macOS Monterey shows that Zoom continues to use mic regardless of being in call | Hacker News Reader

macOS Monterey shows that Zoom continues to use mic regardless of being in call

hothardware.com

63 pointsbleair11 comments

Physical hardware disconnect for mic and camera is badly needed. I've a square of duct tape I stick over the camera of a 2.5k laptop. Madness.

The framework laptop has physical switches for the mic and camera, pretty nice detail. I realize you might mean Apple devices, in which case I agree!

Trustworthy software is badly needed.

Maybe you can disconnect the mic & camera, but since most modern audio chips are programmable it's possible to 'listen' to the speakers (think about it: a speaker is sort of a microphone in reverse). When a nation-state level player decides to eavesdrop there are many possibilities a hardware disconnect won't fix (some involving not tampering with your laptop at all)

A hardware disconnect fixes no problems most users have that's not solved by having a mostly secure OS with clear indication of recording status, while introducing some friction (like having to search for the magic button to turn the camera on when needed).

> Trustworthy software

When something titled that way finally shows up I still won't trust it...

I use a trimmed post-it note (keeping only the glued part). Leaves no residue.

The Chinese app called "genie" used with devices like cheap Merkury cameras, sold at places like Walmart for impossibly low prices and that livestream thru "Tuya" (which likely provides the inputs to China-based deep learning models) also does this on all Apple Silicon platforms. Yes, the "Terms" for that app would seem to allow for it, just like other Chinese apps: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/05/953515627/facial-recognition-... Such streams help China develop models that interpret emotions and behaviorally profile all types of people, not just Uyghurs: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57101248 They can also be used like https://www.aei.org/articles/chinas-olympics-app-is-pure-spy...

Pretty sure China has hacked all of the telecom companies to know which IPs (Tuya streams) would go with which Experian® profiles (https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/chinese-hackers-charged-in-...) too, though such a hack probably involves somethingStupid™ like keyboard firmware injected into customer service terminals at multi-provider offshore customer/provisioning centers. (Those account number to DHCP lease servers/loggers are probably the least protected part of the consumer networks...BigTech has erybody thinking it's about surveillance capitalism, when it's really about surveillance period.) Apple's iCloud Private Relay service doesn't help much here either, as "Tuya" can associate the Apple-device running the app with the IOT devices that are streaming through the "Tuya" platform, providing a pretty good estimation of the identity of the user of the app on the Apple-device (which, of course, can be passed along in realtime to other apps in the "Tuya" family, even as Private Relay is rotating the IP addresses, so long as the "genie" like app is running in the background enough to phone home with an IP update packet).

I’ve tried to avoid Zoom as much as possible. Is there any reason to use the desktop app instead of the web client?

Why doesn't the article show us where to look for the indicator and it looks like?

Just fluff.

It is part of the new control center. It shows an orange dot on the "control center" menu bar icon, or an orange dot in the top-right corner when full screen.

It’s an orange dot in the top right of the screen.

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30266894

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