I see-- I thought pulseaudio would tell indicator-sound it was recording, but instead indicator-sound is monitoring pulseaudio.
Mathew, this bug is marked 'Incomplete'-- can someone not just turn the indicator red for the time being and then the full design can be fleshed out later? As it stands now, apps can eavesdrop on users without them knowing because of this bug. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to pulseaudio in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1224756 Title: pulseaudio should give a visual indication when it is recording Status in “indicator-sound” package in Ubuntu: Incomplete Status in “pulseaudio” package in Ubuntu: Invalid Status in “indicator-sound” source package in Saucy: Incomplete Status in “pulseaudio” source package in Saucy: Invalid Bug description: David and the security team (inspired by an observation from Rick) discussed that when recording, pulseaudio should somehow unobtrusively show the user that it is recording. The easiest thing to do would be for pulseaudio to alert indicator-sound which would then turn its icon red (similar to indicator-message turning blue with new messages). Marking 'high' because apps with access to pulseaudio can currently eavedrop on users. If the app is allowed to do networking (the default for apps), then it can ship that information off to a server somewhere. Note 1, the alert to indicator-sound must happen via the out of process pulseaudio server and not the confined app itself to be effective. Note 2, we should consider how to enforce this for foreground apps only. Application lifecycle should probably handle this for 13.10 (apps are suspended if not in foreground or if the screensaver is on), but we don't want an app on the converged device to record in the background when the user isn't paying attention. Example eavesdropping attack: start recording only when the screensaver is on (perhaps inhibiting the screensaver during recording would be enough). To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/indicator-sound/+bug/1224756/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
