I don't think this is a "security" issue as much as it's a usability or privacy issue, and I don't think it's an example of Discord being evil. For a start, it

I don't think this is a "security" issue as much as it's a usability or privacy issue, and I don't think it's an example of Discord being evil. For a start, it's not quite "on install", but after joining your first voice channel. The issue comes from the interaction of a series of reasonable steps that on the whole result in an unfortunate experience for some people. The problematic series: * By default, Discord uses voice detection to determine when you're speaking, as opposed to push-to-talk. This feature makes perfect sense. * By default, Discord configures itself to start up on login. This feature makes sense. (I personally immediately turn that option off, but I don't resent its inclusion.) * When started, Discord rejoins any voice channel you were in when Discord was last exited. This feature also makes perfect sense. [Edit: Apparently this is no longer true, and Discord will only rejoin the channel if you were active within the past 5 minutes.] Essentially the result of these design decisions in series is [edit: was] that if you install & use Discord, and fail to manually disconnect from your voice channel, next time you start your computer Discord will automatically join your last channel and broadcast any loud enough audio in the same room as your computer to the voice channel. There are a few mitigating factors, too: Discord is pretty obviously open and on the screen when this happens, and it does show your active voice channel, and it does show an activity indicator when you're broadcasting.