http://www.amazon.com/Post--3-Inches-Canary-Yellow-12-Pads/d...

Though there are a number of reasons I don't like the Xbox One, the Kinect isn't one of them.

Really though I think it'd be easier for them to just give customers the option not to plug it in, but my guess is that they're trying to make sure everyone uses the kinect that they ship with the console (its not necessarily being used for nefarious purposes), but with that being said I still don't trust Microsoft.

Really? What about mute people? Microsoft can't be that accessibility-impaired!

I guess the difference with this microphone is that it's listening to you all the time by default, and that creeps some people out. But it's not sending your words over the network, and is not more likely to start doing so than any of the aforementioned devices (actually, much less, because of increased security); it's just pattern matching for the word "Xbox". Kind of like the initial worries over Gmail "reading your email" to target ads: I predict that this too will peter out once people start actually using the product, albeit perhaps never die completely.

(For the record, the fact that Gmail messages can also be read by law enforcement under some circumstances is both a serious issue and irrelevant to the analogy.)

Not any speaker, but you can use some headphones as microphones very easily.

When it comes to teardowns you trust that multiple independent parties aren't all actively lying to you in concert.

I don't see how these are at all similar.

I won't reveal any secrets, but:

1) It should be very easy to determine if the Kinect is listening when it should not be, at least when the unit is off. So whatever MS claims the unit does should be verifiable.

2) I trust the Kinect team to do this right. They're dead serious about privacy issues.

You don't know me, so my trust in point #2 isn't necessarily transitive. But you should be able to look at signals and verify #1.

A switch that just twiddles a bit on an input line can be ignored by software.

A switch that controls power might be interesting. But then there's a cable from the camera to the console itself, which could carry some power, and might be used to run a microphone, or maybe the camera electronics, a little bit.

Really, your recourse is to unplug the camera. Or not have one.

Others have pointed out that there are microphones on laptops and tablets (that appear to be off, but who knows?), and many celebrated cases in which reverse-spyware has been used to recover stolen hardware.

This stuff is all around us now. There's no coordinated plan for NSA-like folks to glue it together, or light it up without us knowing, and I think this would be hard, at least for the time being, and doubly hard to do without someone noticing.

By contrast, there is no compelling reason the Kinect component(s) must be connected to the xbox when not in use.

I obviously don't know what sort of bus is being used internally, but if it were, for example, USB, then the mechanical switch could easily behave as the equivalent of removing a USB connector from a socket.

The laptop/microphone argument is a red herring. "Everybody else is doing it" is not a valid excuse for doing the wrong thing.

Don't get stuck in the mode of thinking you must design the solution to fit arbitrary requirements already decided upon. Those requirements aren't merely the source of the problem, they are the problem, and they're causing Microsoft to deliberately put its customers at risk.

Either way thats not the point, I don't have a webcam or mic plugged in, except when i am using it for video chat or gaming, and afterwards i unplug them. The xbox's cannot be removed like my PCs.

I'm completely building this into a paranoid delusion, but then this whole thread is a demonstration that we lack / are denied the knowledge to dispel paranoid delusions, and sometimes they're right.

m3mnoch.

This is so ridiculous it's not worth talking about. The chances of snooping due to the console being hacked are slightly higher, but where are all the people complaining that most laptops, tablets, and phones (which generally have significantly less software security) have built-in software controlled cameras and microphones? Laptops usually have indicator lights for cameras, but not microphones, and the other two have no indicators and follow you wherever you go.

But doesn't that just mean you have to trust the light? I mean this does indeed seem rather ridiculous. If you're really that paranoid, a piece of masking tape will solve your problem.

This problem is solved by having the power to the camera hardwired to the light. If the camera is on the light will be on, well until the led burns out but that takes a while.

Last I checked and my model of macbook has this but I do not know how common it is over all.

I do not think this is common practice for microphones and it seems like it should be.

There are many places where you have to leave your cell phone by the door before entering.

I also expect that if video/audio are being saved or else transmitted to Microsoft/NSA or else being dynamically analyzed using the latest wank-detection algorithms, then someone will detect this by the resource usage.

- Yes one could tape it. Don't apply the tape directly since repeated application and removal of tape can impair camera functionality due to residual adhesive accumulation and the depositing of dust etc on the residual adhesive. Use Microfiber based cloth material between the tape and camera.

- But having said that, I find it painful to even think of repeatedly taping and 'untaping' cameras. Having to remember to point them the other way too is not good - one can forget to do so at times. And then lose sleep over it after having say, watched a romantic movie with one's girlfriend. And so on.

Physically connect when required is a more comfortable model, at least for me. I've seen some unbelievable shit being pulled by hackers, including changing camera firmware to achieve their objective. So making it easier for users to feel absolutely comfortable with their devices is important.

No, of course not, and that caution is entirely justified. Consider how effective Samsung's Smart TV security was, right up until they got rooted at the end of last year, at which point if the only privacy safeguards are under software control then they are essentially worthless.

Of course, but why would you go through that bother if you can just move to a PS4?

I think that's reason enough to avoid it.