Google Chrome Flaw Sets Your PC's Mic Live 152
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."
Don't Worry, Folks. (Score:5, Funny)
I talk to myself in different voices all the time, and engage in detailed plots to take over the world.
If I haven't been picked up by the Men In White Coats by now, they aren't listening.
Temporary workaround (Score:5, Funny)
Get the wife & kids to learn and speak Navajo at home. It worked for the USA in World War II [wikipedia.org] so it can work for you too!
Precursor (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Google had to have put this in on purpose (Score:5, Funny)
That's why it's always more secure to run software 6 or more versions out of date. No zero-day bugs for me!