How your mouse could eavesdrop on you and rat you out

The mouse sitting next to you can be turned into a microphone thanks to some cunning use of its sensors to pick up vibrations from your voice in an attack dubbed Mic-E-Mouse.

Researchers at UC Irvine have found that optical mice equipped with 20,000 DPI sensors and decent latency can be used as a basic microphone with software designed to figure out speech patterns based on the vibration of the user's voice. The team used a $35 mouse to test the system and found it could capture speech with 61 percent accuracy, depending on voice frequency.

"The main two parameters we look at in the mouse are the sampling rate and the DPI," Mohamad Fakih told The Register. "And it's capable of picking up more than just speech. If there's anyone in the room and their steps are causing vibrations, you can track their movement."

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