The default behavior of hotword, a new, black-box module in Chrome
(and its free/open cousin, Chromium) causes it to silently switch on
your computer’s microphone and send whatever it hears to Google.
Google says that hotword isn’t supposed to switch on unless users enable
it, but developers have documented instances in which the module
triggered the mic without user intervention.
Chromium, the free/open version of Chrome, also got the module as a
default update. Google blamed the package maintainers for this, saying
they should not have chosen a closed module for inclusion in their
version.
My parents used to unplug the phone to make it a little harder for KGB friends to listen in. It is ironic that in the free society we live in now there are no such simple privacy-enabling tricks. I gave up all expectation of privacy long ago and moved on. And yet I relish the times when I get to be unreachable and unseen – in those ever-shrinking places with no phone reception and no internet.
I’ll just keep hoping that Google, and even NSA, would remain far more benign than KGB.
tinfoilparachute 