to stop the hack, i need to extend /micBarExtend so that if it is in tap-and-talk mode, then it can only start/stop listening from key presses. so if any malicious audio is played, then nothing will happen unless a user has physically pressed a key. first step was figuring out how to get a reference to the mic device. then you can just call SetMute() on that mic device and the mic will not receive any audio input. the cool part is, if you have the Speech Recognizer running, and mute the microphone, then the Speech Recognizer will go into 'off' mode. excellent! so it won't receive any 'start listening' audio commands. but the problem is when i unmute the mic, it doesn't turn back 'on' and start listening again. crap! so i just need to figure out how i can programmatically put it back into a 'listening' after i have set it to 'off'. if anybody on the Speech Recognizer team has any hints ... i'm listening