Why does setMute in Android use RIL, and does this mean that the microphone hardware is vulnerable to surveillance?
<p>I had operated under the assumption that stock Android (or another open source Android ROM) was not vulnerable to the kind of surveillance to which <a href="http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/9839/have-cell-phones-ever-been-used-as-microphones-by-a-government">this question</a> refers because, well, no code exists with such a bug in it.</p>

<p>However, someone pointed out to me that <a href="http://gitorious.org/android-eeepc/base/blobs/562bb3db4f4475f5d933877d428097a6d1203605/telephony/java/com/android/internal/telephony/gsm/RIL.java#line917" rel="nofollow">RIL is actually used</a> to mute the microphone, as if the microphone has its own logic within the radio layer.</p>

<p>Does this mean that it is possible (however unlikely) that all Android phones do in fact exhibit this flaw?  </p>
