1d ago

Destroy a Microphone

During Prime Days I was dumb and bought some Chinese lamp because it was on sale. I gotta say, it’s actually awesome — with the app I can change colors, styles, and so on, and I really like it.

The account creation already bugged me, although I think it was only needed for the first startup. I deleted the account since then. The app is in deep sleep on my phone with zero permissions except Bluetooth.

What really bothers me, though, is the built-in microphone for voice commands — on a lamp! I don’t want someone listening to me. It’s too late to send it back, and I actually want to keep it.

Until now, I’ve just unplugged it from the outlet every time I don’t use it, but that’s very tedious. So, is there an easier way to completely disable the microphone? Does putting tape over it completely mute it? Or would I have to take it apart and desolder it — which I’m probably too lazy, impatient, and inexperienced to do? So is there maybe a smarter or brute force way to do it? im paranoid i dont want my fucking lamp listening to me. sometime i even turn of mic and cam acsess on my phone.

42 comments

sometime i even turn of mic and cam acsess on my phone
I have some bad news for you. Whatever software switch your phone has to "turn off" the mic, can still be bypassed by either the manufacturer or an attacker that gets root control of the device.
The only way to ensure a mic isn't listening is by either unsoldering it or shorting the + and - contacts. I mean in the case of a phone you can probably do the toothpick thing and then test it and repeat until sound actually quiets, but note that phones can actually listen to you by via the accelerometer :/
- Framework laptops have a little physical switch to turn off the camera / mic when you don't want them.
  The original SGI webcams, some of the first that ever existed, actually had a physical plastic cover that you could slide over them when you didn't want the camera on. "No, I don't trust your hardware any more than your software. I shouldn't need to. Stop looking at me when I don't want you to, and prove to me that you are not, or else I will be suspicious." Back in those days that was sort of a universal point of view among internet people, I think...
  
  The HP laptop I have for work includes a little plastic thing that slides over the webcam.
  
  Framework laptops have a little physical switch to turn off the camera / mic when you don’t want them.
  Unfortunately even this is not that comforting because we don't know how the switch is implemented. Is it actually in series with the microphone data lines? Power lines? Ideally both but you'll never know. It could even just be a software GPIO switch (gonna bet Amazon Echos with their microphone switches are implemented like that) and unless you have the knowledge to check the PCB you'll always have that lingering suspicion.
Open it up and break it off.
- unsolder it, and maybe even replace it with the proper resistance but yes.
  depending how it's made, breaking it off could render the entire thing useless.
  
  Did that to a Chinese light strip. Not sure it was because I ripped the microphone out, but it wouldn’t turn on a few days later.
micefrone
BTW, Lemmy lets you edit titles, so you can fix errors like that.
- I clicked on this because I thought it was a mouse with an interesting design and microphone.
- sorry for my english. it's my fifth language and it's very stupid language. xD
  Fixed it
  
  FIFTH LANGUAGE!?
  What the hell...
  Are you traveling around the earth or are you megamind?
  (or do you just enjoy learning languages?)
- This is the one true spelling
Unsolder and replace with a dummy load. If the device requires an app from the manufacturer, uninstall it and throw the lamps away.
- im handy with a soldering iron but dont know jack about the math behind electronics - can you provide any guidance as to how one would do this,
  id be comfortable deslldering something and surface soldering something back onto a pcb but i am mot sure how what i would actually need to do to do this.
  Also while im on the subject - how woukd one do this with bluetooth with a device with a bluetooth chip soldered to the board?
  
  You may be able to just remove the microphone. Otherwise you can use a dummy load matching the expected impedance. Either you have to measure the component or look for a part number.
  Don't really understand what you're referring to about the Bluetooth chip. The wireless communication should not be affected by removing the microphone.
I had a similar incident with a cheap, 360, cam I bought off of Aliexpress. It was not going to be a security cam, just a cam to keep an eye on some seedlings in a grow box. I set it all up and would review the video of the seedlings sprouting. Then I noticed an weird behavior. At 5:00 AM it would automatically pan and stop, then repeat.
At the time we were experiencing some heavy electrical storms in our area and I have a Woody doll that sits up on a shelf in my lab. When we get electrical storms in this area, my Woody doll will introduce himself all on his own. 'Hey howdy hey! My name's Woody!' It'll freak you out if you didn't know it does that. The Woody doll has a pull string voicebox and I haven't pulled the string in years. I attribute the phenomenon to static charges in the air that activate the voicebox somehow.
So the panning I attributed to this static electrical charge during electrical storms. However, it started becoming a schedule. At 5:00 AM~ it would begin panning. So I got into the guts of the cam and the software. Turns out, no matter what DNS you used, one was already hard coded (1.2.4.8) along with other network settings, into the firmware and seemed to bypass any setting you punched in. The cam operated as a normal cam would and for what I was using it for, it did the job, except for the early morning panning.
So, great, I've allowed a nefarious actor into my network. I removed the cam off the wifi, and destroyed it. Combed through the network for any signs of exfiltration or other angles of attack and found nothing, except that I had pretty much set up a cheap, Trojan horse on my network.
So, is there an easier way to completely disable the microphone?
First take it apart and determine what form factor the microphone is.
Is it a through hole microphone with two pins that are soldered to the underside like this? If so it's best to desolder it to prevent damaging the PCB. Use a soldering iron to heat up the pins and pull it out with pliers from the other side. If you don't have a soldering iron and don't want to buy one, I've also seen people using side cutters to cut off the solder joints and loosening the component enough for it to be pulled out through brute force without breaking the circuit board. If you can't or don't want to do either of those and don't mind risking the device, you could just yank it out with pliers like you're an old timey dentist pulling teeth, and hope that the pins break before the board does, might also help to twist it back and fourth repeatedly until the metal gets fatigued and break.
It might also be a surface mount microphone that, as the name suggests, is only soldered to the surface of the PCB. Might look something like this. These are pretty challenging for most people to desolder especially if it's close to other components, but they're small enough that the solder pads don't need a lot of force to break, so if you can get a good grip with pliers you should be able to just rip it off. Twist it until you feel the solder joints snap and then pull straight up. It doesn't really matter if you rip the pad off the circuit board since you don't plan on soldering anything else to it. But what you do need to be careful of is if you peel off more of the copper traces than just the pad, which can damage other components. If you do want to desolder it, touch the soldering iron to the metal casing which should hopefully heat up the entire component enough to melt all the solder joints, then pull it off with pliers. Just be careful not to touch any nearby components with the soldering iron.
Failing all those, you could also take a screwdriver or awl, put the pointy end on the microphone, and hammer it a few times to cave the metal casing in and hopefully crush the audio sensing parts. This will probably destroy the microphone, but less certain than removing it.
I've also heard recommendations about grounding the microphone connections after removal for extra privacy, mainly to prevent the traces from picking up EM waves, but I don't know how to reliably do that without breaking stuff so can't give any advice.
Does putting tape over it completely mute it?
No. Speech is surprisingly robust from an audio perspective and it's entirely possible for audio not recognizable to humans as speech to still be decoded by speech recognition AI. The thing is even if this works 90% of the time and makes the audio completely unusable, you can never prove if your case is in that 10% where there's juuust enough information for AI to detect. You also can't easily hear the actual output of the microphone so for all you know it might be fully intelligible and just muffled. If you're concerned about privacy to the point where you're asking how to remove a microphone, I doubt you'll accept that 10% chance anyway and removing the microphone entirely will save you a lot of anxiety.
I am a bit confused. How is the manufacturer listening on you? Do you have that connected to your WiFi or Bluetooth? Both should be easy to handle.
- It wants me to connect to wifi but i did not.
  Bluetoorh works worse but is a requirement to change color 💀 I hate modern technology
  
  Tbf the only reason it can change colors at all is due to modern(ish, at least) technology. My lamp is a lamp. I don't even have a clapper. I hate modern technology lmao.
  
  Ah then once you are done, just uninstall or disable the app and unpair the lamp. Should be good enough.
  
  Even had to set up an acc to statt using it but i used and burner mail
- Sorry but ai: "Distributed environment gateway" in English.
  From the red Wi-Fi symbol, it looks like the app is telling you that this gateway (likely for a smart home system, IoT devices, or industrial network) is offline or not connected to the internet.
Best way is to test it. Get the voice commands to work. Then non-destructively block the mic. Does tape stop it from working? No? Try sticky tac or playdoh or chewing gum. Does that stop it? Yes? Maybe try something more permenant like hot glue or superglue. Then verify it still doesn't work.
- Thank you my friend hot glue did the trick :))))) No more spying on me !
  
  Good to hear!
- I never used the voice command, but paranoid it is still listening in the backround. But it has a mode to match rhe lights to music from my phone.
  Not sure tho if it uses my mic from my phone, itself mic or i dunno sound data my phone is processing. Edit: Just checked it music effects are processed through the lamp mice.
  But i will try cuz maybe it is listening to my music and taping the mic would be proof it doesnt work amymore for other things like listening 24/7 to me ;*)
  Also thanks for the superglue ans playsough ideaa, they are good
  Edit: i will try to break it apart and destroy the mic otherwise, superglue it is. Thank you for your input buddy
In a pinch, some superglue liberally applied can either block reception or muffle it so much that anything it could send would be largely useless. Or you can open it up and remove it and hope nothing else breaks in the process.
Disconnect it from internet and bluetooth
- That's not a full solution really... unless you believe that the bluetooth software on the lamp has zero vulnerabilities that would ever be found and mass-exploited.
  
  That's true. In this case I guess you can try desoldering it
Okay, I will help you turn your minestrone into an inediple slop: the kind your grandkids will have nightmares about for years to come.
Step 1: Create a minestrone.

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