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More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

arstechnica.com

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Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#41

Post by reciprocity »

anon1385 wrote: post #37
izacus wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you're comment is trying to say - TARGETING a new API doesn't meant you don't SUPPORT an older API. It just determines backwards compatiblity behaviour. We currently release a product that supports Android 4.1 while targeting Android 7.1. Also this dashboard is hugely misleading for the HN audience - in western audiences (USA, Canada, EU, etc. - countries HN users are from) we're tracking ~10% devic…

Are you suggesting it's ok for non-western users to be tracked this way? Why would we ignore most of the world when discussing an issue like this?

I think you may have misread that comment. Op didn't imply anything of the sort.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#42

Post by blurbleblurble »

I've become totally superstitious (convinced, even) that phones are listening to more than just ultrasound. There have been too many uncanny situations where youtube or google have recommended results that were far too specific to the conversation happening moments before. For example, one time I was telling my girlfriend about fourier transformations, something she'd never heard of before. She typed "Fo" into her phone. "Fourier transormation" it suggested. Maybe this was due to the IP address we were connected through. That alone is creepy enough as it is. Sometimes I wonder if it isn't something more though.

Facebook messenger and google voice search are my number one suspects. But moreso, all it takes is a single person in a room full of phones to have installed an app that's using the microphone unethically, and suddenly everyone's conversation is being turned into marketing/spy data. Anybody who's connected somehow to that location is going to be statistically associated ("implicated") with this data.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#43

Post by jsz0 »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #8
bryanatwood wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there should be an icon when your mic is active. I tried to build a service in Android to do this but there's no API to get whether the mic is in use or not AFAIK. I ended up disabling mic access for almost all apps, but the Google App and Google Play Services complain when you do this.

I'd go even further and light the notification LED the entire time something is reading the camera/mic from the firmware (such that applications can't disable it via software). The indicator works well for the webcams on most laptops.

That's a great idea. Even better if there were tiny dedicated LEDs near the front facing camera and microphone to make it 100% clear what they mean.

Communication privacy laws also need to be updated for modern times. It's a federal offense to steal someone's junk mail yet widespread electronic surveillance is somehow a business model.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#44

Post by nom »

irq wrote: post #6
nom wrote: post #3

I wouldn't be surprised if Google, Apple or Amazon are doing (or going to do) something similar. It doesn't create much traffic at all, a couple of bytes is enough and they can be tacked on to the data stream without anyone noticing. Someone should build an ultrasonic detector that can recognize these kind of packets and have a look how wide spread this technique already is. We could also need an ultrasonic jammer an…

Apple would never do something like this. It's totally against their MO.

My point is that they could if they wanted to. Granted, they don't need the money, but still... it's something you can easily hide and nobody would be able to tell without spending weeks looking at disassembly.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#45

Post by nom »

izacus wrote: post #21
nom wrote: post #3

I wouldn't be surprised if Google, Apple or Amazon are doing (or going to do) something similar. It doesn't create much traffic at all, a couple of bytes is enough and they can be tacked on to the data stream without anyone noticing. Someone should build an ultrasonic detector that can recognize these kind of packets and have a look how wide spread this technique already is. We could also need an ultrasonic jammer an…

Hmm, did't people report that their Amazon devices fire up when Amazon ads are playing on TV?

Link, anyone?

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#46

Post by Markoff »

mistermann wrote: post #7

I'd like to be able to find an Android utility that shows me apps/processes that are auto-launching in the background and kill them, but my last attempt yielded two that I tried and blacklisted (a feature it has) some apps, yet after booting I was still able to force stop them, implying they still had launched on their own. Is there any app that actually works for this, or is it somehow not possible?

SD Maid / App control tab, you will need root

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#47

Post by Markoff »

baobrain wrote: post #17
mistermann wrote: post #7

I'd like to be able to find an Android utility that shows me apps/processes that are auto-launching in the background and kill them, but my last attempt yielded two that I tried and blacklisted (a feature it has) some apps, yet after booting I was still able to force stop them, implying they still had launched on their own. Is there any app that actually works for this, or is it somehow not possible?

Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but greenify might do the trick. You might need root. Also Android now has the doze feature that should hibernate apps by default when not used. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oasisfeng.... [1] https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/greenify

that's quite amusing suggestion considering Greenify is closed sourced Chinese root app which optionally (only?) report data back to mainland China and dev worked for some companies producing shady apps, before according his LinkedIn profile

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#49

Post by anon1385 »

izacus wrote: post #38
anon1385 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting it's ok for non-western users to be tracked this way? Why would we ignore most of the world when discussing an issue like this?

I never said or claimed anything like that. Where did you get that idea?

Your comments here are arguing that this isn't a problem. You called the stats dashboard "hugely misleading" with the implication that the problem is not as bad as it would suggest, but actually it shows that the problem is worse than the average western based HN developer realises (based on their day to day experience).

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#50

Post by oneshot908 »

izacus wrote: post #19

ArsTechnica unfortunately again misleads people due to limited expertise. On modern Androids (6.0+) accessing the microphone requires an explicit permission granted by user (just like on iOS). Furthermore, due to Doze mode implemented in 6.0 and expanded in 7.0 running these kind of services without notifying the user cleary (with permanent notification) has become pretty much impossible and unreliable. To run in bac…

I would love love love if my Android phone would occasionally provide me a summary of which apps are making use of the camera, the GPS, and the microphone and allow me to disable them.

Sure, I can hunt for this on my own. That's not the point here. If I'm walking around with a supercomputer in my pocket, I'd like it to do this sort of stuff for me automagically.

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