
On the ubiquity of web-enabled microphones - conductor
https://panaudicon.wordpress.com/2015/01/23/on-the-ubiquity-of-web-enabled-microphones/
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svachalek
I think the proposals in the article are dead on arrival by reason of the very
same ubiquity. Unless you happen to be in the sort of situation where you can
ask everyone around you to put their phone in the freezer, you can bet there's
someone near you who would never dream of physically turning off any part of
their phone, and who has no idea what network security even is.

Beyond that we're moving towards a world where practically everything is
connected to the network and takes voice control. Even if it isn't designed to
relay voice over the internet it's going to be built with commodity
multipurpose hardware that certainly has the capability, and you can bet that
practically no one is going to bother making sure they're private.

I don't know what the answer is but I think we're reaching, if we're not there
already, a threshold where ensuring the security of your own device is of
moderate utility at best.

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jsprogrammer
Not to mention, turning off your recording device(s) could be a serious
liability. Whistleblowers can typically only be successful if they can bring
overwhelming evidence of their claims. Audio and video recording can capture
pretty much all physical phenomena that would be relevant to a legal case. I'm
sure you can imagine instances where people were physically and
psychologically harmed solely (or in large part) because the abuser knew no
one else knew what was happening at that time and location and never would.

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jsprogrammer
It's not just microphones, but video cameras as well. Soon, global broadcast
networks will be built, essentially allowing any device connected to the
Internet to send live audio/video streams to any (and eventually all) other
devices.

The upside to this will be that we (human beings) will be in control of the
devices and they will be spread throughout the population (at least 1 device
per person).

The news gathering and educational implications of this will likely be
staggering. Secrets will become known, rapidly.

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teejay0023
The accelerometer is an issue. Could the switch cut the mic and the
accelerometer out at the same time?

I'm told that cutting power to the radio chip will take all the antennae off-
line. But the OS and/or apps may become confused by its absence, which has
never been factored into any model of phone before, AFAIK.

The point is to mindfully create bubbles of privacy where the face-to-face
domain cannot be remotely penetrated without physical access, and to do it
anywhere, conveniently, without taking one's battery out of their phone, which
is too much for some people. There is a class of persons who would make use of
the switch but never bother or forget to take their battery out. Cameras are
easy to cover up.

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dsr_

        A friend suggested that a 3-way off switch might possess enough novelty to warrant a patent.  I have no idea.  I hope that it’s not actually patentable, because I just want to see that a product like this is made, but I actually have some concerns because of my situation that the government would take my idea and give it to a contractor, or patent it themselves and sit on the patent.
    
    

Congratulations! By publishing this article, you have established that you
thought of this idea in early 2015. While you may decide to patent it
yourself, you no longer need to fear someone else patenting it, because one
must have a good claim to inventing a thing in order to obtain a patent on it.

~~~
javajosh
Is that true? I thought the rule was first to file, not first to invent. And I
have never heard of a blog post counting as "prior art".

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eemax
In the US, the rule used to be first to file, but is now first to invent
(along with the rest of the world) since the enactment of the America Invents
Act in 2013.

First to file/invent isn't actually relevant for prior art though. Any
publicly available source that describes the invention can serve as prior art.
However, patent lawyers are very good at "writing around" existing patents and
other prior art.

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jrazavian
Actually, you have it backwards. The US was previously a first-to-invent
country but as of March 2013 is now first-to-file. This brings the US in line
with the rest of the modern world, which is already mostly first-to-file.

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bsder
A switch is irrelevant now that we have evidence that even accelerometers can
be used to reconstitute speech.

I'd bet that CCD elements have some level of sensitivity to external voice.

Pulling the battery/putting it in a Faraday cage are the only real options
left.

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deegles
It will have to be a Faraday cage with an internal white noise generator.

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0xdeadbeefbabe
This is hardly worth mentioning when talking about 0day markets, but what
stops a state willing to pay $500K for an exploit from taking the hacker(s)
back home? Is it ethics?

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walterbell
Or remove the physical microphone entirely and use a headset.

