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SUMMARY: Are You Really Muted?: A Privacy Analysis of Mute Buttons in Vide
 o Conferencing Apps - Kassem Fawaz\, University of Wisconsin-Madison
DTSTART:20220524T130000Z
DTEND:20220524T140000Z
UID:TALK172565@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Kieron Ivy Turk
DESCRIPTION:In the post-pandemic era\, video conferencing apps (VCAs) have
  converted previously private spaces — bedrooms\, living rooms\, and kit
 chens — into semi-public extensions of the office. And for the most part
 \, users have accepted these apps in their personal space\, without much t
 hought about the permission models that govern the use of their personal d
 ata during meetings. While access to a device’s video camera is carefull
 y controlled\, little has been done to ensure the same level of privacy fo
 r accessing the microphone. In this work\, we ask the question: what happe
 ns to the microphone data when a user clicks the mute button in a VCA? We 
 first conduct a user study to analyze users' understanding of the permissi
 on model of the mute button. Then\, using runtime binary analysis tools\, 
 we trace raw audio in many popular VCAs as it traverses the app from the a
 udio driver to the network. We find fragmented policies for dealing with m
 icrophone data among VCAs — some continuously monitor the microphone inp
 ut during mute\, and others do so periodically. One app transmits statisti
 cs of the audio to its telemetry servers while the app is muted. Using net
 work traffic that we intercept en route to the telemetry server\, we imple
 ment a proof-of-concept background activity classifier and demonstrate the
  feasibility of inferring the ongoing background activity during a meeting
  — cooking\, cleaning\, typing\, etc. We achieved 81.9% macro accuracy o
 n identifying six common background activities using intercepted outgoing 
 telemetry packets when a user is muted.\n\n \n\nBio: Kassem Fawaz is an As
 sistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at
  the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Sc
 ience and Engineering from the University of Michigan. His research intere
 sts include the security and privacy of the interactions between users and
  connected systems. He was awarded the Caspar Bowden Award for Outstanding
  Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies in 2019. He also received the 
 National Science Foundation CAREER award in 2020\, Google Android Security
  and PrIvacy REsearch (ASPIRE) award in 2021\, and Facebook Research Award
  in 2021. His research is funded by the National Science Foundation\, Fede
 ral Highway Administration\, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects. H
 is work on privacy has been featured in several media outlets\, such as th
 e BBC\, Wired\, the Wall Street Journal\, the New Scientist\, and Computer
 World.  
LOCATION:Webinar - link on talks.cam page after 12 noon Tuesday
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