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If a vendor provided a physical switch with which I could turn off the mic, that would be a feature that I at least would consider very attractive.
by jimhefferon 10y ago
If a vendor provided a physical switch with which I could turn off the mic, that would be a feature that I at least would consider very attractive.
- internaut 10y agoAfter Snowden I just took a pliers to my laptop and ripped out the mic and webcam. It felt great.
- awqrre 10y agoSpeakers can be used as microphones....
- mahyarm 10y agoVery very shitty microphones, so the statistical risk is significantly reduced! And the hardware might not support doing that switch in software.
- awqrre 10y agoActually, you can get pretty good quality (You could easily do speech-to-text on the produced audio)... If you want to do a simple test, plug-in your headphones into your microphone jack and start recording away. I just did it why my current cheap Amazon basics headphones and I can clearly hear my speech back. Also take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqNrLfbwAH8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqNrLfbwAH8, I think that this shows you how to record from your laptop's speakers in Windows using Audacity.
- Exras 10y agoTrue. The video: No, it shows how to 'record what you hear' (windows mixer) nothing to do with the speakers. I would claim that it is impossible to record from speakers that are connected to low impedance running output amps and record from them at the same time. So if the speakers are playing music they are not recording your sing-a-long also.
- tdurden 10y agoYour solution is more foolproof, but Micro Snitch[1] is worth looking at - same company behind Little Snitch. [1] https://www.obdev.at/products/microsnitch/index.html https://www.obdev.at/products/microsnitch/index.html
- nickpsecurity 10y agoThat's in my proposal for a secure or private phone that I drop on people trying to build one. Hopefully it will get in a successful product at some point. Need one for mic, front camera, rear camera, and radios. Might compromise to have a physical switch for mic and radios with something inside phone (eg a jumper) to turn off others. I want to be sure I can cut actual power to mic and wireless, though.
- drdaeman 10y agoIf your threat model concerns with hardware/firmware exploits, then you can't trust the physical switches unless they cut all the wires - and unless you can validate that this is what they do. Theoretically speaking, a malicious (or threatened/persuaded/forced) manufacturer may implement a non-standard way to power the supposedly disconnected component using still-connected wiring, to be used for a special occasions. /tinfoil
- nickpsecurity 10y agoYou should see my full write-up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10906999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10906999 I went into detail on what it takes on hardware side: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10468624 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10468624
- willholloway 10y agoAgreed, which is why I believe sound proof cases are the only sensible approach, and work with all current consumer devices.
- sametmax 10y agoThis is why I got a shutter on m laptop camera. It's mechanicl, and I can see it's on or off. It should be a legal obligation to provide those, for camera and mic.
- markokrajnc 10y agoRegarding "legal obligation": in some countries the government may be the second main user of your camera and mic - next to you...
- stephengillie 10y agoCommon workarounds include disconnectable devices like USB microphones, or creating your own hardware shields like electrical tape over a laptop webcam.
- jfktrey 10y agoThis is more a plug for the EFF than it is for a product, but these camera stickers have served me well and helped strike up a healthy conversation about privacy - https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set
- f_allwein 10y agomight be a future option for Google's project Ara.
- jimhefferon 10y agoI'm not seeing that. Certainly I'd expect their basic phone to come with a mic. I want a way to physically disconnect an existing mic, not to connect a new one. Am I off here (probably ..)?
- lukeschlather 10y agoThe Ara is a modular smartphone system. Since there's a clear benefit to being able to remove the audio/video/wireless modules, I would hope that they are fully replaceable and separate from the screen and CPU modules.
- f_allwein 10y agoI figured they could even make a phone without any microphone and then let users plug in a headset when they want to make calls.
- RobertoG 10y agoYes, but maybe this is too ambitious. Maybe, for now, we should be happy if we can remove the battery.