While the researchers didn’t name the specific applications that do this, they strongly hint that it is most video and conference call apps. In a blog post, the study claims that all the apps they tested “occasionally gather raw audio data while mute is activated.”
It took a real Einstein to figure this one out. Mute your mic while in a Teams or Zoom meeting, then say something. On your screen the words "Your Mic Is Muted" appear. Gee, if the mic isn't listening to you while the mic is muted, how did the program know you were speaking?
The "mute" while in a video call is only muting audio going to the other participants. It isn't muting the audio going to your own computer.
It took a real Einstein to figure this one out. Mute your mic while in a Teams or Zoom meeting, then say something. On your screen the words “Your Mic Is Muted” appear. Gee, if the mic isn’t listening to you while the mic is muted, how did the program know you were speaking?
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I don’t know this for a fact, but I would imagine it’s a lot easier for software developers to simply interrupt the digital audio feed in the software itself than to tell the OS to mute the device. In fact, it makes sense that the OS would not want to allow software to do this. What if you have other software that still need access to the hardware?
Agree. It’s really a feature.
I have seen that too on my work laptop. On my personal devices I stick a pin in the hole for the mic and wiggle it around until the mic is dead. Kind of crude, but it does work.
I bought an ONN streaming device at Walmart to play with. I was a little shocked to see that it has a mic, too. This stuff is just friggen evil.