requires all microphone and camera elements have an LED hard-wired into the power wire/trace. If the sensor is powered, the user should be able to tell.
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