Walt Mankowski via plug on 18 Apr 2022 15:33:37 -0700


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Re: [PLUG] Mute button in conferencing apps may not actually mute your mic

On Mon, Apr 18, 2022, at 3:44 PM, JP Vossen via plug wrote:
I read that "user feedback" excuse someplace too, since coverage for this is all over.  I find that dubious.

I opted in to the "user feedback" for Siri because voice recognition is a hard problem, and I figure it's helping the system recognize Philadelphia accents better. I certainly get the arguments for not allowing it, of course.

First, the Jabra USB wired whatever-it-is headset that I use mutes *me* in the headset when it's on mute, so if I forget and start to talk I don't heard myself in the headset and it sounds weird.  That has always Just Worked on Webex, Skype, Teams, Zoom, and Jitsi, so I am assuming it's the headset itself.  If THAT can do it all by itself, why can't the bloody software?  Without having to send "telemetry" anywhere?

Teams gives me the warning about being muted when my officemate is talking, so it's obviously not doing anything sophisticated about checking for other people speaking on the line. I can't see why checking the level on the microphone can't be done easily in the app without contacting the server.

Second, our tradition is that anytime anyone says, "Sorry, I was on mute" we all have to do a shot.  Who would want to disrupt that?!?  That ain't broke, so don't fix it.  :-)

Cheers!


On 4/18/22 13:39, Walt Mankowski via plug wrote:
> That’s very fair. I assumed they were simply checking if the volume coming through the microphone was about a certain decibel threshold. I don’t see why it needs to be much more complicated than that, and sending anything upstream seems unnecessary.
> 
> On Mon, Apr 18, 2022, at 1:32 PM, Keith C. Perry via plug wrote:
>>
>> Agreed.  It appear the intent was to alert people when their mikes are muted.  I don't think that that is nefarious but from a security point of view and maybe even a code / social engineering point of view this is a data leak.  Putting aside trying be helpful (I don't like this but I get it, they are trying to make the application seem "smart"), when you hit "mute" I think most people would NOT expect audio to be passed upstream to servers.  Even if the analysis could be done client side (i.e. you are talking and no one else is... oh wait, maybe the human forget to un-mute?) is it really so bad that someone says, "hey Keith, you're on mute"?
>>
>> Maybe it just me but I think this is a waste of compute time for something that is not a big deal and could easily lead to some sort of abuse at a minimum.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> *From: *"Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List" <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>
>> *To: *"Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List" <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>
>> *Sent: *Monday, April 18, 2022 1:16:02 PM
>> *Subject: *Re: [PLUG] Mute button in conferencing apps may not actually mute        your        mic
>>
>> That article is implying some sort of nefarious motive to this. Maybe so, but I suspect they do this so that they can give you an alert when you try to talk but you’re muted.
>>
>> Walt
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 18, 2022, at 11:58 AM, Keith C. Perry via plug wrote:
>>
>>     https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/mute-button-in-conferencing-apps-may-not-actually-mute-your-mic/ <https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/mute-button-in-conferencing-apps-may-not-actually-mute-your-mic/>
>>
>>     This is a bit off topic but since we do get into security conversations here, I thought people might find this interesting.  Jitsi Meet also happens to be on the list of apps reviewed too.  That's been my go to conference app when I get to select what to use.  That said, since the Zoom security issue days, I started doing all "muting" activities from my local device controls or I just unplug my webcam when I have concerns.
>>
>>     I'm having a laugh that Cisco WebEx was the "worse case"  :D

Later,
JP
--  -------------------------------------------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP | http://www.jpsdomain.org/ | http://bashcookbook.com/
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___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug