9 ms·

Pretty confident this is related to the way the Zoom app can detect what conference room you are in when that room is fully equipped with Zoom hardware. From [

by aserr 5y ago

Pretty confident this is related to the way the Zoom app can detect what conference room you are in when that room is fully equipped with Zoom hardware. From [Direct sharing in Zoom Rooms](https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/214629303-Direct-sharing-in-Zoom-Rooms https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/214629303-Direct-s...): > Direct sharing with proximity detection uses the microphone on your laptop to detect the Zoom Room controller.

troupe 5y ago
I'm not as familiar with Zoom, but WebEx and Cisco video conferencing hardware use ultrasonic sounds to let you start and transfer meetings from the mobile and desktop app to video conferencing devices. With WebEx you can turn this off in the preferences. I'd assume Zoom has a similar config setting.
- Sunspark 5y ago
  They do? Ugh.. hopefully not continuous emitting of pulses.. I can hear some ultrasonics due to my cochlear implant, and it's been really annoying how these days Lutron is selling motion detectors that use both ultrasonics and IR. They like to buzz, even when people are already in the room.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    Have you contacted Lutron at all? Or your implant manufacturer? Something seems out of alignment.
    - Sunspark 5y ago
      I contacted the implant manufacturer when I became aware of the issue.. apparently there is even a warning that ultrasonics can damage it.. but it's not clear to me if that's just legalese or if it's actually a clear and present danger. I haven't contacted Lutron yet which is bad of me, and I really should do that, but I don't think they would care since the amount of people who can identify that there's a problem with their devices is small.
      - spoonjim 5y ago
        Lutron may not care about you but they may care about an article in the news about how their products are harming people.
      - dotancohen 5y ago
        Today disability is an issue that is taken seriously. If Lutron's technology is affecting your disability then you should absolutely contact them, and barring a satisfactory solution you might even get aggressive with them. They cannot hurt you, arguing that people like you are rare.
        voakbasda 5y ago
        Anxiety can be classified as a disability. Does that mean you can’t make someone anxious? That would be fun to see enforced.
- secabeen 5y ago
  Yes, Zoom has a similar setting. I don't think the client is listening for the ultrasonics all the time; you need to click the "Share Screen" button on the main zoom page to have it work, and it presents a "please wait" screen for 5-10 seconds after pressing that button while it appears to detect the room info.
- ulfw 5y ago
  That's such a hack. Seriously, this is how we do tech in 2022?
  - brokenmachine 5y ago
    Lol, why don't they use ipv6? What would you use? I think it's a pretty cool hack.
    - bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
      Bluetooth would be more appropriate for that I would say.
    - throwaway34511 5y ago
      It's pretty cool in that commodity integrated hardware is capable of doing something practical at those frequencies. Not long ago it was a struggle to get the Pro Audio Spectrum ISA card working at all. It's awful in that using the auditory domain is too much an intrusion into the human space. There is enough noise pollution. Interference patterns around the room may generate harmonics at audible frequencies. Young kids can hear high frequencies we forgot we ever could. I can still hear CRT flybacks. Sometimes I thought I heard something electronic in conference rooms but convinced myself it was nothing. Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. It is not so farfetched that it has an adverse affect on health either. America is losing diplomats left and right to some mysterious ultrasonic weapon, or at least that is one of the leading theories. It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. This is what Bluetooth was made for. This is a worse idea than Wifi over lighting. Even the 9-digit Zoom dial codes are better.
      - brokenmachine 5y ago
        >Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. Definitely. >It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. Isn't it the zoom box that has to be doing the detection? The pc is just sending the signal, which wouldn't take much processing. >It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. I think someone commented that's for the purpose of detecting if someone is muted and notifying them. Still, there should definitely be a choice to disable this behavior. I wouldn't be able to ignore it. >What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. There's a lot of nefarious things they could potentially do even without using the mic, considering it's software already running on your pc that already has an encrypted connection to their servers. >This is what Bluetooth was made for. Good point, that would have been better.
- bigmattystyles 5y ago
  Yea, and it was a battery killer on a laptop - at my company, it even had a side effect of all but pegging the CPU. The confluence of poor software meets bad device driver is entertaining.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
Is the zoom hardware shouting "welcome to thunderdome" at frequencies we can't hear so that the the app will realize it's in the thunderdome? If so someone should make a jammer.
- aspyct 5y ago
  Probably more like "Welcome to zoombocom" :D
  - schipplock 5y ago
    you can do anything at zoombocom.
- kabdib 5y ago
  Or a fake "welcome to thunderdome" generator . . .
- paranoidrobot 5y ago
  This is what Cisco's conferencing software does, too. When it works, it means someone can walk into an appropriately equipped meeting room, and the software on their machine detects that. The audio, video, and screen sharing all route through the meeting room, rather than the laptop. Virtually zero involvement for the user.
  - aerique 5y ago
    Very convenient but not worth the price to set up a whole corporate surveillance nightmare.
    - Steltek 5y ago
      Certainly with the Cisco system, not worth the money they charge for the hardware! Every room has a few $25 wholesale price Ikea grade chairs, a table, and then a $100k conference phone.
olliej 5y ago
That gives an explanation but doesn’t actually answer the question - “why is it doing this when I’m not using zoom” Plenty of people use conference rooms for non video chat reasons, and many of those reason have confidentiality rules. I know for example there are strict rules around what is required to protect client/lawyer confidentiality, and most of the protection goes out the window if you record, or allow some one else to record them. Would zoom listening in on that count? I have no idea The only class of apps that have any business using a microphone while not in active use are “assistants”, and those have no business doing anything other than listening for their initiator phrase (except haven’t they all been caught sending arbitrary recordings to their parent company?)
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  I can assure you Zoom is not doing anything that would legally constitute "recording." In all US states and probably a lot of countries, recording is illegal without the consent of at least one party to the conversation. In the US, in some states, all parties must consent to recording. If Zoom were even skirting the line here, their lawyers would put the kibosh on it real quick. Hmm... but, then again, there was that thing where Amazon Alexa was recording people without their knowledge... hmm.
  - chillfox 5y ago
    I have seen the general sentiment of "their own lawyers would stop it" expressed many times about many different things, but who tells the lawyers? Every place I have worked in the past there have been zero pathway for IT/Developers to notify a lawyer about anything or ask a question.
    - actually_a_dog 5y ago
      Really? At places I've been, you could definitely notify a lawyer of an issue, with the process ranging from walking up to their desk to looking up someone in the legal department and emailing them. I've never had cause to actually do it, but I certainly could have, had the situation warranted it.
arwineap 5y ago
Is there any reason it couldn't do that at the start of the meeting? Meeting start -> probe for hardware -> make decision where to host

by aserr 5y ago

troupe 5y ago

I'm not as familiar with Zoom, but WebEx and Cisco video conferencing hardware use ultrasonic sounds to let you start and transfer meetings from the mobile and desktop app to video conferencing devices. With WebEx you can turn this off in the preferences. I'd assume Zoom has a similar config setting.

Sunspark 5y ago
They do? Ugh.. hopefully not continuous emitting of pulses.. I can hear some ultrasonics due to my cochlear implant, and it's been really annoying how these days Lutron is selling motion detectors that use both ultrasonics and IR. They like to buzz, even when people are already in the room.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  Have you contacted Lutron at all? Or your implant manufacturer? Something seems out of alignment.
  - Sunspark 5y ago
    I contacted the implant manufacturer when I became aware of the issue.. apparently there is even a warning that ultrasonics can damage it.. but it's not clear to me if that's just legalese or if it's actually a clear and present danger. I haven't contacted Lutron yet which is bad of me, and I really should do that, but I don't think they would care since the amount of people who can identify that there's a problem with their devices is small.
    - spoonjim 5y ago
      Lutron may not care about you but they may care about an article in the news about how their products are harming people.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      Today disability is an issue that is taken seriously. If Lutron's technology is affecting your disability then you should absolutely contact them, and barring a satisfactory solution you might even get aggressive with them. They cannot hurt you, arguing that people like you are rare.
      - voakbasda 5y ago
        Anxiety can be classified as a disability. Does that mean you can’t make someone anxious? That would be fun to see enforced.
secabeen 5y ago
Yes, Zoom has a similar setting. I don't think the client is listening for the ultrasonics all the time; you need to click the "Share Screen" button on the main zoom page to have it work, and it presents a "please wait" screen for 5-10 seconds after pressing that button while it appears to detect the room info.
ulfw 5y ago
That's such a hack. Seriously, this is how we do tech in 2022?
- brokenmachine 5y ago
  Lol, why don't they use ipv6? What would you use? I think it's a pretty cool hack.
  - bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
    Bluetooth would be more appropriate for that I would say.
  - throwaway34511 5y ago
    It's pretty cool in that commodity integrated hardware is capable of doing something practical at those frequencies. Not long ago it was a struggle to get the Pro Audio Spectrum ISA card working at all. It's awful in that using the auditory domain is too much an intrusion into the human space. There is enough noise pollution. Interference patterns around the room may generate harmonics at audible frequencies. Young kids can hear high frequencies we forgot we ever could. I can still hear CRT flybacks. Sometimes I thought I heard something electronic in conference rooms but convinced myself it was nothing. Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. It is not so farfetched that it has an adverse affect on health either. America is losing diplomats left and right to some mysterious ultrasonic weapon, or at least that is one of the leading theories. It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. This is what Bluetooth was made for. This is a worse idea than Wifi over lighting. Even the 9-digit Zoom dial codes are better.
    - brokenmachine 5y ago
      >Someone else was complaining about it affecting their cochlear implant. That is horrifying. Definitely. >It is awful that my CPU has to be constantly running a FFT to read this signal. I think Apple has an ASIC which does the Siri voice recognition. Isn't it the zoom box that has to be doing the detection? The pc is just sending the signal, which wouldn't take much processing. >It's awful that it triggers the orange light to be constantly on so you end up ignoring it. I think someone commented that's for the purpose of detecting if someone is muted and notifying them. Still, there should definitely be a choice to disable this behavior. I wouldn't be able to ignore it. >What if Zoom is simultaneously using the microphone stream for nefarious purposes. There's a lot of nefarious things they could potentially do even without using the mic, considering it's software already running on your pc that already has an encrypted connection to their servers. >This is what Bluetooth was made for. Good point, that would have been better.
bigmattystyles 5y ago
Yea, and it was a battery killer on a laptop - at my company, it even had a side effect of all but pegging the CPU. The confluence of poor software meets bad device driver is entertaining.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago

Is the zoom hardware shouting "welcome to thunderdome" at frequencies we can't hear so that the the app will realize it's in the thunderdome? If so someone should make a jammer.

aspyct 5y ago
Probably more like "Welcome to zoombocom" :D
- schipplock 5y ago
  you can do anything at zoombocom.
kabdib 5y ago
Or a fake "welcome to thunderdome" generator . . .
paranoidrobot 5y ago
This is what Cisco's conferencing software does, too. When it works, it means someone can walk into an appropriately equipped meeting room, and the software on their machine detects that. The audio, video, and screen sharing all route through the meeting room, rather than the laptop. Virtually zero involvement for the user.
- aerique 5y ago
  Very convenient but not worth the price to set up a whole corporate surveillance nightmare.
  - Steltek 5y ago
    Certainly with the Cisco system, not worth the money they charge for the hardware! Every room has a few $25 wholesale price Ikea grade chairs, a table, and then a $100k conference phone.

olliej 5y ago

That gives an explanation but doesn’t actually answer the question - “why is it doing this when I’m not using zoom” Plenty of people use conference rooms for non video chat reasons, and many of those reason have confidentiality rules. I know for example there are strict rules around what is required to protect client/lawyer confidentiality, and most of the protection goes out the window if you record, or allow some one else to record them. Would zoom listening in on that count? I have no idea The only class of apps that have any business using a microphone while not in active use are “assistants”, and those have no business doing anything other than listening for their initiator phrase (except haven’t they all been caught sending arbitrary recordings to their parent company?)

actually_a_dog 5y ago
I can assure you Zoom is not doing anything that would legally constitute "recording." In all US states and probably a lot of countries, recording is illegal without the consent of at least one party to the conversation. In the US, in some states, all parties must consent to recording. If Zoom were even skirting the line here, their lawyers would put the kibosh on it real quick. Hmm... but, then again, there was that thing where Amazon Alexa was recording people without their knowledge... hmm.
- chillfox 5y ago
  I have seen the general sentiment of "their own lawyers would stop it" expressed many times about many different things, but who tells the lawyers? Every place I have worked in the past there have been zero pathway for IT/Developers to notify a lawyer about anything or ask a question.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    Really? At places I've been, you could definitely notify a lawyer of an issue, with the process ranging from walking up to their desk to looking up someone in the legal department and emailing them. I've never had cause to actually do it, but I certainly could have, had the situation warranted it.

arwineap 5y ago

Is there any reason it couldn't do that at the start of the meeting? Meeting start -> probe for hardware -> make decision where to host