[asxd]

I don't think an application has to actually do anything with the audio data in order to retain its access to the microphone. I'm not an expert here, but I'd imagine it's something like this:

    mic = grab_access_to_mic()
    while app_is_running:
        if (is_muted):
            pass
        else:
            send_that_audio(mic)

It also mentions some of the apps sending the muted audio "to the cloud", which seems completely unrelated to retaining access to the mic.

Also, seems like an honest mistake, but I think they got this backwards, right?

> They used runtime binary analysis tools to trace raw audio in popular videoconferencing applications as the audio traveled from the app to the computer audio driver and then to the network while the app was muted.

Wouldn't it be driver -> app -> cloud? I think I'm splitting hairs at this point though.

Lastly, it would be nice if this article at least listed the apps that were investigated.