zlacker

>>ementa+(OP)
any speaker can be tapped into as a microphone by a motivated government.

>>mannan+y6
No, because the drive circuit for a speaker is the opposite of the circuit for a microphone. The output stage of a speaker amplifier is just that, an output. The only way to record audio from a speaker, which is totally possible, is to have also purposely built an input stage also attached to the speaker. Which at that point you might as well just use a microphone...

Audio input and output are not reversible.

>>Workac+Ec
I don't know what you mean here, I can plug a speaker into my mic slot and use that to record, just as plugging a mic into the speaker slot gives a (crappy) speaker.

>>Y_Y+Zf
Because on your computer the engineers purposely put a switch that can direct the signal to either the input hardware or the output hardware.

It's not a mic slot, it's a general analog I/O port with a 3.5mm form factor.