24 ms·

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

478 points by sizzle 5y ago

mattacular 5y ago
The most unsurprising thing ever. Hardware switch would be the only way to be sure. (Apparently modern macbooks do hardware disable the mic and camera when the lid is shut)
racl101 5y ago
Of coooourse they are. Cause why should we trust these companies to be honest?
vzaliva 5y ago
That answer it simple: HARDWARE SWITCHES. My ThinkPad already has physical camera shutter door. All I need now is physical mic on/off switch.
somehnacct3757 5y ago
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.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  I have to cough a lot, so I have a headset with a flip-to-mute mic. As a result, I don't generally use in-software mute effects. :/
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    In Google Meet, the UI will change to show that it thinks you have hardware muted the microphone and so "unmuting" the Meet software won't help. I think it's a red ! mark or similar. All my USB headsets have hardware mute.
- frutiger 5y ago
  Couldn’t this be done by using some ML on the video stream?
  - knorker 5y ago
    Probably the user experience would not be as good, though, since it'd be an audio-only feature that only works if you've enabled video.
    - brimble 5y ago
      The solution is obvious: have the camera watch you even when it's "off". :-)
      - rzzzt 5y ago
        That is for the "You are talking, but others can't see your face" notification.
        kyleplum 5y ago
        "We can see that you are talking. Would you like others in the meeting to see you as well?"
  - David 5y ago
    That's way more computationally expensive and only available if the camera is on (and the user's mouth is visible).
    - frutiger 5y ago
      That’s true. I’ve never tried it with the camera off.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    - Is device X receiving input vs - Training models, wasting years of CPU cycle world wide, &c. For such a dumb feature... I just don't see the point
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  Once I was on Teams meeting and someone exclaimed “We can see your screen, systemvoltage!”. Sure as hell, I wasn’t sharing anything. Thankfully I wasn’t browsing HN, but writing code. These things implemented somewhere in the middle of the stack seems dangerous. I much more prefer a slider switch. Preferably made from real atoms and molecules.
  - subpixel 5y ago
    Not long ago I dialed into a 100+ person, 3+ hour long quarterly planning type call. It was a video call, but I had to be in the car for part of the time so I dialed in. After sitting through over an hour, including the part I thought was essential to my team, I jumped off the call and proceeded to explain the shit show to my fellow passengers for 15m or so. When I got to my destination and pulled out my phone I discovered _I had never hung up_ - I was on the line the whole time. I had said some things that you should never say about your employer within their earshot and expect to remain in their employ. After some nauseating minutes I realized I had been saved by the auto-mute feature. When a call has over x participants, everyone is muted until they take their mic off of mute. I am much more careful now about these things, bc I don't expect to get that lucky again.
    - ketzo 5y ago
      Holy shit, I cannot imagine the stomach drop when you pulled that phone out. This is one of my biggest anxieties. Sheesh.
    - hu3 5y ago
      I love Discord for some usecases but a while ago I pressed the mute button to talk to my brother sitting next to me and my discord friend made a joke about what I said while muted. I double-checked Discord and the mic icon was displaying as muted but I could still talk to my friend regardless.
    - systemvoltage 5y ago
      Yes, be careful. You were lucky. Also, bloated apps lie to you and UIs are buggy, what you see in the UI may not be the case. I now disabled screensharing in MacOS privacy settings for all apps unless I am explicitly sharing.
- gwbas1c 5y ago
  Zoom also has a similar popup. It's quite useful, too. > “It turns out, in the vast majority of cases, when you mute yourself, these apps do not give up access to the microphone,” says Fawaz. “And that’s a problem. When you’re muted, people don’t expect these apps to collect data.” I wouldn't assume that's nefarious
wlesieutre 5y ago
I can't speak to all videoconferencing software, but Zoom does this to throw up a "Hey nobody can hear you, did you mean to unmute?" banner
- metadat 5y ago
  What about those cases where you wish you'd been muted? "Hey everyone can hear you, did you want me to erase the last 5 seconds from their memory?" would be a nice feature. Facepalm.
  - AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
    There's a Zoom setting to Mute Attendees Upon Entry. I make that my default for every meeting. Some people complain, but I've had way too many people join and not realize their mic is live, so the meeting is interrupted by random dude shouting at his children to stop making noise, etc. Or even better, when the meeting tool has a "Call me at this number" tool, but does not require validation before bridging the audio. So instead the CEO's All-Hands PowerPoint presentation is interrupted by that one guy who tried to have Zoom/WebEx/GoToMeeting call his cellphone, but the call goes to his voicemail instead and the voicemail audio plays over the (recorded) conference. Fun times. I've seen it happen multiple times.
    - shultays 5y ago
      Huh, isn't this the default behavior? I never set that and all meetings I attended mutes me by default
      - NathanielK 5y ago
        Business users might get different defaults from their admin.
theshrike79 5y ago
Am I the only one who actually likes this feature? Zoom prints out a huge full screen notification of "you are muted press X+Y to unmute". Very rarely people speak on Zoom while they are muted. Now if someone would add the reverse of "your mic seems to be sending nonsense crap and everyone can hear it, maybe you should mute yourself?"
kurthr 5y ago
Have a mute button on your microphone and cover for your camera. Something you can see is engaged (e.g. a light goes on/off). Some laptops now have switches that disconnect them from USB... which can be a different kind of pain, if there are other devices that may be connected to.
- brimble 5y ago
  Lots of the mutes for external mics still do it in software. The software may run on the microphone itself and not the host computer, but still. I don't trust it. Give me something that interrupts a circuit. Many laptops (notably including MacBooks) can be damaged by even fairly thin camera covers. Which sucks, because they should very obviously be standard.
  - chipotle_coyote 5y ago
    Most MacBooks are also designed so the camera “on” light is impossible to disable in software.
    - brimble 5y ago
      Some hardware up there must be active and sending data even when the light's not on. It's how they make the (excellent, can hardly live without it now that I'm used to it) automatic monitor color temp adjustment work, AFAIK. Though maybe that's a separate sensor from the camera proper.
      - AnonC 5y ago
        That’s certainly a different sensor, called the ambient light sensor.
      - kayodelycaon 5y ago
        The camera and microphones are run through the T2 security chip. Also, there's a separate ambient light sensor.
spullara 5y ago
Tell me you don't understand how things work without telling me don't understand how things work. /s All the apps tell you that you are muted when you are trying to talk while muted. How do they think they do that?
brimble 5y ago
If I could pick one hardware feature that I'd love on all my i-devices and laptops, it'd be physical shut-off switches for the mic and camera(s). Or, in the camera's case, maybe a cover, since that way you're less likely to have the camera "turned on" without realizing it. [EDIT] and by "physical" I mean "actually breaks a circuit when off"
- derbOac 5y ago
  https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/ I haven't used it and have no connection to them but think they're onto something in their product design.
SkyPuncher 5y ago
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 software level. This way the mic is always hot and ready to relay audio as fast as the software can switch. I'd be somewhat willing to bet continue to stream audio is also a quality assurance mechanism. Some networks will shape traffic according to load. A quick jump in bandwidth can introduce unexpected jitter and latency. By continuing to stream audio (but not necessarily process or re-transmit), video conferencing can better ensure an un-interupted experience. ---- With that being said, if you really care about privacy, consider getting a hardware mute microphone.
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  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.
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    Yeah, Meet does the same thing. I find it annoying, because I am muted because the kids are making a bunch of noise, not because I am trying to talk. I am muting because I don't want the sound in my room broadcasted... if it was silent, I wouldn't have to mute!
    - UncleMeat 5y ago
      In like 25% of my meetings, somebody is accidentally muted while they are trying to speak. The popup speeds up the process of them unmuting.
      - BlargMcLarg 5y ago
        I still don't know how professionals keep making this mistake. Having used Discord for so many years, this has never been a problem aside from a select few people who had very clear reason to mute themselves. Meanwhile in professional settings, people seem to be falling for this over and over while lacking the common curtesy of not letting random environmental noise bleed through (read: their mics are barely ever turned off). Not to mention push-to-talk has solved this issue for almost a few decades now.
LeifCarrotson 5y ago
> “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 combo, the others have physical buttons that do nothing but mute the microphone) that I reach for before trying to mouse over to a different mute button for a particular videoconferencing app.
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  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.
- lxgr 5y ago
  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.
  - remram 5y ago
    Yes those mute lights have been stuck on "lit" (= "mute") on my Windows forever, both the mic and speaker lights. However recording and playback work fine, the lights just stay on. Very annoying, a little unsettling. My daily driver is Ubuntu where both lights work fine, on the same machine (dual boot). But now I know not to trust them. Lenovo ThinkPad P51
  - SllX 5y ago
    Check out if you can disable the mic in Audio MIDI Setup on Mac OS X. I tend to use the built in webcam so I’ve never looked on an external one, but in theory you should be able to selectively disable the input/output of any device via its interface. I do this to disable the mic on Work equipment and use my own AirPods as the mic input.
uslic001 5y ago
Use a Mute Me device. https://muteme.com/ https://muteme.com/
- lxgr 5y ago
  This seems to just toggle the video conferencing software's native "mute" function, which is exactly the scope of this article. How would that help here?
qiskit 5y ago
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-snoops-from-listening-to-your-laptops-microphone.html https://www.macworld.com/article/228326/mic-drop-how-to-keep...
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > being the CEO of a major corporation requires you take privacy more seriously My privacy is as valuable to me.
- schroeding 5y ago
  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. :/
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  Zuckerberg is an attractive enough target that someone would go to the trouble of trying to compromise his MBP's iSight firmware (and such compromises have been proven to be possible, and pretty easy in pre-T2 macs.) The tape, however, is probably about really making completely sure he doesn't accidentally show video on a call or videoconference when he didn't mean to. Video could easily reveal even his approximate location (via shadows and such), and that could potentially lead to deriving, say, that he's working on an acquisition or talks with another company, leading to stock manipulation/speculation and so on.
- threeseed 5y ago
hammock 5y ago
I always noticed that the Mac version of Zoom stays open in the background rather than closing after you finish a meeting. Very sus. I have to manually close out the app.
bartread 5y ago
Yes, I think we know this: how else do they think it's possible for Teams (or other videoconferencing app) to warn you that you're muted when you start talking whilst muted without the mic being switched on? I'm not saying there's definitely not anything sinister happening here in the case of every videoconferencing app, but there are legitimate reasons for leaving the mic on that are about improving user experience, not spying on you.
EGreg 5y ago
My team and I built some of the world's most decentralized videoconferencing software, using WebRTC. You can try it on https://yang2020.app/meeting https://yang2020.app/meeting for example ... but it's available in all of our apps, including for teachers, etc. Since a major point of our platform (qbix.com/platform) is to avoid relying on external third parties, that meant we built a version of livestreaming that is completely peer-to-peer. Imagine a giant tree at whose root are the WebRTC participants "on stage", the ones getting their feed directly get the least lag, and then people just join different parts of the tree (and ask to rejoin if the parent node dropped out or is too slow). Here is what we learned: 1. On some platforms, it's hard to turn off the audio listening, because you can't turn it back on later. So you have to just disconnect the audio stream going out, but it's still being captured. 2. When someone is "muted" in a chat, what this really means in P2P setups is that the peers have to "respect this setting" and simply ignore the audio/video stream that the one muted is sending. 3. Sometimes, it's very valuable from a business standpoint to grab the incoming video, and do eye recognition and face tracking (yes we support all that too, in our platform, it's available in Javascript). So a teacher can, for example, take attendance and know which students are no longer present or engaged, without actually seeing their feed. All of it is done on the client side of the student, and with their consent. Each of 1, 2, 3 can lead to a determined "hacker" kid making it seem like they're listening when they're not, etc. But there are some cool tricks to make it really hard and expensive to pull off perfectly. We use this, for example, to award credits to people for completing educational materials or listening to a show, as with https://ftl.fm https://ftl.fm
- sizzle 5y ago
  Might want to hire some marketing and product branding agency folks to make sure you are branding this in a way that seems safe and trustworthy, so people will try it out and you can increase engagement and adoption.
  - EGreg 5y ago
    That sounds like a great idea, but how much would it cost? We are kind of strapped for cash.
- 5y ago
KindAndFriendly 5y ago
I'm fine that the app locally still processes the audio stream - even if I'm muted - to show me a warning if I start talking while muted etc. The alarming part in the article is that at least one app would still send the audio stream _to the server_ while being muted. Any mentioning which "popular app" that is?
lxgr 5y ago
At least as far as not giving up microphone access is concerned, when using Bluetooth headphones, this is very much desirable: Deactivating the microphone usually is seen as a signal by the OS to switch Bluetooth headphones from two-way conferencing mode (low latency, mediocre quality) back to "music" mode (high latency, good quality). This usually takes 2-3 seconds and disrupts all sound being played (most notably other people talking in the meeting). I wouldn't want that to happen every time I mute myself. Continuing to send data to the conferencing bridge is indeed quite shady. Hopefully this would just be (encrypted) silence or comfort noise parameters, which can be useful to e.g. keep NAT mappings alive.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  I’ve often used Bluetooth headphones with a physical microphone switch (boom arm up) and there is never any disruption to the audio output.
dekhn 5y ago
This is entirely in line with my understanding of how these products should work.
29athrowaway 5y ago
Use a microphone with an hardware switch. Problem solved.
lighthazard 5y ago
The lack of a physical button to control camera and microphone access is really annoying. At least with a camera, I can cover up with a patch but I can't do anything about my microphone.
ortusdux 5y ago
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.
- m463 5y ago
  The case where the school administrator was spying on kids - the macbook light would quickly turn on and then off and you had to look carefully to see it.
anon946 5y ago
It's obvious that Zoom is listening, because if I try to speak when I'm muted, it tells me that I'm muted.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
I always use my browser instead of these native apps precisely so I can deny microphone permission whenever I want it muted.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  It would be nice if you could also have this level of control over native apps.
  - akira2501 5y ago
    Once you use something like the Jack Audio Connection Kit it's hard to understand why a user-controllable system-wide audio graph isn't just the default thing baked into the kernel API. I have full control over all apps. It involved some extra effort creating a fake ALSA device that sends/receives from JACK, but once it's in place, all audio connections become points you can easily make and break in the graph.
fooblat 5y ago
Is this is really important to you there is at least one solution: Wearable Microphone Jamming[0] 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28885739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28885739
NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
Purism's laptops (and cell phone) all include hardware kill-switches for mic and webcam (and also the radios, bluetooth and wifi) https://puri.sm/ https://puri.sm/
Findecanor 5y ago
Years ago, an engineer working in videoconferencing told me that the algorithm they used for avoiding feedback loops involved listening at how it comes out at the other end. I suppose that perhaps there could be audible artefacts when muting/unmuting if these algorithms didn't continuously do this.
kelahcim 5y ago
This is the exact reason that made me develop MuteMyMic. I was really fed up with all these apps that alter input volume behind your back. Now, I can at least know that somebody is playing nasty as MMM beeps whenever mic's volume was changed. This is not an advertisement ;) I no longer actively develop this app, however, I am still a happy user ;)
giantg2 5y ago
“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.” Some microphones have physical switches. Turn off your internal laptop microphone and only use a mic with a switch.
dundarious 5y ago
The actual study appears to be here: https://wiscprivacy.com/publication/vca_mute/ https://wiscprivacy.com/publication/vca_mute/ The findings are largely reassuring, to be honest: > 1. Continuously sampling audio from the microphone: apps stream data from the microphone in the same way as they would if they were not muted. Webex is the only VCA that continuously samples the microphone while the user is muted. In this mode, the microphone status indicator from an operating system remains continuously illuminated. > 2. Audio data stream is accessible but not accessed: apps have permissions to sample the microphone and read data; but instead of reading raw bytes they only check the microphone’s status flags: silent, data discontinuity, and timestamp error. We assume that the VCAs, like Zoom, are primarily interested in the silent flag to tell if a user is talking while the software mute is active. In this mode, apps do not read a continuous real-time stream of data in the same way as they would while unmuted. Most Windows and macOS native apps can check if a users is talking even while muted but do not continuously sample audio in the same way as they would while unmuted. In this mode, the microphone status indicator in Windows and macOS remains continuously illuminated, reporting that the app has access to the microphone. We found that applications in this state do not show any evidence of raw audio data being accessed through the API. > 3. Software mute: apps instruct the microphone driver to completely cut off microphone data. All of the web-based apps we studied used the browser’s software mute feature. In this mode, the microphone status indicator in the browser goes away when the app is muted, indicating that the app is not accessing the microphone. > The notable exceptions to these trends are the Microsoft VCAs (Teams and Skype) and Cisco Webex. Microsoft VCAs are much more difficult to trace because they do not use the standard Windows userland API. Instead, they directly make calls to the operating system. Since the Windows syscall interface is undocumented, we could not determine how Teams and Skype use microphone data when muted. More interestingly, we observe that Cisco Webex — unlike the rest of the Windows native VCAs — continuously accesses the microphone while muted. I still unplug my desktop's external camera and microphone when not in use (9" outty-inny cables plugged into my monitor so those ports are accessible), and use hardware buttons (that may really be implemented in software, unfortunately) to mute during calls, and can just flick the camera to point at the ceiling. Will be more of a concern when I'm back to laptop living.
QuikAccount 5y ago
I always use the mute switch on my microphone and not the mute switch in software.
jmull 5y ago
I like the feature of my video conferencing software that popups up a helpful overlay when I start speaking while on mute. It lets me know I'm muted in case I don't intend to be and reminds me I can press and hold space to temporarily unmute. Obviously it's listening white muted to do this, but it seems legit.
markstos 5y ago
Quit hoping that software providers change in this regard and demand hardware with physical microphone kill switches. The Framework laptop provides an example of a high quality, repairable laptop with physical kill switches for the mic and camera. I love the UX of "Oops, it looks like you are talking but you are muted" and I also value privacy. The physical kill switch provides a true "mute button" when it's needed.
- cphoover 5y ago
  I love my framework... But be careful If taking out the battery. The battery connector socket on the mother board is extremely fragile. I learned that when I bent the pins in the socket when reattaching the battery...
Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
As a Deaf person, the notification annoyed the heck out of me and there are not even an option to disable the notification. I muted my mic because I am Deaf and I don't use my voice to communicate with my fellow Deaf friends over Zoom/Teams. And there is no option to disable Zoom joining-room audio (the one that when you join the room, Zoom present the option to ask which microphone you want to enable). Why would I need to enable the microphone if I am signing to my Deaf boss? Deaf communities have major grief with those notifications. At least, I can disable the microphone access in my macOS and Zoom won't complain. However disabling mic permission in iPadOS will make Zoom to whine about it. Every time I join a meeting, it will let me know that the microphone access is disabled and "kindly" asked me to enable it. In Windows, I can deny the microphone access to Zoom in the Windows setting, however for some reason that made Zoom to crash.
- gwbas1c 5y ago
  Then why mute yourself? Even more interesting: Why do you prefer to sign over video instead of typing? Are there forms of expression that are more natural that way?
  - Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
    > Then why mute yourself? Why not? The only sound they will find is my dogs barking, doors slamming (I lives in apartment), my partner talking in his phone, all of that background noise. Why participants should be subjected to those noise and why Zoom need to know the noises? > Why do you prefer to sign over video instead of typing? Are there forms of expression that are more natural that way? We signs because Signed Languages is our modality and the only form of expression in Deaf communities. There are no written sign language or spoken sign language. Using sign language is natural for us to use. We avoid using typing because it is not a true representation of the community, we don't have same proficiency of written/spoken languages as you and others. So to them, it looks like we are from a call center in India with broken English.
    - 10u152 5y ago
mvkel 5y ago
People will always choose convenience over security
zaphod12 5y ago
Google Meet certainly stays on, but does not try to pretend it doesn't. Feature, not a bug. And this is google, who you know has no compunctions about data collection. The microphone volume icon continues to show movement based on noise from your microphone and it will even prompt you if it thinks you're speaking to unmute yourself.
mathematicaster 5y ago
Anybody knows what Discord behaviour is with respect to muting?
mdoms 5y ago
Google Meet will pop up a little "you're muted - are you trying to speak" bubble if it hears noise through your mic while you're muted. So obviously it's still accessing the mic. I don't see this as a big deal.
someotherperson 5y ago
I use this[0] on Mac OS and it works extremely well. It turns the mic off at the system level. Holding down a key acts as push to talk and triple-pressing the key locks it on. [0] https://github.com/yulrizka/osx-push-to-talk https://github.com/yulrizka/osx-push-to-talk
sam1r 5y ago
This article fails to recognize the value (in a Ui perspective) for detecting surrounding audio when you are in mute. I do find it useful to know I tried to speak, and the audio bars visually indicate that I just spoke. Hence the need for audio listening even if you are on mute.
jacobsenscott 5y ago
It's always been risky to trust the mute button, even before zoom etc. The rules have been the same for at least 30 years. Never send an email or other type of text message you don't want the whole world to see. Never say anything on a conference call, even when muted, you wouldn't say when not muted. Ethically any audio chat software shouldn't transmit any audio it receives when muted. The "hey, you are muted" notifications can all be done client side and don't need any server side support. But ethics is not a factor in the design of any enterprise office software.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  It's been mentioned a few times in this thread, but it looks like they all have a legitimate reason for this which is making sure the unmute button is instant. Because having the first few words of your talking get through is more important than a theoretical privacy issue to most users.
  - jacobsenscott 5y ago
    I agree with that. But there is no reason for them to transmit any data over the network while "soft muted".
CalRobert 5y ago
One nice thing about the frame.work laptop is a hardware mic privacy switch built right in to the screen.
someweirdperson 5y ago
With some poor power saving implementations keeping the mike on can make sense. Switching the power back on when reactivating the mike may cause noticable stutter. An application with limited permissions might not be able to turn the mike off without dropping the device to some low power state. Being in a conference, muted, hearing something that requires action, hitting "unmute", freeze for a second... bad thing. A hardware switch would be the better option. But then people wanting to hear you cannot inform you about still being muted.
selykg 5y ago
I use Shush on my Mac to have a push to talk button that's independent of the app. That way I can leave the app unmuted if I plan to talk at all, and can always use the same button.
knbrlo 5y ago
Assuming the app that's using the microphone would still need to have hardware access to be able to switch back on when someone unmutes themselves, couldn't there be a higher level API within the OS that still allowed hardware access but wouldn't allow input through so that the audio couldn't be captured in third party apps? Seems like this is an OS issue that Microsoft, Apple and Linux team need to work on if that isn't already the case.
kazinator 5y ago
Use a headset with a hardware mute button.
- gruturo 5y ago
  I've been trying to buy one (bluetooth). I'm on headset #3, advertised as having a mute button, like the previous 2, which does absolutely nothing, like the previous 2. I'd gladly shell out 100 bucks for a bluetooth headset with a real mute button, which just cuts off the mic, instead of telling the PC to do something (which the PC apparently won't do without custom drivers, which I can't install on my company-issued laptop, and which I wouldn't trust either). Bonus if it's 1 ear only, I find those (esp. the ones with the arc overhead) more comfortable in long sessions, and my job has a lot of those. Can anyone point me at one known to actually work? Thanks!
NathanielK 5y ago
Zoom is really bad for this. On my old thinkpad there is a "mute" button on the keyboard. When you press it, it mutes the mic in windows sound settings and turns an indicator light. I've had Zoom un-mute the mic itself with not notification to the user and the "mute" led even stayed on. In old version of Zoom, the host could unmute you without your consent and this would unmute the mic at the system level too. I resorted to disabling the microphone in the Device Manager so it would show up as unplugged instead. This also disables the popup other commentors mentioned. It looks like newer versions have unmute-consen which hopefully fix it, but the original behaviour made me feel uneasy and not trust Zoom.
paxys 5y ago
They are confusing the concepts of an app level vs OS level mute. If the app itself paints a mute button, of course there's no guarantee that it will do what it says. You have to trust the developers at their word, that they are actually ditching the audio feed coming into their application. Some apps even use the audio to provide useful functionality (like a "you are speaking while muted" notification). If you are really concerned about it, mute the app from system controls instead.
- soheil 5y ago
  Why wouldn’t said app also be able to programmatically unmute at the os-level?
  - oauea 5y ago
    It could, but you'll notice and then uninstall that app.
    - soheil 5y ago
      Most OS's don't very visibly indicate whether the mic is muted or not, only the speakers.
oauea 5y ago
I am, because I ask my operating system to mute the microphone.
winternett 5y ago
Nothing beats black electrical tape that you can easily put over microphones and cameras when you don't want them to be live... It's going to really be the easiest and most reliable way to ensure a decent level of privacy moving forward. I've been using it for ages now.
- fsflover 5y ago
  For microphones it may not work well. I prefer hardware kill switches on my Librem 15.
jug 5y ago
Attention: The title of this submission has been editorialized by removing the "may" from "may listen", which changes the claim completely.
qq66 5y ago
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.
- asp_hornet 5y ago
  The article specifically states in a number of these apps the data is hitting the network. You don’t need to do that for what you describe. Reduced latency after unmute is probably the better explanation. > They used runtime binary analysis tools to trace raw audio in popular videoconferencing applications as the audio traveled from the app to the computer audio driver and then to the network while the app was muted. > 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.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Yeah how can you write an article about it without mentioning this obvious and innocent reason? Disingenuous clickbait.
Damogran6 5y ago
I just want to make sure the people in the meeting don't hear the toilet flush.
axegon_ 5y ago
I use a hardware switch, albeit for a different reason: I hate the beeping sounds all videoconferencing apps make when you mute/unmute yourself. I guess a good call overall.
conradev 5y ago
This is something that should be solved at the operating system level. macOS has an orange indicator light when the microphone is active, and Control Center shows which app is using it. Platforms are responsible for controlling access to the microphone, so they should let users know when it is active, too.
parentheses 5y ago
Easily explained by Zoom's "You seem to be talking, you're muted" message.
randStr_ 5y ago
I use the hardware button to mute. My headphone has a mute button right on the cord. It's fast and easy and always within reach. If that's not available, I use the operating system to mute. My Linux systems have a mic icon on the top bar. I believe it's easy to do in Windows also. I don't know about mac.
alistairSH 5y ago
This reads like the app is open and active and muted within the app? So the answer is to close the app if you want privacy? Seems kind of obvious to me.
throwawayHN378 5y ago
I’m less concerned about privacy and more concerned about a bug in their code causing my microphone to say mute but not mute
teen 5y ago
There are other reasons to capture the mic (for example, to display a message to you that you are speaking while muted). Or to test the audio settings prior to unmuting yourself in the meeting.
smugma 5y ago
One valid use case for this is for the software to detect when you're speaking while on mute and notify you that "you're on mute". Maybe I dreamed it up, but I thought I've seen this before (WebEx?). I could imagine a soft-mute feature where you're on mute when you're not talking (perhaps to keep down on background noise) but if your app detects that you're actively talking, it will unmute you. It might lose the first word or two that you say but could be effective. I could also see this going horribly awry when someone thinks they are on mute rather than soft mute and say something Biden-esque, like "what a stupid son of a bitch".
- gwinsyth 5y ago
  MS Teams has the "you're on mute" notification.
WalterBright 5y ago
That's why I have a powered mike with a physical switch. The web cam has a hinged lense cover. The background picture is of the office, taken from the exact POV of the web cam, when it was clean. That way it is not necessary to straighten out the office before video conferencing. It also causes the weird behavior of looking like I am "beaming in" to the office from my orbiting starship :-) Or maybe it's just a glitch in the simulation of myself that has long since replaced me.
joeman1000 5y ago
This is why I go to sound preferences in my OS and turn my mic input level to 0.
mbostleman 5y ago
If they don't listen when your mic is off how are they going to remind you that you're talking but you forgot to unmute?
dr_dshiv 5y ago
flush
jrochkind1 5y ago
If you make a noise while muted, Zoom pop up a dialog saying something like "warning, you're muted!" So that was kind of a giveaway that zoom is accessing the mic when muted, not really a secret.
blunte 5y ago
What's not clear to me is whether other participants of the meeting are aware of my sound while my mic is "muted". I'm far less concerned about the videoconference system hearing me than my other meeting participants. This morning during a boring company-wide meeting I accidentally fell asleep (it was an early morning meeting and I was still in bed!) All that said, it should really be a right of consumers that audio and video capture devices have a physical on/off switch.
ivanhoe 5y ago
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 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pixl97 5y ago
  Your not muted at an operating system level, your muted at an application level when you hit the zoom mute button. I have a switch on my headset I use to mute at a hardware level on top of the software mute button.
wipi 5y ago
Hello! I am one of the authors of the paper in this thread. You can find the paper here: https://wiscprivacy.com/papers/vca_mute.pdf https://wiscprivacy.com/papers/vca_mute.pdf. I can also answer any questions you have about the research.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
Not surprised.. Especially with evil software companies like zoom. I always switch off on my mike itself. Better.
beebeepka 5y ago
I always get a good chuckle out of burping and farting while on "mute" because I have seen the traffic. No expectations of privacy should be the norm when you have mics and cameras. In fact, cameras are easy to handle. Just cover it with something and you're done. Nice continue to listen even if you block them
dmtroyer 5y ago
PSA: I learned again recently that by default on a new installion, Slack does not mute your audio when connecting to a meeting.
ShakataGaNai 5y ago
This is a mountain out of a mole hill. All of the video conference apps I've been on (like Zoom and Teams) are very clear that they don't give up the mic when they mute. They are simply not sending your audio. The apps even give you a helpful message on screen when you make noise but are muted. The "Trying to talk? You're muted!" type of message. How else would they get that other than to be monitoring the mic constantly? Also there is a big difference between having the mic, listening for consistent sound above a certain level.... and actually doing something with it.
thentherewere2 5y ago
How else would they check for and suggest "You may be muted"?
aldebran 5y ago
I work on Video conferencing apps as a PM. There’s a very simple reason this is done - to detect if the user is speaking while muted and if so to let them know. That’s it. At least for the one I’m building. :D
krnlpnc 5y ago
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?
- sundvor 5y ago
  Yep! I have an older Steinberg UR22; quality is awesome. Mine doesn't have mute buttons, but with my Streamdeck I can mute/unmute the input sources very easily.
whateveracct 5y ago
This is why I love being able to mute with a click in my KDE taskbar.
yakytaky 5y ago
I make it a habit to utilize dial-in numbers for conference software and disable mic inputs on my computer for this reason. There’s no guarantee that my phone doesn’t listen in while I’m muted, but I feel like it’s a better choice. There is a bit of audio quality loss, but on the flip side it isn’t as much of a battle over bandwidth while streaming video, sharing my screen, and broadcasting on audio.
sitting_duck 5y ago
Fixed for BBB with 2.2.4 but it still consumes upload bandwidth comparable to a recording open microphone. https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/releases/tag/v2.2.24 https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/releases/tag/...
bspear 5y ago
Always thought of muting as the other party not hearing what I say, not that the app wasn't listening. It's running after all. Assume it's listening to everything
xvilka 5y ago
Just use opensource and ditch all commercial apps of this kind: 1. Jitsi (sadly, it's Java though) https://jitsi.org/ https://jitsi.org/ 2. Element (sadly, it's Electron though) https://element.io/ https://element.io/ 3. BigBlueButton https://bigbluebutton.org/ https://bigbluebutton.org/ 4. Jami https://jami.net/ https://jami.net/
haspre 5y ago
no shit sherlock! that's why Teams is able to tell you that you are muted while talking. welcome
xiwenc 5y ago
What bothers me a lot sometimes is that i fear there is a bug in the software mute. Specially when this is implemented separately by each VC software. The bug that even if you think you are muted, the software still fed the audio to the audience. The reason i’m raising this is knowing software is very complicated nowadays and are more susceptible for bugs. The other day my MS teams froze. I closed the app and tried to open it again. That didn’t work. It felt like i merrily closed the frontend while the backend was stuck. I remember the days a window was a task, closing that window terminates the task. These days are over. Somehow these softwares are made so complicated, not sure for what reason, that the likelihood of introducing bugs is increased. So taking this frontend-backend example. Imagine the mute button just sends the command to backend for mute but the backend failed to do so. And the frontend assumed all was fine. The user would have been misinformed. I would use the (hardware) button that stops the audio at the microphone level all the time.
habosa 5y ago
If you're on a Mac, use Shush [0] to give yourself global mute control with a single keypress. You can set it on push-to-talk mode or push-to-silence mode, both are extremely useful. I have mine set to the Fn key and leave in PTT mode most of the time. 0: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shush-microphone-manager/id496437906?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shush-microphone-manager/id496...
hans_castorp 5y ago
It's one of the reasons I have a headset with a mechanical switch to turn off the microphone.
- swarnie 5y ago
  Batch file on the desktop to disable the devices On a call - "We're live" - always assume the camera and mic are hot Off a call - "Its dead Jim"
beermonster 5y ago
I use objective-see’s app Oversight [1] for MacOS. OverSight monitors a mac's mic and webcam, alerting the user when the internal mic is activated, or whenever a process accesses the webcam. Have found it very useful whilst using videoconferencing apps. [1] https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html
wodenokoto 5y ago
They really need to keep reading mike input. When you start talking on mute, it is nice that the app reminds you that you are mute (although they could do better voice detection) I wished that the whole conference app would be red on mute and green on unmute and would pulse (in both states) to the audio input level. Is my keyboard typing loud? Show me that I’m sending loud noises to all my peers. Make it dead obvious that I’m talking to a muted mike.
VariableStar 5y ago
Sometimes the best security is to go low-tech. At the risk of not being original, I vote for a mechanical/physical hardware switch for microphone, and a manual lid/lock for the camera (or chewing gum, but it will leave marks :-) )
usrbinbash 5y ago
> “And that’s a problem. When you’re muted, people don’t expect these apps to collect data.” The lesson here for the user: Don't rely on the software. Mute at the hardware level (many headsets have a button for that), or at the OS level (many keyboards have a button for that).
vipulb334 5y ago
greyhair 5y ago
I have two different headsets I use for conferencing, on a USB with a mid-cable control for volume and mute, and a BT headset with physical buttons on the ear cups. I have messed with both, under Linux and Windows 10, and when they are muted, they are really muted. I have not disassembled them, I am certain that the USB HID is inside the mid cable control unit, but the headsets themselves must be muting the audio stream. If you use the mute button on the conferencing app? Then I assume all bets are off, but with controls on an external headset, I would assume all behave similarly.
pahae 5y ago
This is one of the reasons I bought a USB hub were I can switch connected devices off and on (disconnects their power lines). If you're lazy like me you can plug another USB hub into one of the ports so that can switch multiple devices (webcam and mic) with one button press instead of two :) Searching for "usb hub power switch" should get you a few hits.
dbbk 5y ago
I once had a Slack call where I muted my mic, the UI updated to show it was muted... And my mic was still on. Needless to say I never used Slack calls again.
happynacho 5y ago
That's why I use an external mute. No shenanigans.
alanh 5y ago
"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." Sure would be nice if they named and shamed, with an opportunity for the company to comment as well. I can imagine adaptive video rates eating up the freed bandwidth, but I would not bet on it. I would bet the audio was indeed being sent even on mute. Pretty unforgivable
jfalcon 5y ago
I have a older logitech "speakerphone" microphone that I normally use for video calls and the like as people have commented that it sounds better than the mic that is built into the webcam. One of the nice things about it is that you can touch a "mute" function and the LEDs around the edge of the speaker that usually will light up for a volume dial indicator will turn "red" when it is "muted". And I have found that it does track whether or not the session is muted or not. Whether or not an application is correctly using the functionality or they try to do something sneaky like using a mute function on app to trigger a "cut audio" function on the server side of the video conference is one of the reasons why I use the speakermicrophone. That visual indicator is usually linked to the Audio Subsystem and with the speakermicrophone being a 1st tier HID device for audio purposes, makes it more likely that things are working as they should. When it doesn't light up and I'm intentional on the mute is when I would worry.

478 points by sizzle 5y ago

The most unsurprising thing ever. Hardware switch would be the only way to be sure. (Apparently modern macbooks do hardware disable the mic and camera when the lid is shut)

racl101 5y ago

Of coooourse they are. Cause why should we trust these companies to be honest?

vzaliva 5y ago

That answer it simple: HARDWARE SWITCHES. My ThinkPad already has physical camera shutter door. All I need now is physical mic on/off switch.

somehnacct3757 5y ago

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.

thaumasiotes 5y ago
I have to cough a lot, so I have a headset with a flip-to-mute mic. As a result, I don't generally use in-software mute effects. :/
- tialaramex 5y ago
  In Google Meet, the UI will change to show that it thinks you have hardware muted the microphone and so "unmuting" the Meet software won't help. I think it's a red ! mark or similar. All my USB headsets have hardware mute.
frutiger 5y ago
Couldn’t this be done by using some ML on the video stream?
- knorker 5y ago
  Probably the user experience would not be as good, though, since it'd be an audio-only feature that only works if you've enabled video.
  - brimble 5y ago
    The solution is obvious: have the camera watch you even when it's "off". :-)
    - rzzzt 5y ago
      That is for the "You are talking, but others can't see your face" notification.
      - kyleplum 5y ago
        "We can see that you are talking. Would you like others in the meeting to see you as well?"
- David 5y ago
  That's way more computationally expensive and only available if the camera is on (and the user's mouth is visible).
  - frutiger 5y ago
    That’s true. I’ve never tried it with the camera off.
- lm28469 5y ago
  - Is device X receiving input vs - Training models, wasting years of CPU cycle world wide, &c. For such a dumb feature... I just don't see the point
systemvoltage 5y ago
Once I was on Teams meeting and someone exclaimed “We can see your screen, systemvoltage!”. Sure as hell, I wasn’t sharing anything. Thankfully I wasn’t browsing HN, but writing code. These things implemented somewhere in the middle of the stack seems dangerous. I much more prefer a slider switch. Preferably made from real atoms and molecules.
- subpixel 5y ago
  Not long ago I dialed into a 100+ person, 3+ hour long quarterly planning type call. It was a video call, but I had to be in the car for part of the time so I dialed in. After sitting through over an hour, including the part I thought was essential to my team, I jumped off the call and proceeded to explain the shit show to my fellow passengers for 15m or so. When I got to my destination and pulled out my phone I discovered _I had never hung up_ - I was on the line the whole time. I had said some things that you should never say about your employer within their earshot and expect to remain in their employ. After some nauseating minutes I realized I had been saved by the auto-mute feature. When a call has over x participants, everyone is muted until they take their mic off of mute. I am much more careful now about these things, bc I don't expect to get that lucky again.
  - ketzo 5y ago
    Holy shit, I cannot imagine the stomach drop when you pulled that phone out. This is one of my biggest anxieties. Sheesh.
  - hu3 5y ago
    I love Discord for some usecases but a while ago I pressed the mute button to talk to my brother sitting next to me and my discord friend made a joke about what I said while muted. I double-checked Discord and the mic icon was displaying as muted but I could still talk to my friend regardless.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    Yes, be careful. You were lucky. Also, bloated apps lie to you and UIs are buggy, what you see in the UI may not be the case. I now disabled screensharing in MacOS privacy settings for all apps unless I am explicitly sharing.
gwbas1c 5y ago
Zoom also has a similar popup. It's quite useful, too. > “It turns out, in the vast majority of cases, when you mute yourself, these apps do not give up access to the microphone,” says Fawaz. “And that’s a problem. When you’re muted, people don’t expect these apps to collect data.” I wouldn't assume that's nefarious

wlesieutre 5y ago

I can't speak to all videoconferencing software, but Zoom does this to throw up a "Hey nobody can hear you, did you mean to unmute?" banner

metadat 5y ago
What about those cases where you wish you'd been muted? "Hey everyone can hear you, did you want me to erase the last 5 seconds from their memory?" would be a nice feature. Facepalm.
- AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
  There's a Zoom setting to Mute Attendees Upon Entry. I make that my default for every meeting. Some people complain, but I've had way too many people join and not realize their mic is live, so the meeting is interrupted by random dude shouting at his children to stop making noise, etc. Or even better, when the meeting tool has a "Call me at this number" tool, but does not require validation before bridging the audio. So instead the CEO's All-Hands PowerPoint presentation is interrupted by that one guy who tried to have Zoom/WebEx/GoToMeeting call his cellphone, but the call goes to his voicemail instead and the voicemail audio plays over the (recorded) conference. Fun times. I've seen it happen multiple times.
  - shultays 5y ago
    Huh, isn't this the default behavior? I never set that and all meetings I attended mutes me by default
    - NathanielK 5y ago
      Business users might get different defaults from their admin.

theshrike79 5y ago

Am I the only one who actually likes this feature? Zoom prints out a huge full screen notification of "you are muted press X+Y to unmute". Very rarely people speak on Zoom while they are muted. Now if someone would add the reverse of "your mic seems to be sending nonsense crap and everyone can hear it, maybe you should mute yourself?"

kurthr 5y ago

Have a mute button on your microphone and cover for your camera. Something you can see is engaged (e.g. a light goes on/off). Some laptops now have switches that disconnect them from USB... which can be a different kind of pain, if there are other devices that may be connected to.

brimble 5y ago
Lots of the mutes for external mics still do it in software. The software may run on the microphone itself and not the host computer, but still. I don't trust it. Give me something that interrupts a circuit. Many laptops (notably including MacBooks) can be damaged by even fairly thin camera covers. Which sucks, because they should very obviously be standard.
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  Most MacBooks are also designed so the camera “on” light is impossible to disable in software.
  - brimble 5y ago
    Some hardware up there must be active and sending data even when the light's not on. It's how they make the (excellent, can hardly live without it now that I'm used to it) automatic monitor color temp adjustment work, AFAIK. Though maybe that's a separate sensor from the camera proper.
    - AnonC 5y ago
      That’s certainly a different sensor, called the ambient light sensor.
    - kayodelycaon 5y ago
      The camera and microphones are run through the T2 security chip. Also, there's a separate ambient light sensor.

spullara 5y ago

Tell me you don't understand how things work without telling me don't understand how things work. /s All the apps tell you that you are muted when you are trying to talk while muted. How do they think they do that?

brimble 5y ago

If I could pick one hardware feature that I'd love on all my i-devices and laptops, it'd be physical shut-off switches for the mic and camera(s). Or, in the camera's case, maybe a cover, since that way you're less likely to have the camera "turned on" without realizing it. [EDIT] and by "physical" I mean "actually breaks a circuit when off"

derbOac 5y ago
https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/ I haven't used it and have no connection to them but think they're onto something in their product design.

SkyPuncher 5y ago

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 software level. This way the mic is always hot and ready to relay audio as fast as the software can switch. I'd be somewhat willing to bet continue to stream audio is also a quality assurance mechanism. Some networks will shape traffic according to load. A quick jump in bandwidth can introduce unexpected jitter and latency. By continuing to stream audio (but not necessarily process or re-transmit), video conferencing can better ensure an un-interupted experience. ---- With that being said, if you really care about privacy, consider getting a hardware mute microphone.

Godel_unicode 5y ago
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.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Yeah, Meet does the same thing. I find it annoying, because I am muted because the kids are making a bunch of noise, not because I am trying to talk. I am muting because I don't want the sound in my room broadcasted... if it was silent, I wouldn't have to mute!
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    In like 25% of my meetings, somebody is accidentally muted while they are trying to speak. The popup speeds up the process of them unmuting.
    - BlargMcLarg 5y ago
      I still don't know how professionals keep making this mistake. Having used Discord for so many years, this has never been a problem aside from a select few people who had very clear reason to mute themselves. Meanwhile in professional settings, people seem to be falling for this over and over while lacking the common curtesy of not letting random environmental noise bleed through (read: their mics are barely ever turned off). Not to mention push-to-talk has solved this issue for almost a few decades now.

LeifCarrotson 5y ago

> “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 combo, the others have physical buttons that do nothing but mute the microphone) that I reach for before trying to mouse over to a different mute button for a particular videoconferencing app.

vladvasiliu 5y ago
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.
lxgr 5y ago
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.
- remram 5y ago
  Yes those mute lights have been stuck on "lit" (= "mute") on my Windows forever, both the mic and speaker lights. However recording and playback work fine, the lights just stay on. Very annoying, a little unsettling. My daily driver is Ubuntu where both lights work fine, on the same machine (dual boot). But now I know not to trust them. Lenovo ThinkPad P51
- SllX 5y ago
  Check out if you can disable the mic in Audio MIDI Setup on Mac OS X. I tend to use the built in webcam so I’ve never looked on an external one, but in theory you should be able to selectively disable the input/output of any device via its interface. I do this to disable the mic on Work equipment and use my own AirPods as the mic input.

uslic001 5y ago

Use a Mute Me device. https://muteme.com/ https://muteme.com/

lxgr 5y ago
This seems to just toggle the video conferencing software's native "mute" function, which is exactly the scope of this article. How would that help here?

qiskit 5y ago

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-snoops-from-listening-to-your-laptops-microphone.html https://www.macworld.com/article/228326/mic-drop-how-to-keep...

wolverine876 5y ago
> being the CEO of a major corporation requires you take privacy more seriously My privacy is as valuable to me.
schroeding 5y ago
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. :/
KennyBlanken 5y ago
Zuckerberg is an attractive enough target that someone would go to the trouble of trying to compromise his MBP's iSight firmware (and such compromises have been proven to be possible, and pretty easy in pre-T2 macs.) The tape, however, is probably about really making completely sure he doesn't accidentally show video on a call or videoconference when he didn't mean to. Video could easily reveal even his approximate location (via shadows and such), and that could potentially lead to deriving, say, that he's working on an acquisition or talks with another company, leading to stock manipulation/speculation and so on.
threeseed 5y ago

hammock 5y ago

I always noticed that the Mac version of Zoom stays open in the background rather than closing after you finish a meeting. Very sus. I have to manually close out the app.

bartread 5y ago

Yes, I think we know this: how else do they think it's possible for Teams (or other videoconferencing app) to warn you that you're muted when you start talking whilst muted without the mic being switched on? I'm not saying there's definitely not anything sinister happening here in the case of every videoconferencing app, but there are legitimate reasons for leaving the mic on that are about improving user experience, not spying on you.

EGreg 5y ago

My team and I built some of the world's most decentralized videoconferencing software, using WebRTC. You can try it on https://yang2020.app/meeting https://yang2020.app/meeting for example ... but it's available in all of our apps, including for teachers, etc. Since a major point of our platform (qbix.com/platform) is to avoid relying on external third parties, that meant we built a version of livestreaming that is completely peer-to-peer. Imagine a giant tree at whose root are the WebRTC participants "on stage", the ones getting their feed directly get the least lag, and then people just join different parts of the tree (and ask to rejoin if the parent node dropped out or is too slow). Here is what we learned: 1. On some platforms, it's hard to turn off the audio listening, because you can't turn it back on later. So you have to just disconnect the audio stream going out, but it's still being captured. 2. When someone is "muted" in a chat, what this really means in P2P setups is that the peers have to "respect this setting" and simply ignore the audio/video stream that the one muted is sending. 3. Sometimes, it's very valuable from a business standpoint to grab the incoming video, and do eye recognition and face tracking (yes we support all that too, in our platform, it's available in Javascript). So a teacher can, for example, take attendance and know which students are no longer present or engaged, without actually seeing their feed. All of it is done on the client side of the student, and with their consent. Each of 1, 2, 3 can lead to a determined "hacker" kid making it seem like they're listening when they're not, etc. But there are some cool tricks to make it really hard and expensive to pull off perfectly. We use this, for example, to award credits to people for completing educational materials or listening to a show, as with https://ftl.fm https://ftl.fm

sizzle 5y ago
Might want to hire some marketing and product branding agency folks to make sure you are branding this in a way that seems safe and trustworthy, so people will try it out and you can increase engagement and adoption.
- EGreg 5y ago
  That sounds like a great idea, but how much would it cost? We are kind of strapped for cash.
5y ago

KindAndFriendly 5y ago

I'm fine that the app locally still processes the audio stream - even if I'm muted - to show me a warning if I start talking while muted etc. The alarming part in the article is that at least one app would still send the audio stream _to the server_ while being muted. Any mentioning which "popular app" that is?

lxgr 5y ago

At least as far as not giving up microphone access is concerned, when using Bluetooth headphones, this is very much desirable: Deactivating the microphone usually is seen as a signal by the OS to switch Bluetooth headphones from two-way conferencing mode (low latency, mediocre quality) back to "music" mode (high latency, good quality). This usually takes 2-3 seconds and disrupts all sound being played (most notably other people talking in the meeting). I wouldn't want that to happen every time I mute myself. Continuing to send data to the conferencing bridge is indeed quite shady. Hopefully this would just be (encrypted) silence or comfort noise parameters, which can be useful to e.g. keep NAT mappings alive.

Tagbert 5y ago
I’ve often used Bluetooth headphones with a physical microphone switch (boom arm up) and there is never any disruption to the audio output.

dekhn 5y ago

This is entirely in line with my understanding of how these products should work.

29athrowaway 5y ago

Use a microphone with an hardware switch. Problem solved.

lighthazard 5y ago

The lack of a physical button to control camera and microphone access is really annoying. At least with a camera, I can cover up with a patch but I can't do anything about my microphone.

ortusdux 5y ago

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.

m463 5y ago
The case where the school administrator was spying on kids - the macbook light would quickly turn on and then off and you had to look carefully to see it.

anon946 5y ago

It's obvious that Zoom is listening, because if I try to speak when I'm muted, it tells me that I'm muted.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

I always use my browser instead of these native apps precisely so I can deny microphone permission whenever I want it muted.

nerdponx 5y ago
It would be nice if you could also have this level of control over native apps.
- akira2501 5y ago
  Once you use something like the Jack Audio Connection Kit it's hard to understand why a user-controllable system-wide audio graph isn't just the default thing baked into the kernel API. I have full control over all apps. It involved some extra effort creating a fake ALSA device that sends/receives from JACK, but once it's in place, all audio connections become points you can easily make and break in the graph.

fooblat 5y ago

Is this is really important to you there is at least one solution: Wearable Microphone Jamming[0] 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28885739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28885739

NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago

Purism's laptops (and cell phone) all include hardware kill-switches for mic and webcam (and also the radios, bluetooth and wifi) https://puri.sm/ https://puri.sm/

Findecanor 5y ago

Years ago, an engineer working in videoconferencing told me that the algorithm they used for avoiding feedback loops involved listening at how it comes out at the other end. I suppose that perhaps there could be audible artefacts when muting/unmuting if these algorithms didn't continuously do this.

kelahcim 5y ago

This is the exact reason that made me develop MuteMyMic. I was really fed up with all these apps that alter input volume behind your back. Now, I can at least know that somebody is playing nasty as MMM beeps whenever mic's volume was changed. This is not an advertisement ;) I no longer actively develop this app, however, I am still a happy user ;)

giantg2 5y ago

“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.” Some microphones have physical switches. Turn off your internal laptop microphone and only use a mic with a switch.

dundarious 5y ago

The actual study appears to be here: https://wiscprivacy.com/publication/vca_mute/ https://wiscprivacy.com/publication/vca_mute/ The findings are largely reassuring, to be honest: > 1. Continuously sampling audio from the microphone: apps stream data from the microphone in the same way as they would if they were not muted. Webex is the only VCA that continuously samples the microphone while the user is muted. In this mode, the microphone status indicator from an operating system remains continuously illuminated. > 2. Audio data stream is accessible but not accessed: apps have permissions to sample the microphone and read data; but instead of reading raw bytes they only check the microphone’s status flags: silent, data discontinuity, and timestamp error. We assume that the VCAs, like Zoom, are primarily interested in the silent flag to tell if a user is talking while the software mute is active. In this mode, apps do not read a continuous real-time stream of data in the same way as they would while unmuted. Most Windows and macOS native apps can check if a users is talking even while muted but do not continuously sample audio in the same way as they would while unmuted. In this mode, the microphone status indicator in Windows and macOS remains continuously illuminated, reporting that the app has access to the microphone. We found that applications in this state do not show any evidence of raw audio data being accessed through the API. > 3. Software mute: apps instruct the microphone driver to completely cut off microphone data. All of the web-based apps we studied used the browser’s software mute feature. In this mode, the microphone status indicator in the browser goes away when the app is muted, indicating that the app is not accessing the microphone. > The notable exceptions to these trends are the Microsoft VCAs (Teams and Skype) and Cisco Webex. Microsoft VCAs are much more difficult to trace because they do not use the standard Windows userland API. Instead, they directly make calls to the operating system. Since the Windows syscall interface is undocumented, we could not determine how Teams and Skype use microphone data when muted. More interestingly, we observe that Cisco Webex — unlike the rest of the Windows native VCAs — continuously accesses the microphone while muted. I still unplug my desktop's external camera and microphone when not in use (9" outty-inny cables plugged into my monitor so those ports are accessible), and use hardware buttons (that may really be implemented in software, unfortunately) to mute during calls, and can just flick the camera to point at the ceiling. Will be more of a concern when I'm back to laptop living.

QuikAccount 5y ago

I always use the mute switch on my microphone and not the mute switch in software.

jmull 5y ago

I like the feature of my video conferencing software that popups up a helpful overlay when I start speaking while on mute. It lets me know I'm muted in case I don't intend to be and reminds me I can press and hold space to temporarily unmute. Obviously it's listening white muted to do this, but it seems legit.

markstos 5y ago

Quit hoping that software providers change in this regard and demand hardware with physical microphone kill switches. The Framework laptop provides an example of a high quality, repairable laptop with physical kill switches for the mic and camera. I love the UX of "Oops, it looks like you are talking but you are muted" and I also value privacy. The physical kill switch provides a true "mute button" when it's needed.

cphoover 5y ago
I love my framework... But be careful If taking out the battery. The battery connector socket on the mother board is extremely fragile. I learned that when I bent the pins in the socket when reattaching the battery...

Isthatablackgsd 5y ago

As a Deaf person, the notification annoyed the heck out of me and there are not even an option to disable the notification. I muted my mic because I am Deaf and I don't use my voice to communicate with my fellow Deaf friends over Zoom/Teams. And there is no option to disable Zoom joining-room audio (the one that when you join the room, Zoom present the option to ask which microphone you want to enable). Why would I need to enable the microphone if I am signing to my Deaf boss? Deaf communities have major grief with those notifications. At least, I can disable the microphone access in my macOS and Zoom won't complain. However disabling mic permission in iPadOS will make Zoom to whine about it. Every time I join a meeting, it will let me know that the microphone access is disabled and "kindly" asked me to enable it. In Windows, I can deny the microphone access to Zoom in the Windows setting, however for some reason that made Zoom to crash.

gwbas1c 5y ago
Then why mute yourself? Even more interesting: Why do you prefer to sign over video instead of typing? Are there forms of expression that are more natural that way?
- Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
  > Then why mute yourself? Why not? The only sound they will find is my dogs barking, doors slamming (I lives in apartment), my partner talking in his phone, all of that background noise. Why participants should be subjected to those noise and why Zoom need to know the noises? > Why do you prefer to sign over video instead of typing? Are there forms of expression that are more natural that way? We signs because Signed Languages is our modality and the only form of expression in Deaf communities. There are no written sign language or spoken sign language. Using sign language is natural for us to use. We avoid using typing because it is not a true representation of the community, we don't have same proficiency of written/spoken languages as you and others. So to them, it looks like we are from a call center in India with broken English.
  - 10u152 5y ago

mvkel 5y ago

People will always choose convenience over security

zaphod12 5y ago

Google Meet certainly stays on, but does not try to pretend it doesn't. Feature, not a bug. And this is google, who you know has no compunctions about data collection. The microphone volume icon continues to show movement based on noise from your microphone and it will even prompt you if it thinks you're speaking to unmute yourself.

mathematicaster 5y ago

Anybody knows what Discord behaviour is with respect to muting?

mdoms 5y ago

Google Meet will pop up a little "you're muted - are you trying to speak" bubble if it hears noise through your mic while you're muted. So obviously it's still accessing the mic. I don't see this as a big deal.

someotherperson 5y ago

I use this[0] on Mac OS and it works extremely well. It turns the mic off at the system level. Holding down a key acts as push to talk and triple-pressing the key locks it on. [0] https://github.com/yulrizka/osx-push-to-talk https://github.com/yulrizka/osx-push-to-talk

sam1r 5y ago

This article fails to recognize the value (in a Ui perspective) for detecting surrounding audio when you are in mute. I do find it useful to know I tried to speak, and the audio bars visually indicate that I just spoke. Hence the need for audio listening even if you are on mute.

jacobsenscott 5y ago

It's always been risky to trust the mute button, even before zoom etc. The rules have been the same for at least 30 years. Never send an email or other type of text message you don't want the whole world to see. Never say anything on a conference call, even when muted, you wouldn't say when not muted. Ethically any audio chat software shouldn't transmit any audio it receives when muted. The "hey, you are muted" notifications can all be done client side and don't need any server side support. But ethics is not a factor in the design of any enterprise office software.

Gigachad 5y ago
It's been mentioned a few times in this thread, but it looks like they all have a legitimate reason for this which is making sure the unmute button is instant. Because having the first few words of your talking get through is more important than a theoretical privacy issue to most users.
- jacobsenscott 5y ago
  I agree with that. But there is no reason for them to transmit any data over the network while "soft muted".

CalRobert 5y ago

One nice thing about the frame.work laptop is a hardware mic privacy switch built right in to the screen.

someweirdperson 5y ago

With some poor power saving implementations keeping the mike on can make sense. Switching the power back on when reactivating the mike may cause noticable stutter. An application with limited permissions might not be able to turn the mike off without dropping the device to some low power state. Being in a conference, muted, hearing something that requires action, hitting "unmute", freeze for a second... bad thing. A hardware switch would be the better option. But then people wanting to hear you cannot inform you about still being muted.

selykg 5y ago

I use Shush on my Mac to have a push to talk button that's independent of the app. That way I can leave the app unmuted if I plan to talk at all, and can always use the same button.

knbrlo 5y ago

Assuming the app that's using the microphone would still need to have hardware access to be able to switch back on when someone unmutes themselves, couldn't there be a higher level API within the OS that still allowed hardware access but wouldn't allow input through so that the audio couldn't be captured in third party apps? Seems like this is an OS issue that Microsoft, Apple and Linux team need to work on if that isn't already the case.

kazinator 5y ago

Use a headset with a hardware mute button.

gruturo 5y ago
I've been trying to buy one (bluetooth). I'm on headset #3, advertised as having a mute button, like the previous 2, which does absolutely nothing, like the previous 2. I'd gladly shell out 100 bucks for a bluetooth headset with a real mute button, which just cuts off the mic, instead of telling the PC to do something (which the PC apparently won't do without custom drivers, which I can't install on my company-issued laptop, and which I wouldn't trust either). Bonus if it's 1 ear only, I find those (esp. the ones with the arc overhead) more comfortable in long sessions, and my job has a lot of those. Can anyone point me at one known to actually work? Thanks!

NathanielK 5y ago

Zoom is really bad for this. On my old thinkpad there is a "mute" button on the keyboard. When you press it, it mutes the mic in windows sound settings and turns an indicator light. I've had Zoom un-mute the mic itself with not notification to the user and the "mute" led even stayed on. In old version of Zoom, the host could unmute you without your consent and this would unmute the mic at the system level too. I resorted to disabling the microphone in the Device Manager so it would show up as unplugged instead. This also disables the popup other commentors mentioned. It looks like newer versions have unmute-consen which hopefully fix it, but the original behaviour made me feel uneasy and not trust Zoom.

paxys 5y ago

They are confusing the concepts of an app level vs OS level mute. If the app itself paints a mute button, of course there's no guarantee that it will do what it says. You have to trust the developers at their word, that they are actually ditching the audio feed coming into their application. Some apps even use the audio to provide useful functionality (like a "you are speaking while muted" notification). If you are really concerned about it, mute the app from system controls instead.

soheil 5y ago
Why wouldn’t said app also be able to programmatically unmute at the os-level?
- oauea 5y ago
  It could, but you'll notice and then uninstall that app.
  - soheil 5y ago
    Most OS's don't very visibly indicate whether the mic is muted or not, only the speakers.

oauea 5y ago

I am, because I ask my operating system to mute the microphone.

winternett 5y ago

Nothing beats black electrical tape that you can easily put over microphones and cameras when you don't want them to be live... It's going to really be the easiest and most reliable way to ensure a decent level of privacy moving forward. I've been using it for ages now.

fsflover 5y ago
For microphones it may not work well. I prefer hardware kill switches on my Librem 15.

jug 5y ago

Attention: The title of this submission has been editorialized by removing the "may" from "may listen", which changes the claim completely.

qq66 5y ago

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.

asp_hornet 5y ago
The article specifically states in a number of these apps the data is hitting the network. You don’t need to do that for what you describe. Reduced latency after unmute is probably the better explanation. > They used runtime binary analysis tools to trace raw audio in popular videoconferencing applications as the audio traveled from the app to the computer audio driver and then to the network while the app was muted. > 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.
IshKebab 5y ago
Yeah how can you write an article about it without mentioning this obvious and innocent reason? Disingenuous clickbait.

Damogran6 5y ago

I just want to make sure the people in the meeting don't hear the toilet flush.

axegon_ 5y ago

I use a hardware switch, albeit for a different reason: I hate the beeping sounds all videoconferencing apps make when you mute/unmute yourself. I guess a good call overall.

conradev 5y ago

This is something that should be solved at the operating system level. macOS has an orange indicator light when the microphone is active, and Control Center shows which app is using it. Platforms are responsible for controlling access to the microphone, so they should let users know when it is active, too.

parentheses 5y ago

Easily explained by Zoom's "You seem to be talking, you're muted" message.

randStr_ 5y ago

I use the hardware button to mute. My headphone has a mute button right on the cord. It's fast and easy and always within reach. If that's not available, I use the operating system to mute. My Linux systems have a mic icon on the top bar. I believe it's easy to do in Windows also. I don't know about mac.

alistairSH 5y ago

This reads like the app is open and active and muted within the app? So the answer is to close the app if you want privacy? Seems kind of obvious to me.

throwawayHN378 5y ago

I’m less concerned about privacy and more concerned about a bug in their code causing my microphone to say mute but not mute

teen 5y ago

There are other reasons to capture the mic (for example, to display a message to you that you are speaking while muted). Or to test the audio settings prior to unmuting yourself in the meeting.

smugma 5y ago

One valid use case for this is for the software to detect when you're speaking while on mute and notify you that "you're on mute". Maybe I dreamed it up, but I thought I've seen this before (WebEx?). I could imagine a soft-mute feature where you're on mute when you're not talking (perhaps to keep down on background noise) but if your app detects that you're actively talking, it will unmute you. It might lose the first word or two that you say but could be effective. I could also see this going horribly awry when someone thinks they are on mute rather than soft mute and say something Biden-esque, like "what a stupid son of a bitch".

gwinsyth 5y ago
MS Teams has the "you're on mute" notification.

WalterBright 5y ago

That's why I have a powered mike with a physical switch. The web cam has a hinged lense cover. The background picture is of the office, taken from the exact POV of the web cam, when it was clean. That way it is not necessary to straighten out the office before video conferencing. It also causes the weird behavior of looking like I am "beaming in" to the office from my orbiting starship :-) Or maybe it's just a glitch in the simulation of myself that has long since replaced me.

joeman1000 5y ago

This is why I go to sound preferences in my OS and turn my mic input level to 0.

mbostleman 5y ago

If they don't listen when your mic is off how are they going to remind you that you're talking but you forgot to unmute?

dr_dshiv 5y ago

flush

jrochkind1 5y ago

If you make a noise while muted, Zoom pop up a dialog saying something like "warning, you're muted!" So that was kind of a giveaway that zoom is accessing the mic when muted, not really a secret.

blunte 5y ago

What's not clear to me is whether other participants of the meeting are aware of my sound while my mic is "muted". I'm far less concerned about the videoconference system hearing me than my other meeting participants. This morning during a boring company-wide meeting I accidentally fell asleep (it was an early morning meeting and I was still in bed!) All that said, it should really be a right of consumers that audio and video capture devices have a physical on/off switch.

ivanhoe 5y ago

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 5y ago
[deleted]
pixl97 5y ago
Your not muted at an operating system level, your muted at an application level when you hit the zoom mute button. I have a switch on my headset I use to mute at a hardware level on top of the software mute button.

wipi 5y ago

Hello! I am one of the authors of the paper in this thread. You can find the paper here: https://wiscprivacy.com/papers/vca_mute.pdf https://wiscprivacy.com/papers/vca_mute.pdf. I can also answer any questions you have about the research.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

Not surprised.. Especially with evil software companies like zoom. I always switch off on my mike itself. Better.

beebeepka 5y ago

I always get a good chuckle out of burping and farting while on "mute" because I have seen the traffic. No expectations of privacy should be the norm when you have mics and cameras. In fact, cameras are easy to handle. Just cover it with something and you're done. Nice continue to listen even if you block them

dmtroyer 5y ago

PSA: I learned again recently that by default on a new installion, Slack does not mute your audio when connecting to a meeting.

ShakataGaNai 5y ago

This is a mountain out of a mole hill. All of the video conference apps I've been on (like Zoom and Teams) are very clear that they don't give up the mic when they mute. They are simply not sending your audio. The apps even give you a helpful message on screen when you make noise but are muted. The "Trying to talk? You're muted!" type of message. How else would they get that other than to be monitoring the mic constantly? Also there is a big difference between having the mic, listening for consistent sound above a certain level.... and actually doing something with it.

thentherewere2 5y ago

How else would they check for and suggest "You may be muted"?

aldebran 5y ago

I work on Video conferencing apps as a PM. There’s a very simple reason this is done - to detect if the user is speaking while muted and if so to let them know. That’s it. At least for the one I’m building. :D

krnlpnc 5y ago

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?

sundvor 5y ago
Yep! I have an older Steinberg UR22; quality is awesome. Mine doesn't have mute buttons, but with my Streamdeck I can mute/unmute the input sources very easily.

whateveracct 5y ago

This is why I love being able to mute with a click in my KDE taskbar.

yakytaky 5y ago

I make it a habit to utilize dial-in numbers for conference software and disable mic inputs on my computer for this reason. There’s no guarantee that my phone doesn’t listen in while I’m muted, but I feel like it’s a better choice. There is a bit of audio quality loss, but on the flip side it isn’t as much of a battle over bandwidth while streaming video, sharing my screen, and broadcasting on audio.

sitting_duck 5y ago

Fixed for BBB with 2.2.4 but it still consumes upload bandwidth comparable to a recording open microphone. https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/releases/tag/v2.2.24 https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton/releases/tag/...

bspear 5y ago

Always thought of muting as the other party not hearing what I say, not that the app wasn't listening. It's running after all. Assume it's listening to everything

xvilka 5y ago

Just use opensource and ditch all commercial apps of this kind: 1. Jitsi (sadly, it's Java though) https://jitsi.org/ https://jitsi.org/ 2. Element (sadly, it's Electron though) https://element.io/ https://element.io/ 3. BigBlueButton https://bigbluebutton.org/ https://bigbluebutton.org/ 4. Jami https://jami.net/ https://jami.net/

haspre 5y ago

no shit sherlock! that's why Teams is able to tell you that you are muted while talking. welcome

xiwenc 5y ago

What bothers me a lot sometimes is that i fear there is a bug in the software mute. Specially when this is implemented separately by each VC software. The bug that even if you think you are muted, the software still fed the audio to the audience. The reason i’m raising this is knowing software is very complicated nowadays and are more susceptible for bugs. The other day my MS teams froze. I closed the app and tried to open it again. That didn’t work. It felt like i merrily closed the frontend while the backend was stuck. I remember the days a window was a task, closing that window terminates the task. These days are over. Somehow these softwares are made so complicated, not sure for what reason, that the likelihood of introducing bugs is increased. So taking this frontend-backend example. Imagine the mute button just sends the command to backend for mute but the backend failed to do so. And the frontend assumed all was fine. The user would have been misinformed. I would use the (hardware) button that stops the audio at the microphone level all the time.

habosa 5y ago

If you're on a Mac, use Shush [0] to give yourself global mute control with a single keypress. You can set it on push-to-talk mode or push-to-silence mode, both are extremely useful. I have mine set to the Fn key and leave in PTT mode most of the time. 0: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shush-microphone-manager/id496437906?mt=12 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shush-microphone-manager/id496...

hans_castorp 5y ago

It's one of the reasons I have a headset with a mechanical switch to turn off the microphone.

swarnie 5y ago
Batch file on the desktop to disable the devices On a call - "We're live" - always assume the camera and mic are hot Off a call - "Its dead Jim"

beermonster 5y ago

I use objective-see’s app Oversight [1] for MacOS. OverSight monitors a mac's mic and webcam, alerting the user when the internal mic is activated, or whenever a process accesses the webcam. Have found it very useful whilst using videoconferencing apps. [1] https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html https://objective-see.com/products/oversight.html

wodenokoto 5y ago

They really need to keep reading mike input. When you start talking on mute, it is nice that the app reminds you that you are mute (although they could do better voice detection) I wished that the whole conference app would be red on mute and green on unmute and would pulse (in both states) to the audio input level. Is my keyboard typing loud? Show me that I’m sending loud noises to all my peers. Make it dead obvious that I’m talking to a muted mike.

VariableStar 5y ago

Sometimes the best security is to go low-tech. At the risk of not being original, I vote for a mechanical/physical hardware switch for microphone, and a manual lid/lock for the camera (or chewing gum, but it will leave marks :-) )

usrbinbash 5y ago

> “And that’s a problem. When you’re muted, people don’t expect these apps to collect data.” The lesson here for the user: Don't rely on the software. Mute at the hardware level (many headsets have a button for that), or at the OS level (many keyboards have a button for that).

vipulb334 5y ago

greyhair 5y ago

I have two different headsets I use for conferencing, on a USB with a mid-cable control for volume and mute, and a BT headset with physical buttons on the ear cups. I have messed with both, under Linux and Windows 10, and when they are muted, they are really muted. I have not disassembled them, I am certain that the USB HID is inside the mid cable control unit, but the headsets themselves must be muting the audio stream. If you use the mute button on the conferencing app? Then I assume all bets are off, but with controls on an external headset, I would assume all behave similarly.

pahae 5y ago

This is one of the reasons I bought a USB hub were I can switch connected devices off and on (disconnects their power lines). If you're lazy like me you can plug another USB hub into one of the ports so that can switch multiple devices (webcam and mic) with one button press instead of two :) Searching for "usb hub power switch" should get you a few hits.

dbbk 5y ago

I once had a Slack call where I muted my mic, the UI updated to show it was muted... And my mic was still on. Needless to say I never used Slack calls again.

happynacho 5y ago

That's why I use an external mute. No shenanigans.

alanh 5y ago

"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." Sure would be nice if they named and shamed, with an opportunity for the company to comment as well. I can imagine adaptive video rates eating up the freed bandwidth, but I would not bet on it. I would bet the audio was indeed being sent even on mute. Pretty unforgivable

jfalcon 5y ago

I have a older logitech "speakerphone" microphone that I normally use for video calls and the like as people have commented that it sounds better than the mic that is built into the webcam. One of the nice things about it is that you can touch a "mute" function and the LEDs around the edge of the speaker that usually will light up for a volume dial indicator will turn "red" when it is "muted". And I have found that it does track whether or not the session is muted or not. Whether or not an application is correctly using the functionality or they try to do something sneaky like using a mute function on app to trigger a "cut audio" function on the server side of the video conference is one of the reasons why I use the speakermicrophone. That visual indicator is usually linked to the Audio Subsystem and with the speakermicrophone being a 1st tier HID device for audio purposes, makes it more likely that things are working as they should. When it doesn't light up and I'm intentional on the mute is when I would worry.