Video calling apps listen when the microphone is off, according to a study
25/04/2022A group of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States) has determined that video conferencing applications can continue accessing audio data even if the user has disabled the microphone. To demonstrate this, they have studied the most popular video conferencing applications and have analyzed the behavior of the mute button until they has determined that all the applications that they has tested whether the microphone was open or closed, occasionally collected raw data and delivered it to the servers of their services. In their research they have worked with binary analysis tools to see how the audio was transferred from the application to the audio drivers of the computers and then to the network. They aslo have created, through machine learning models ( 'machine learning'), a classifier of daily activities that, with 82% accuracy, has determined which activities users were doing while their microphones were, theoretically, silenced. In relation to this, the authors of this work recall that beyond muting the microphone, you can turn off the microphone of a device through the settings menu, a safer option to limit access to confidential information and sensitive data. All the conclusions of this study will be known next July in the Privacy Improvement Technologies Symposium.
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Android 12 allows you to disable 2G networks on your mobile
26/01/2022The latest version of Google's mobile operating system, Android 12, allows you to disable connections through 2G data networks. To do this, you must deactivate this connectivity through the 'Network and Internet' and 'SIM' sections, where you will find the option “allow 2G”, which you can activate or deactivate according to your preferences at any time. As explained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 2G networks has a very vulnerable encryption system and is quite easy that a hacker intercept the signal and track the exact location of the user. Android reports that despite the fact that 2G connectivity is disabled, this coverage will continue to be available for emergency calls.
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