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Google Chrome Flaw Sets Your PC's Mic Live

Posted by timothy on from the lives-of-others dept.

First time accepted submitter AllTheTinfoilHats (3612007) writes "A security flaw in Google Chrome allows any website you visit with the browser to listen in on nearby conversations. It doesn't allow sites to access your microphone's audio, but provides them with a transcript of the browser's speech-to-text transcriptions of anything in range. It was found by a programmer in Israel, who says Google issued a low-priority label to the bug when he reported it, until he wrote about it on his blog and the post started picking up steam on social media. The website has to keep you clicking for eight seconds to keep the microphone on, and Google says it has no timeline for a fix." However, as discoverer Guy Aharonovsky is quoted, "It seems like they started to look for a way to quickly mitigate this flaw."

6 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Flaw? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yeah right.

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    1. Re:Flaw? by noh8rz10 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      WTF WHY IS CHROME TRANSCRIBING EVERYTHING I SAY??? are they looking for keywords to advertise against, like they do in gmail? the bug here is that some websites are gaining access to the transcriptions that are supposed to only go to google?

      I admit that sometimes I have my tinfoil hat on, but this is absurdly beyond the scope of anything I could have imagined.

    2. Re:Flaw? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      WHY are you using a proprietary commercial suite to browse the web??

      Captcha: nonsense

  2. Re:Old news? by SmilingBoy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And what a weak article. A link to the Chromium issue tracker but not the actual issue, and a link to Reddit but not the actual submission. Are you kidding me?

  3. Re:Oh really.. EXCELLENT NEWS! by noh8rz10 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    the news here is that the website doesn't turn on the microphone, google turns on the microphone and starts making transcriptions of everything you say. the website just accesses the transcriptions. why is goog recording everything? rhetorical question, they are looking for keywords that they can advertise against. did you just say "cancun"? they will give you hotel and airline ads.

    that is super creepy.

  4. Re:He only gave Google 2 days before going public? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    "Talk about impatient"

    Not impatient enough.
    It is obvious google built this in to spy on your environment.
    Fuck google. They should have their guts tied in a knot for this.