[HN Gopher] You're muted - or are you? Videoconferencing apps ma...
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You're muted - or are you? Videoconferencing apps may listen when
mic is off
Author : sizzle
Score : 280 points
Date : 2022-04-13 16:59 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (news.wisc.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.wisc.edu)
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| 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/
| oauea wrote:
| I am, because I ask my operating system to mute the microphone.
| winternett wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| For microphones it may not work well. I prefer hardware kill
| switches on my Librem 15.
| smugma wrote:
| 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".
| mathematicaster wrote:
| Anybody knows what Discord behaviour is with respect to muting?
| dundarious wrote:
| The actual study appears to be here:
| 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.
| jug wrote:
| Attention:
|
| The title of this submission has been editorialized by removing
| the "may" from "may listen", which changes the claim completely.
| Findecanor wrote:
| 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.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| 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.
| anon946 wrote:
| It's obvious that Zoom is listening, because if I try to speak
| when I'm muted, it tells me that I'm muted.
| joeman1000 wrote:
| This is why I go to sound preferences in my OS and turn my mic
| input level to 0.
| kelahcim wrote:
| 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 ;)
| blunte wrote:
| 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.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Use a microphone with an hardware switch. Problem solved.
| mbostleman wrote:
| 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?
| ivanhoe wrote:
| 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...
| KindAndFriendly wrote:
| 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?
| alistairSH wrote:
| 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.
| qq66 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Yeah how can you write an article about it without mentioning
| this obvious and innocent reason? Disingenuous clickbait.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| I just want to make sure the people in the meeting don't hear the
| toilet flush.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| 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.
| selykg wrote:
| 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.
| lxgr wrote:
| 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.
| axegon_ wrote:
| 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.
| WalterBright wrote:
| 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.
| mdoms wrote:
| 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.
| conradev wrote:
| 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.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| _flush_
| QuikAccount wrote:
| I always use the mute switch on my microphone and not the mute
| switch in software.
| throwawayHN378 wrote:
| I'm less concerned about privacy and more concerned about a bug
| in their code causing my microphone to say mute but not mute
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| 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.
| frutiger wrote:
| Couldn't this be done by using some ML on the video stream?
| knorker wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The solution is obvious: have the camera watch you even
| when it's "off".
|
| :-)
| rzzzt wrote:
| That is for the "You are talking, but others can't see
| your face" notification.
| kyleplum wrote:
| "We can see that you are talking. Would you like others
| in the meeting to see you as well?"
| David wrote:
| That's way more computationally expensive and only available
| if the camera is on (and the user's mouth is visible).
| frutiger wrote:
| That's true. I've never tried it with the camera off.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| 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
| systemvoltage wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| 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.
| alana314 wrote:
| But then when you need to use it you have to restart the
| app, right?
| [deleted]
| ketzo wrote:
| Holy shit, I cannot _imagine_ the stomach drop when you
| pulled that phone out. This is one of my biggest anxieties.
| Sheesh.
| hu3 wrote:
| 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.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| parentheses wrote:
| Easily explained by Zoom's "You seem to be talking, you're muted"
| message.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Huh, isn't this the default behavior? I never set that and
| all meetings I attended mutes me by default
| NathanielK wrote:
| Business users might get different defaults from their
| admin.
| dekhn wrote:
| This is entirely in line with my understanding of how these
| products should work.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I always use my browser instead of these native apps precisely so
| I can deny microphone permission whenever I want it muted.
| nerdponx wrote:
| It would be nice if you could also have this level of control
| over native apps.
| akira2501 wrote:
| 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.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| 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?"
| mattacular wrote:
| 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)
| jmull wrote:
| 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.
| knbrlo wrote:
| 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.
| kurthr wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Most MacBooks are also designed so the camera "on" light is
| impossible to disable in software.
| brimble wrote:
| _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.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| The camera and microphones are run through the T2
| security chip. Also, there's a separate ambient light
| sensor.
| AnonC wrote:
| That's certainly a different sensor, called the ambient
| light sensor.
| randStr_ wrote:
| 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.
| spullara wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| sam1r wrote:
| 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.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| 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.
| admax88qqq wrote:
| Not to mention the feature of notifying a user they are muted
| if it sounds like they're trying to talk.
| nanoservices wrote:
| Exactly the reason I use a headset with a boom mic. Flip it up
| to mute, and back down to activate. Love it.
| sizzle wrote:
| wait till the wear and tear on that hinge breaks from doing
| this 50 times a day lol
| oriolid wrote:
| The worst part is that on iOS you can't just start and stop
| input stream separately from output, but you have to stop the
| entire audio session and restart it in output only category.
| You can configure the session to ignore all input channels, but
| that won't get rid of the mic indicator (or at least didn't
| back when the mic indicator was introduced in the first place).
|
| Yes, I work on an app that keeps the mic running all the time
| because of the above, and because ASIO doesn't allow disabling
| input at all.
| SllX wrote:
| It's something to be aware of.
|
| The first time I had ever heard of Zoom, it was long before the
| pandemic and it was about how Zoom was a videoconferencing app
| that was installing an http server (read, a security hole on
| the user's computer) which remained even if you deleted the
| app. This was to "improve the user experience" so that it could
| quickly reinstall itself if you clicked one of their web
| widgets to start a call.
|
| It's worth checking in on _exactly_ what software is doing in
| the background, auditing its activity and coming to a more
| precise understanding of 1. The reputation of the company
| behind it and 2. How they came to have this reputation and
| whether it is still relevant.
| trelane wrote:
| My first introduction to Zoom was their malware-like pre-
| install install.
| https://twitter.com/c1truz_/status/1244737672930824193
| SllX wrote:
| That was March 2020?
|
| This is from July 2019:
| https://daringfireball.net/linked/2019/07/10/zoom
|
| After they were called out, supposedly they fixed it, but
| that tweet you just linked looks like more of the same
| nonsense which goes right back to my original point:
| reputation matters. If the first could be taken as honestly
| naive, the second proves it was not. Zoom doesn't go on
| anything I own or control.
| trelane wrote:
| Yep. I don't trust them at all.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| On Linux at least, Teams continue to grab the microphone even
| after the meeting has ended. You can see this by looking at
| apps registered for "recording".
|
| I'm not sure how that can be justified. Besides privacy, the
| issue is that this prevents the sound card from going to sleep,
| which may be an issue on laptops. But I guess this is
| insignificant compared to the rest of Teams' power consumption.
| _notathrowaway wrote:
| Teams is a real clustefuck, I do not believe it is a design
| decision but rather just poorly written code.
| Gigachad wrote:
| It also doesn't happen on MacOS where you can see the
| indicator dot go away after a call. Teams just has a lot of
| bugs.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| From the outside perspective, this must be true. Recently I
| have noticed, that Teams, unlike any other app I tried, is
| unable to properly distinguish between stereo and mic, when
| that arrives both at the headset jack (made for both,
| stereo and mic) of my laptop. When I switch in Teams to use
| that as mic, it means, that others hear themselves and do
| not hear me. I tried everything, but Teams is simply unable
| to take the proper mic input from the headset jack, while
| an app like audacity has no issue at all. Teams is utter
| garbage. Found topics on MS websites, where people are
| describing similar problems. The answers usually are:
| "Well, it is MS, what do you expect?" and no solution in
| sight. In the year. 2000 and 22. And this is what I am
| forced to deal with. So I had to go back to only have the
| output on headset jack and use the laptop internal mic,
| which very likely has much worse quality than my external
| on the desk standing microphone, which I am effectively
| unable to use, because I have to use Teams...
|
| This stuff can drive you crazy. Each month there is some
| new annoyance or broken part, that I discover.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I've never had your particular issue, but my favorite has
| got to be that it somehow "loses" the mic between
| conferences, although the sound server shows it as still
| recording...
|
| I can understand not detecting something, or badly, but
| if it works now, and then on the next conference it
| figures "nah, there's no mic", I just can't understand
| what it does.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Oh losing the mic has happened to me mid-call many many
| times. Suddenly I would notice, that someone does not
| respond to anything I am saying, then check in Teams and,
| what do you know ... "Your microphone is not working.". I
| leave call, call again, without changing anything, mic
| works again ...
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I find that usually (but not always...) restarting Teams
| works. I chalk it up to "made by Microsoft". People make
| fun of me at work when I ask them if they tried rebooting
| it whenever they have a problem (the company I work for
| runs Windows on the desktop, I'm the odd one out running
| Linux).
|
| I used to think that this was an issue with me running
| Linux, and an "unsupported" distro at that (Arch). But
| I'm always reassured (in a way) when I see people having
| the exact same issues I do on Windows, with basic, run-
| of-the-mill configs (I have multiple sound cards, some of
| which come and go).
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Teams and audio problems is pervasive. Since a few months
| I cannot use Teams on the iPhone any more [1] because
| they changed/broke volume control so that even the lowest
| possible volume is way too loud (and interestingly, Teams
| somehow manages to circumvent the hearing protection
| settings in iOS). The audio quality on iOS is also very
| jarring, regardless of connection speed, basically to the
| point of it hurting in the ears even if you reduce the
| volume to a safe level (e.g. by dangling the headphones
| in front of your ears instead of putting them in, which
| is absolutely ridiculous). Similarly I had issues with
| Teams mute control on a dedicated, certified headset,
| where both the mute button on the headset and in the
| Teams UI did nothing, only the special Fn key on the
| laptop worked. "It magically fixed itself at some point".
|
| [1] I really liked to walk'n'talk for a few recurring
| meetings. Unfortunately, Microsoft does not like people
| touching grass.
| connicpu wrote:
| Completely agree, there's a lot of user friendly reasons to
| want the software to behave this way. I use a headset with a
| hardware mute that engages when I put the mic arm up, that's
| what I use when I want to make sure I'm muted.
| David wrote:
| Very much this, it takes time to recapture the microphone and
| it's really annoying to lose the first part of what you say
| every time you unmute. I lead the video team at a
| videoconferencing app (gather.town) and we keep the microphone
| active when you mute for this reason.
|
| As seems to be pretty common, for the sake of privacy we do
| stop sending audio to the media server. That's a tradeoff,
| since we're still susceptible to losing a little bit while the
| audio connection resumes.
|
| Edit: as others have mentioned, also useful to keep bluetooth
| headsets in two-way audio mode rather than reverting to audio
| output mode, since that's really disruptive.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Just throwing it out there but maybe to avoid bandwidth
| spikes that might lead to latency depending on the setup,
| could you inject some kind of easily identifiable "is muted"
| signal along with white noise in place of silences? or would
| that sort of pre-mixing be too slow to do in real time on the
| client side?
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Shoutout to gathertown. Love what you're doing.
| pigtailgirl wrote:
| got a modmic - popular mic - has a button on it to mute the
| mic- light turns red - pushed the button and went for a pee -
| came back to the meeting - left again to get a drink - came
| back - was asked to mute my mic - light was red - clicked
| hardware button - red light turned off - clicked again - right
| light turned on - mic was still active - no longer trust
| hardware buttons
| novok wrote:
| That is a button that works via software, not a physical
| disconnect like on some other mics. When its a physical
| disconnect the os can't tell if you've sent a mute command,
| just that all audio input stopped.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Not all mics are like this. I have a Corsair gaming headset
| which has a hardware mute button. I frequently set it on mute
| when I'm munching on something, forget to unmute, and despite
| videoconferencing software and the OS thinking the Mic is
| unmuted, no signal is detected.
| Dig1t wrote:
| You are right that the problems you listed are easily solved by
| keeping the mic open/streaming.
|
| If you actually value privacy as a company though, these are
| all very solvable problems.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" if you really care about privacy, consider getting a
| hardware mute microphone"_
|
| Even if you get an external microphone which can be muted, if
| you're on a laptop you'll still have an internal microphone
| which can't be muted except through software.
|
| What we really need are laptops sold without microphones and
| cameras. Then you can just use external ones only, and be sure
| that no one's listening/looking when you unplug them.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Usually software only captures one mic at a time.
| rob_c wrote:
| have to agree, it's not well explained, but hardly seems like a
| smoking gun that google/zoom/skype are listening out for anti-
| government hysteria...
| neura wrote:
| It's simple. Most video conferencing apps that I've used will
| let you know that your mic is muted when you try to speak and
| your mic is muted.
|
| If you think they're doing something else, then don't use it.
| If you think you don't have a choice because your employer
| requires you to use it, your choice is not in whether or not to
| use the software. If it's something you care about, there's
| always a choice.
| asxd wrote:
| I don't think an application has to actually do anything with
| the audio data in order to retain its access to the microphone.
| I'm not an expert here, but I'd imagine it's something like
| this: mic = grab_access_to_mic()
| while app_is_running: if (is_muted):
| pass else: send_that_audio(mic)
|
| It also mentions some of the apps sending the muted audio "to
| the cloud", which seems completely unrelated to retaining
| access to the mic.
|
| Also, seems like an honest mistake, but I think they got this
| backwards, right?
|
| > 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.
|
| Wouldn't it be driver -> app -> cloud? I think I'm splitting
| hairs at this point though.
|
| Lastly, it would be nice if this article at least listed the
| apps that were investigated.
| Veserv wrote:
| Okay, given that they are not listening for any insidious
| purpose, they should all just add a legally binding,
| unrevokable clause to their all of their terms of service
| indicating that they will never sell any audio data or data
| derived from the audio data while the microphone is muted.
| Absent that, it is entirely legal for them to do so at any time
| for any reason with no consequences, so I see no reason why we
| should take the word of a amoral entity that pinky swears they
| will not do so when a legally binding statement is so much
| cleaner and more straightforward.
| lrem wrote:
| Would you use a service that sells your audio data when
| unmuted? :/
| Sakos wrote:
| Honestly, it feels like most people here aren't reading the
| article.
|
| > The researchers then decided to see if they could use data
| collected on mute from that app to infer the types of
| activities taking place in the background. Using machine
| learning algorithms, they trained an activity classifier using
| audio from YouTube videos representing six common background
| activities, including cooking and eating, playing music, typing
| and cleaning. Applying the classifier to the type of telemetry
| packets the app was sending, the team could identify the
| background activity with an average of 82% accuracy.
|
| How is this not extremely concerning for anybody who cares
| about privacy?
|
| How about we not make the default that companies can do
| whatever they want and users have to take steps like a
| hardware-muted mic (which isn't always an option) to ensure a
| basic expectation of privacy?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| There's no cost to privacy if it's all being written to
| /dev/null. I'm not worried because the cost benefit analysis
| is not even remotely in the video conferencing app's favor to
| listen to that traffic. Are they really going to use the
| compute time to analyze all this audio, then do what? Try and
| monetize data on what people are doing in the background of
| their video calls?
|
| The technical cost of deploying this is probably large, and
| the cost to reputation immense if they were caught doing
| this. By comparison, giving people the additional sense of
| privacy by actually turning off and on the mic is likely more
| than outweighed by the annoyance of lag between turning on
| and off your mic and being heard by the other chat members.
|
| Although they could do something like write random bits of
| audio to the stream when the mic is muted in software. That'd
| at least let users know that the actual audio isn't leaving
| their device. But the hardware peripheral activation is
| probably not going to go away.
| nemothekid wrote:
| Because a video conferencing app with a bad UX is going to be
| quickly supplanted with one with a better UX; the privacy
| concerns of being spied on by a video conferencing app while
| you are muted is very minute for most people.
|
| There should be a line between "companies doing whatever they
| want" because of some implied "nefarious" reasons, and
| "companies doing whatever they want" because their customers
| want a better experience even if it has security/privacy
| implications.
| ortusdux wrote:
| _Because a video conferencing app with a bad UX is going to
| be quickly supplanted with one with a better UX_
|
| For the vast majority of users, price beats UX. If a
| company can keep their app free by selling user data, they
| will out-compete paid alternatives, regardless of the UX.
| chefandy wrote:
| Mostly agree. Price has a higher _weight_ than UX but a
| bad enough UX will succumb to reasonably priced
| competitors.
|
| Anecdotally, privacy/security seem to be on the bottom of
| the stack. Platform support and necessity for work are
| above them all.
| julienb_sea wrote:
| This is not how enterprise software works. Audited data
| privacy is a core selling point of enterprise
| communication systems like Slack and Zoom, which are able
| to charge a lot of money for enterprise licenses and have
| very viable business models. You're right that this may
| not work in the consumer space, but that battle is
| already lost -- there are myriad free communication
| options available to consumers such as messenger calls,
| facetime, etc.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Considering the trouble I have with WebEx again and again
| UX indeed comes late.
|
| I often call it "golf-course-ware" the sales person goes
| golfing with the executive, they discuss features and
| prices and discounts ober the match and the executive
| typically doesn't have to use the software but only their
| employees or the assistant.
|
| Interestingly Zoom for me was a game changer in usability
| and it spread during pandemic, when executives where at
| home partially without their physical conference room
| with video conf setup and without assistant.
| joshuaissac wrote:
| > Audited data privacy is a core selling point of
| enterprise communication systems like Slack and Zoom
|
| Is Zoom audited? Zoom had been lying for about having
| end-to-end encryption, for example, until they were
| caught by the US Federal Trade Commission. Surely,
| something like that would have been discovered earlier in
| an audit, if they were audited and the audits were worth
| something.
|
| They were also sending data to third parties like
| Facebook and Google through their SDKs.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/zoom-lied-to-
| use...
|
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/08/zoom-to-
| pay-85m-...
| brodock wrote:
| They also kept microfone on after closing calls, and
| reverted after getting caught
| https://thinksproutinfotech.com/news/zoom-update-fixes-
| macos...
| LegitShady wrote:
| this was definitely a thing in windows too although no
| idea if changed now - I remember zoom running in the tray
| would cause the microphone to activate even outside of
| calls. I was weirded out by it enough to stop running
| zoom on startup and eventually replace zoom with other
| applications that didn't exhibit that behaviour.
| autoexec wrote:
| Seriously, who in their right mind is using Zoom at this
| point? They've been "accidentally" collecting people's
| data, disclosing people's data to others, and have been
| caught lying so many times there's nearly zero chance
| that it's just total incompetence and even if it were,
| why use something made by people who are _that_ bad at
| their job?
|
| There are so many alternatives, how is it Zoom has any
| business at all?
| lolinder wrote:
| This morning my boss tried to host a meeting on his
| favorite Zoom substitute. The first 20 minutes were spent
| trying to fix a ten second delay in his audio. Finally we
| just switched to a Zoom call, and it worked flawlessly.
|
| There are only two videoconferencing platforms I've never
| had any problems with: Zoom and Google Meet. I don't
| trust either company, but sometimes you just have to get
| your work done.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > how is it Zoom has any business at all?
|
| Zoom was the first videoconferencing software I
| experienced where the first 15 minutes of the meeting was
| not spent with "can you see me," "can you hear me," some
| people falling back to dialing in to a speakerphone, and
| one or more out-of-band calls to various participants to
| troubleshoot problems.
|
| Zoom was click a link. And it worked. Nobody cared much
| about anything else beyond that.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| Perhaps I am misremembering but I remember using Skype
| 9-10 years ago without any issues. Zoom does not seem to
| be that much of an improvement in terms of ease of use
| rootusrootus wrote:
| But is Skype that way _now_? Zoom was in good position
| when the pandemic made everyone pick a video conferencing
| app. Some of the competition (Webex comes to mind) got
| slapped so hard they basically copied the Zoom interface
| in order to stay somewhat competitive.
| victimblamer wrote:
| > How is this not extremely concerning for anybody who cares
| about privacy?
|
| I manage some properties for a family member on the side, one
| of which is in a very bad neighborhood. When I travel to this
| neighborhood I have a certain state of alertness that I would
| not normally have in my boring suburbistani neighborhood.
| This is better known as "situational awareness" - the man
| approaching me in my own neighborhood is likely a just having
| a friendly conversation, the man approaching me in bad
| neighborhood is guaranteed going to at least try to bum a
| smoke off me, which I don't have as I don't smoke, and will
| likely act belligerent if I refuse to give him money as a
| follow-on to the request for a smoke.
|
| Contextually, I expect a video conferencing software to be
| listening to and watching me even if it doesn't necessarily
| reflect in the UI, it has the capability and is actively
| meant to do so. As such, I explicitly don't have any form of
| sensitive conversation in the vicinity regardless of status.
| On the other hand, I do not expect it to do so when not
| running nor my laptop to do anything similar.
|
| Perhaps there is a legitimate criticism to be made here of
| poor UX around "not listening" - but to paint this as an
| "extremely concerning" issue is sky-is-falling critique. This
| over-the-top concern seems further alarmist in that both my
| laptop and phone display clear and obvious warnings to the
| user when the microphone is hot.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| If your VC software decides to perform signal processing on
| the microphone input while it is running but you are muted
| then yes, it can determine things about your behavior.
|
| But that's true for literally all applications running on
| your computer. Evil software running on your machine can do
| all sorts of bad things.
| Tepix wrote:
| You can tell that an application accesses the microphone
| these days.
| necovek wrote:
| It's not that simple. An application could have access to
| the microphone, but an OS could be providing the mute
| functionality, thereby not passing any data to the app
| even if it keeps access to it (there are
| hardware/software issues with releasing and reaccessing
| it with extremely low latency like one expects of a
| mute/unmute button).
|
| The problem, as reported in the article, is that apps are
| not making use of the OS mute, but are instead still
| reading from the microphone, and some are even passing
| the readout to their servers.
| Gigachad wrote:
| On Macos, there is an indicator dot in the status bar, on
| all chat apps, the mic dot is always active while the
| camera dot does turn off when the camera is disabled. The
| most likely situation is that turning the mic and camera
| on at the OS level has delay which is acceptable for
| turning on video but not for audio where you want to be
| able to respond to something quickly.
| trelane wrote:
| > But that's true for literally all applications running on
| your computer. Evil software running on your machine can do
| all sorts of bad things.
|
| This is why I personally insist on using the web version of
| streaming software over an installed binary.
| quantified wrote:
| It is, just most people don't care. And you can't buy a
| little shutter for your laptop mic like you can for the
| camera.
| izacus wrote:
| You can easily buy a microphone with a physical mute switch
| though.
| quantified wrote:
| Yes, more addons for the employer-supplied Mac. I miss my
| Thinkpads
| necovek wrote:
| You can control your microphone in your OS settings. While
| we are still on PulseAudio, check out pavucontrol for Linux
| systems. I am sure there are equivalent tools for Windows
| or MacOS.
|
| There are also laptops with hardware microphone switches
| (eg. https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/ or
| https://frame.work/).
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Why did you move the goalpost? The comment you're responding
| to claims that there isn't a malicious purpose here. You
| instead claim to rebut it by saying that it's "concerning for
| those concerned with privacy". Can you see how those are
| different things?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > How is this not extremely concerning for anybody who cares
| about privacy?
|
| Because they're not actually doing that?
|
| These researchers did everything they could think of to come
| up with the most concerning headline.
|
| I imagine someone, somewhere is going to make a video
| conferencing app that closes the audio interface every time
| you press mute. I also expect few people will use that option
| because it adds additional latency every time you unmute.
|
| I want my mute button to work ASAP and I don't believe Zoom
| (or anyone else) is interested in whether or not I'm eating
| while muted.
| worik wrote:
| > ....and I don't believe Zoom (or anyone else) is
| interested in whether or not I'm eating while muted.
|
| But the detectives with a search warrant are pleased to be
| able to listen to your private conversations.
|
| The secret police who do not need a warrant (or legality)
| are glad to be able to listen too.
|
| The staff at Zoom are happy to spy on you, probably, for a
| small reward.
|
| A proper mute removes those concerns. A mute that does not
| mute is inviting a lawsuit
| throwawayboise wrote:
| If these are your threat models, your microphone should
| have a hardware mute switch, and you should at least have
| something opaque to cover your camera.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > and I don't believe Zoom (or anyone else) is interested
| in whether or not I'm eating while muted.
|
| If they are, the continuing video feed is pretty likely to
| answer their question.
| marricks wrote:
| > Because they're not actually doing that?
|
| >> Applying the classifier to the type of telemetry packets
| the app was sending
|
| Are you sure they're not? The used these algorithms on
| telemetry packets sent from browsers. I see no reason to
| give companies whose revenue is built on ads the benefit of
| the doubt here.
| asojfdowgh wrote:
| I don't think one should go to the level of making random
| bs claims about things, and then blaming the groups one
| is making the claims about.
| Aunche wrote:
| Most of the time, audio that a videoconference app receives
| while the mic is unmuted is going to be a lot more useful for
| surveillance purposes than the audio the app receives while
| it's muted. If you're so concerned about the app knowing when
| you're eating 82% of the time, why would you trust the app at
| all?
| rob_c wrote:
| please go away and read about the architectural permissions
| for things like this, performance, latency and re-read
| this... if it bugs you throw away your smartphone or custom-
| compile lineageOS
| georgyo wrote:
| I think there are two different problem here.
|
| 1. When the mic is soft muted, information is getting sent to
| the conference provider which could leak information about
| private matters.
|
| 2. When the mic is not muted all information is definitely
| going to the conference provider in a way they can decrypt so
| they can mix it.
|
| That is to say that when using most conference software, you
| have already granted then access to contents of the meeting.
|
| If you can't trust them to not miss use information they get
| when the mic is off, then you also can't trust them when the
| mic is on.
| markstos wrote:
| End-to-End encryption for group video and audio is now
| supported. I'm not sure it works or who is supporting
| besides Signal, but it is apparently not not required that
| the conference provider decrypt the streams to mix them.
|
| https://mashable.com/article/signal-end-to-end-encrypted-
| gro...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Element/Matrix also support e2ee.
|
| Jitsi has supposed e2ee videoconferencing (on Chrome -
| they used some chrome-specific API for processing) for (I
| believe) at least a year or two.
| feanaro wrote:
| The API is called Insertable Streams. It's not actually
| supposed to be Chrome-specific, others are just lagging
| in implementing it.
|
| Element has native E2EE for 1-to-1 calls, but uses Jitsi
| for group calls. Native E2EE group calls actually also
| exist, called Element Call
| (https://element.io/blog/introducing-native-matrix-voip-
| with-...) but they're yet to be integrated into Element
| and specced into Matrix, I believe.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Jitsi's own solution I assume (also on Jitsi Meet), and
| not the usual XMPP/Jabber that (non-Meet) Jitsi uses ?
| hunter2_ wrote:
| > it is apparently not not required that the conference
| provider decrypt the streams to mix them
|
| I don't believe this could be true, and the linked
| article doesn't have the word "mix" anywhere. I imagine
| that there is no mixing happening until after decryption
| on the client device. Of course this means that every
| audio source goes to each recipient discretely, which
| means more bandwidth, but audio (especially near-silent
| moments therein) is lightweight enough for reasonably
| sized groups. Obviously this same n^2 scaling issue
| happens with the video anyway which is never mixed.
| pthatcherg wrote:
| That's correct. You can't mix without decrypting. Signal
| does not mix at the server because it can't.
|
| More info is available at my blog post about it:
| https://signal.org/blog/how-to-build-encrypted-group-
| calls/
| ghostpepper wrote:
| "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."
|
| The way I read that is, only one of the apps actually sends
| audio data to the server when the mic is muted. I'm not sure
| why they don't say which one, and I'm not sure what is meant
| by "occasionally gather raw audio data" but it could be as
| innocuous as the mute button not updating and a half second
| of audio being sent before muting starts. Nobody is building
| a machine learning profile out of that.
|
| The real story here should be that one app where the mute
| button doesn't actually work. The others are all operating
| normally as far as I can tell.
| 2fast4you wrote:
| "occasionally gather raw audio data" could be used to
| remind you that you're muted when you're trying to talk.
| I've seen that in either GoToMeeting or Zoom
| notreallyserio wrote:
| There's a weird culture around reporting problems without
| reporting names. You see it a lot here on HN and
| occasionally in media. I'll never understand. Why bother
| talking about corporate misbehavior (or etc) and not back
| it up with the basic, minimal data you could provide?
| sharken wrote:
| They state that their findings will be presented at
| Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium in July. So it
| seems they want to keep some info for that event.
|
| Should i hazard a guess, it would be either Zoom or
| Teams.
| saghm wrote:
| I imagine it's to avoid getting sued by the company
| behaving poorly. Companies bring lawsuits against good-
| faith security researchers all the time to try to silence
| them, so if you were a researcher, why would you expect
| the one company among the several you researched who's
| potentially misbehaving to not misbehave by trying to sue
| you into silence?
| willcipriano wrote:
| Makes claims impossible to falsify, without naming names
| nobody can poke holes in your analysis.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| > You see it a lot here on HN and occasionally in media
|
| It makes some sense here on HN where people often post
| under their real names and want to think carefully before
| badmouthing a former employer, or otherwise picking a
| fight.
|
| I agree that journalists have little excuse.
| ElemenoPicuares wrote:
| > I agree that journalists have little excuse.
|
| Except wanting anyone, ever to talk to them again about
| something controversial.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| Maybe their research is ongoing, maybe they are afraid of
| being sued, maybe they'd rather not harm a company so
| reputation without fully understanding why they do this
| ivanhoe wrote:
| So why did they publish the text now then (other than
| obviously for self-promotion)?
|
| Why not finishing their research first, discussing with
| lawyers how not get sued, and contacting the company
| about it so that they can fix it or comment on it, and
| only then publishing the proper, responsible research
| that is actually useful to someone?
| e40 wrote:
| _> I 'm not sure why they don't say which one_
|
| Yeah, that's very annoying.
|
| Zoom, for example, will tell you, when you are muted and
| you begin to speak. It's a very nice thing.
|
| I have a microphone (that wasn't expensive) that has a
| hardware mute. I use it when I really want to make sure I'm
| not heard, even for "speaking" detection.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Zoom, for example, will tell you, when you are muted
| and you begin to speak_
|
| MS Teams has that feature too.
|
| TBH I'm not surprised: when you mute the mic in an app,
| you're still letting the app in control. If you _really_
| want to be safe, you need to mute at OS level or in
| hardware. That 's why cameras have a hardware cover in
| modern laptops.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| The apps can control the sound devices at the OS level
| too. But fortunately most(/all) don't, so muting in the
| sound server / OS is generally safe.
| sushisource wrote:
| Precisely, this is why I think the earlier comment's
| suggestion:
|
| > How about we not make the default that companies can do
| whatever they want and users have to take steps like a
| hardware-muted mic (which isn't always an option) to
| ensure a basic expectation of privacy?
|
| Sounds nice on the surface, but is ultimately silly.
| Sure, it'd be _nice_ if everyone did the right thing, but
| you can never guarantee that, and hence if you really
| care you need to perform the mute at a lower level than
| what the app has access to.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| MacBook pros already have a mute-speaker button.
|
| It would be so nice to have a mute-mic button which
| lights up when muted.
| Edd314159 wrote:
| Ironically this is a good use case for a Touch Bar: a
| button on your keyboard that is only there _sometimes_
| because it's only needed in certain contexts (when you're
| on a call)
| Gigachad wrote:
| The touch bar is like an idea that works really well in
| your head. It has so many theoretical cool uses. But in
| reality I end up never using it for anything.. I would
| have been happy if the new one had the touch bar and the
| function keys, but that would have been extra cost for a
| feature people just aren't using.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| 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.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| I hate the latter, because I use a keyboard shortcut to
| mute/unmute the microphone on the OS-level. This works fine
| with Google Meet, but in Microsoft Teams I have to use the
| button in its UI because that pop-up gets in the way (also:
| Teams not working at all in Firefox, what's up with that?).
| prettyStandard wrote:
| It's BS. I changed my user agent to Chrome and it worked
| just fine.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| It is BS, but when I tried that, I had other things not
| working, like sharing my screen. So it is BS, but not
| merely for looking at the user agent of the browser, but
| for the software development incapability or
| unwillingness on the side of MS. (Edit: While basically
| every other voice chat / video chat web app works fine on
| FF, so basically everyone but MS and Slack has solved
| this problem years ago. Go figure.)
| nyuszika7h wrote:
| GoToMeeting also refuses to work in Firefox.
| Arnavion wrote:
| Yes, I have the exact same situation, and had to resort to
| uBlock Origin's element zapper because of how annoying that
| popup is. Of course it's an alphabet soup of minified CSS
| classes, so I assume it'll break the next time they update
| the UI.
| ineptech wrote:
| I know! Eight zillion designer-hours in to one of the
| most-used applications of all time, and yet the "you can
| join now" popup blocks the "join" button.
| GraphenePants wrote:
| Firefox is an unsupported browser - Teams works fine on
| Edge.
| ls15 wrote:
| > Teams works fine for me on Edge.
|
| "If you don't want to install our app, you can just
| install our browser."
| wbobeirne wrote:
| I also considered this, but the article is talking about
| audio _telemetry_, not that they're keeping your hardware mic
| "hot" locally. Audio detection like that could be done
| entirely locally.
| [deleted]
| cortesoft wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| conductr wrote:
| It takes a long time for the masses to adopt software in
| the way you mention. I'd bet that discord users are not
| representative of the masses. The main reason I notice
| people talking while muted is 1) forgot they were muted
| 2) multitasking / distracted 3) unfamiliar with the
| software / how to unmute. #3 was probably #1 in summer of
| 2020 when everyone was just starting. The #1 and #2 I
| listed just happen. It's common to never speak in a
| meeting. It's common to never speak in a meeting and then
| randomly get called on leading to forgetting to unmute.
| It's also common that your mic isn't working and you
| don't realize it until you do try to speak and everyone
| is say "you're on mute". This happens all the time with
| some Bluetooth Bose headphones and my work PC, some
| configuration has this device matchup to be a constant
| problem and my IT couldn't care less about a permanent
| solution since they found a temporary one (reverts on
| reboot).
|
| I know people that literally retired early when they were
| forced to use PCs in the office. Over 30 years later,
| many people can barely use the most basic features of
| their computer. All to say, I'm not surprised this is an
| issue and I don't see people as a whole digging their way
| out any time soon.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Main reason why I invested in a mic that has its own mute
| button with a very obvious red light when it's muted.
|
| It also can keep the Teams mute status in sync as long as
| I don't touch it in the app myself (I believe through
| Teams detecting whether the mic interface is marked as
| muted or not, so it isn't exclusive to my mic).
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Because in Discord you hop into an audio call and you're
| there for however long you want to hang out in the room.
| People can come and go from this room, but the room is
| persistent. In a job, you're going from meeting to
| meeting each with different attendees and stakeholders.
| You might have been on top of it in the morning for
| standup then 3 hours and a head full of
| code/spreadsheets/whatever later when you're discussing
| tech debt with other people you forget to unmute until
| your portion of the meeting comes 5 minutes into the
| start. Push-to-talk certainly helps, but if you're
| frequently talking in small meetings (say 3-5 people)
| then PTT becomes more of a hindrance than a help.
|
| Personally I just have a headset with hardware mute
| functionality and a big red circle showing me it's muted.
| It remembers its muted status, so I just mute it by
| default and default my OS to use the headset's mic. That
| way I know quickly and easily when I'm muted and when I'm
| not, though even then I have small mistakes in the
| mornings when I'm tired. Over time I've optimized my
| meeting workflow because my company has gone all remote
| and I'm in a lot of meetings.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| People are not communication professionals. They are not
| ATC nor even pilots.
|
| Still, PTT is the solution, preferrably in hardware. Not
| supported in sw anyway by e.g. Teams. In hw it keeps the
| mike-on symbol lit, and the device powered. Always having
| to push prevents ever forgetting to do so.
|
| Discord's input handler sucks, uses semantic keys, not
| keycodes. Can't be mapped to an otherwise disabled
| capslock. TS and mumble can do that. Compared with those
| Teams audio looks like a toy.
| chefandy wrote:
| We all have our shortcomings.
|
| Some people don't intuitively track the state of the
| video conferencing microphone, especially if they have
| cognitively involved jobs or lots of distractions. Mine
| are 1) the inability to resist that little self esteem
| boost from disdainfully highlighting inanity of other
| people's shortcomings, and 2) making snide comments.
|
| They're both super obnoxious but I'm working on them.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I still don't know how professionals keep making this
| mistake._
|
| Because
|
| 1) most group calls that need people to be on mute most
| of the time are useless, boring, snooze fests, most
| attendees don't care about, so those 'professionals', who
| are caffeinated zombies half asleep, will space out and
| forget the status of their mic within 10 seconds of
| toggling it
|
| and
|
| 2) most chat apps suck at drawing attention to the status
| of the mic and, if you have multiple monitors, you can be
| staring at one monitor (Jira, reddit, Redmine, HN, VS
| Code, etc.) while the chat app and the status of the mic
| is being displayed on another monitor where you're not
| looking
|
| It's a mistake super easy to make. Still, better be safe
| and make the mistake of being muted all the time, than
| forgetting to mute yourself and have participants hear
| something you didn't want them to hear.
|
| Ideally I'd want a feature that gives the image on all my
| monitors a nuclear red vignette, or something like that,
| whenever my mic is hot, so I don't have to keep
| paranoidly glancing at the mute toggle every couple of
| minutes, to make sure my mic is still muted, so they
| can't hear me mumbling on how incompetent management is
| and on how useless this meeting is.
| macintux wrote:
| > With that being said, if you really care about privacy,
| consider getting a hardware mute microphone.
|
| But still consider using both software and hardware mutes. I
| was on a sales call years ago and activated the hardware mute.
| While one of our salespeople was talking I groaned out loud,
| and the call suddenly went silent. Somehow the hardware mute
| had failed, despite the light being lit.
| zarzavat wrote:
| > 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.
|
| They don't have to actually send the data though in this case
| they should just send 0 padding. It's all encrypted presumably,
| so the only externally observable factor is the packet size.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Another solution is to mute at the microphone, if your hardware
| has a button for that. This way the application can do whatever
| it wants, it will still get nothing. Using the hardware button
| is often less effort, than switching windows, finding that
| unmute button visually and moving the mouse to that button to
| click it. Or one could use push to talk. Since there are ways
| to mute yourself without having to do it in the app, it would
| be acceptable, if unmuting took a part of a second to be
| effective, indicating that by some "unmuting ..." label
| somewhere.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| > "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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| On my T480s the mic mute button is handled in hardware/low-
| level firmware however all it does is set the mic input level
| to 0%, where the OS can trivially set it back to 100% if it
| wants.
|
| At least the LED on the button is driven by firmware based on
| that level, so it lights up only when the mic level is
| actually at 0%. While it won't prevent the OS from raising
| the volume, at least you'll know about it as the mute light
| will go off.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| Do these mute buttons actually hardware-mute the mic or do they
| send a keycode to the OS?
| remram wrote:
| Usually the second. If you have multiple buttons to do it
| (for example dedicated button + Fn+F4 combination) then it's
| almost certainly software.
| tedunangst wrote:
| They seem to do both, at least on some models? On my thinkpad
| running openbsd, the speaker mute can become desynced. Audio
| won't play unless both are unmuted. Pushing the button will
| flip flop the software state, but not the reverse (although I
| believe that code could be written, it doesn't exist). So if
| you soft mute, then push button, hardware mutes and software
| unmutes, but sound still doesn't play.
| rom1v wrote:
| I always use the key mute button on the Thinkpad, but anyway it
| can be muted in the system menu easily (at least in XFCE).
|
| (In fact, I just checked in Gnome, the menu does not expose
| microphone volume, it's only available from the settings
| window.)
| uslic001 wrote:
| Use a Mute Me device. https://muteme.com/
| lxgr wrote:
| 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?
| giantg2 wrote:
| "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.
| qiskit wrote:
| 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...
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| 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.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > being the CEO of a major corporation requires you take
| privacy more seriously
|
| My privacy is as valuable to me.
| schroeding wrote:
| 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. :/
| hammock wrote:
| 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.
| kazinator wrote:
| Use a headset with a hardware mute button.
| gruturo wrote:
| 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!
| teen wrote:
| 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.
| markstos wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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?
| lucasmullens wrote:
| Signing has tons of advantages over typing, since you can
| convey emotion/tone with your hands and facial expressions.
| I'd also imagine it has a higher WPM, although WPM might be a
| bad measure since some small words like "a" can get skipped
| when signing.
| phillipseamore wrote:
| Sign language is an actual independent language.
|
| Most sign at the same pace as speech. Both of which are
| faster than typing.
|
| Sign language has the same, or more, expressive properties as
| when we use inflection etc. in voice.
| Isthatablackgsd wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| I'm fascinated by your last point. Are you saying that
| being deaf impedes your written communication ? As a layman
| I would have thought that written communication would be a
| godsend.
| svxml wrote:
| Is it a serious question? Why do you prefer to speak over
| video instead of typing?
| Aerroon wrote:
| I am curious about that too (although others have already
| answered). I prefer typing over speaking.
|
| But I have realized that a lot of people I interact with
| find it more difficult to understand information in written
| form. Ie it's easier to teach someone with spoken language
| than over written text.
|
| I dislike video calls.
| lighthazard wrote:
| 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.
| NathanielK wrote:
| 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.
| someotherperson wrote:
| 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
| bartread wrote:
| 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.
| racl101 wrote:
| Of coooourse they are.
|
| Cause why should we trust these companies to be honest?
| EGreg wrote:
| 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 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
| datadata wrote:
| 2) Seems like a waste of bandwidth, did you consider the use
| case that turning off the video stream might be done to try to
| reduce bandwidth usage either due to cost of bandwidth or
| bandwidth being limited enough to break other simultaneous
| needs? And since 3) while creepy, is at least done on the
| client so does not seem to require the stream to always be sent
| to the other clients.
| EGreg wrote:
| Well, yes, it can be turned off and yes it can be not sent,
| but that's at the discretion of the client. They can "hack
| their client" to send it anyway which is why everyone has to
| "refuse" to receive it from a "muted" client, as well. It's a
| second line of defense. Never trust the client.
| m463 wrote:
| > Sometimes, it's very valuable from a business standpoint to
| grab the incoming video, and do eye recognition and face
| tracking ...
|
| this should 100% be opt-in. Think what kind of future is being
| created.
| EGreg wrote:
| it's a core feature of the app, in this case it's opt-in by
| the TEACHER, the student can simply choose not to participate
| in the course
| sizzle wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| That sounds like a great idea, but how much would it cost? We
| are kind of strapped for cash.
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| 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.
| fooblat wrote:
| 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
| ortusdux wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| mvkel wrote:
| People will always choose convenience over security
| zaphod12 wrote:
| 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.
| CalRobert wrote:
| One nice thing about the frame.work laptop is a hardware mic
| privacy switch built right in to the screen.
| paxys wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Why wouldn't said app also be able to programmatically unmute
| at the os-level?
| oauea wrote:
| It could, but you'll notice and then uninstall that app.
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