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I am absolutely glad that, I disable Siri immediately on all of my devices and grateful for the ominous mic-in-use indicator on all apple devices. Android also

by n_ary 2y ago

I am absolutely glad that, I disable Siri immediately on all of my devices and grateful for the ominous mic-in-use indicator on all apple devices. Android also has a mic in use indicator too, but own only a Pixel to comment on Android in general. The referenced articles are light on details and appear to be “he said she said they said” and pointing to the same archived blog post from CMG. That being said, I see a rising popularity of Alexa all over my circle, so no high hopes. Even if I can battle my devices, I can’t battle my family, friends and neighbors from adding Amazon Echo devices everywhere and mindlessly talking to it all day. Edit: redundancy and typo.

d2323 2y ago
Does disabling Siri disable this behaviour though? What if you're not close enough to the device at the time to see the indicator? That's the bit the worries me in terms of mic use. On Android I can toggle the camera and mic OS wide, and per app. When I'm not taking pictures or a call I turn them both off OS wide using the quick toggle buttons. On iOS I can only find options to disable them per app which doesn't give me as much confidence.
- gruez 2y ago
  > What if you're not close enough to the device at the time to see the indicator? That's the bit the worries me in terms of mic use. The odds are stacked against the attacker. Unless they can also figure out whether you're looking at the screen or not, they're rolling the dice every time they attempt a recording. As they make more recordings, the probability of being discovered approaches 100%.
awelxtr 2y ago
Samsung phones with android 14 do have the dot for the mic and camera usage, too
dotancohen 2y ago
Happy owner of several Samsung Note devices over the years. None have had a mic-in-use indicator.
- hnburnsy 2y ago
  When every app on your phone runs at start up and in the background, how can you tell which app is using the mic?

by n_ary 2y ago

d2323 2y ago

Does disabling Siri disable this behaviour though? What if you're not close enough to the device at the time to see the indicator? That's the bit the worries me in terms of mic use. On Android I can toggle the camera and mic OS wide, and per app. When I'm not taking pictures or a call I turn them both off OS wide using the quick toggle buttons. On iOS I can only find options to disable them per app which doesn't give me as much confidence.

gruez 2y ago
> What if you're not close enough to the device at the time to see the indicator? That's the bit the worries me in terms of mic use. The odds are stacked against the attacker. Unless they can also figure out whether you're looking at the screen or not, they're rolling the dice every time they attempt a recording. As they make more recordings, the probability of being discovered approaches 100%.

awelxtr 2y ago

Samsung phones with android 14 do have the dot for the mic and camera usage, too

dotancohen 2y ago

Happy owner of several Samsung Note devices over the years. None have had a mic-in-use indicator.

hnburnsy 2y ago
When every app on your phone runs at start up and in the background, how can you tell which app is using the mic?