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Google in, Google out

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Re: Google in, Google out

#101

Post by TremendousJudge »

MrQuincle wrote: post #48
jlg23 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is very interesting to me why certain microphones and cameras are fine, while others are not. If you film yourself during sex that's one thing. If I film you during sex without your explicit consent that's a completely different thing. > However, it is a no no to embed a cam in a pair of glasses. Building a mic into a speaker is not okay. Building is not the problem, usage is. People don't complain about the new…

The deeper question then is the following: Why is it so hard to have people care about privacy enough? If there would be such a strong gradient towards privacy-favoring products and services, why does society so slowly adapt? + It might be that the risks are not yet understood. As argued here: http://laoutaris.info/index.php/2016/09/11/oh-but-people-don... + It is politically a much stronger move to act upon feelings…

Here's my theory: most people don't actually understand what having access to your data means. I learned this some years ago when I wrote a little tool that surveyed the people connected to my uni's computer lab (using ssh and who).

The whole project was just for fun, and one of the things I did was logging the names and times of everyone who started a session. I then told about this to some friends, who were like "cool!". But when I showed them the actual data (rows and rows of "this person was on this machine from this hour to this hour"), with real names, they freaked out. Showing them the data they didn't learn anything new, since I had already told them exactly what I was doing. But it wasn't until they saw with their own eyes the real names and times that they actually understood the implications.

And this wasn't your run of the mill facebook user, it was computer science students. So I can understand perfectly why people don't care about online privacy: people just don't get it by being told about it. They have to see it.

So show them their usage logs, and they will understand

Re: Google in, Google out

#102

Post by pascalxus »

The author seems really concerned with privacy and surveillance. I'm no expert on the subject.

But, why all the concern? He said they're working really hard to keep that stuff private. Are there legal risks here? Will the government come after you if you say the wrong thing? I don't really get it.

I think the biggest security risk is just your email, if hackers get into that: that's where all the potentially financially devastating information is.

Re: Google in, Google out

#103

Post by hagakure0c »

Sargos wrote: post #89
hagakure0c wrote: post #61

What we need more of is something like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (Regulation (EU) 2016/679). Right now, Google, Facebook et al are luring their users deeper and deeper into their ecosystem by promising them a better future, which will never happen, the only thing that is happening are consumers handing over more of their personal data hoping tech will make good on that promise. https://en.wikipedi…

Your premise is flawed. My future is already better than when I started using Google. It promised me a better future and I have already received the benefit and there are many, many more benefits coming in the future. I no longer have to buy and maintain my own hardware for my files. I don't have to worry about losing my precious photos in a fire. I have found better restaurants by allowing my preferences to be known…

Sure, my concern are all the bad things that will happen when all collected data ends up in the hands of a future totalitarian state. Do you know if there is a kill switch in place ?

https://www.wired.com/2017/05/googles-perfect-future-will-al...

Re: Google in, Google out

#104

Post by TeMPOraL »

maccard wrote: post #84
thesuitonym wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Camera and microphone on the mobile phone activate when I press the button to activate them. Allow me to put on my tinfoil hat for just a moment and remind you that, should Google want to, they could just turn on your microphone and camera without letting you know. Would they? Probably not, but they certainly could, and unless you're in the habit of regularly checking your network traffic, you wouldn't know.

Not if you don't use Android.

Yes if you use Android, and in particular yes if you've given an app camera access.

Proof: my phone (unrooted, OEM Android) can shoot photos whenever I want it to, even if it stays locked, without anyone noticing. It's a trivial Tasker job I set up myself (think e.g. shooting rear-camera selfies using your smartwatch), but it nicely demonstrates that any app with camera privileges could do that too.

Re: Google in, Google out

#105

Post by TeMPOraL »

fixermark wrote: post #74
pacala wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a technological issue. This is a policy issue. The total size of Wikipedia text is 12 GB. The total size of a state-sized chunk of maps.me is under a GB. The total memory of an iPhone is 32GB - 256GB. I can store the entirety of Wikipedia + the entire geographical data of my state and neighbouring states on my mobile phone and have a Star Trek-esque voice-activated computer interaction without ever upload…

It is a technological issue. Without the real-world audio samples to use as training data, the system cannot be improved enough to work reliably.

I built an off-line voice recognition system 10 years ago using Microsoft Speech API and I guarantee you it worked quite well. There's nothing in base voice recognition that would require uploading everything to the cloud. You only have to be willing to read out some text for few minutes, once, to train the model.

Re: Google in, Google out

#106

Post by marssaxman »

euyyn wrote: post #88
pacala wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a technological issue. This is a policy issue. The total size of Wikipedia text is 12 GB. The total size of a state-sized chunk of maps.me is under a GB. The total memory of an iPhone is 32GB - 256GB. I can store the entirety of Wikipedia + the entire geographical data of my state and neighbouring states on my mobile phone and have a Star Trek-esque voice-activated computer interaction without ever upload…

Good luck asking Wikipedia what's the weather today, what's your first meeting in the morning, and which route of your commute has less traffic at the moment.

I don't ask for those things anyway, precisely because I don't want Google to have that much information about me. I'd love to have a local-only, offline map system.

Re: Google in, Google out

#107

Post by TeMPOraL »

fixermark wrote: post #79
pacala wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We need real-world audio samples" does not entail "let's collect audio [and behavioral] data from one billion users". There are less intrusive ways to collect data. How about paying specific individuals for their data. For example, there are about 5000 Nielsen families, http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/question433.htm . For a company that supposedly is employing the best minds in statistics, the inability to e…

With the inception of digital cable boxes, many cable providers no longer need the Nielsen data because the cable box tells the provider what channel it's tuned to (a technical necessity if the box is using switched digital video). It's much easier (and safer for the end user) to passively collect usage data via the application you provide than to trust some third-party to (a) collect a statistical sample unbiasedly…

> The rightness question seems to me to look a lot more like "If you can collect data from a billion users without doing any harm to the users, and that data is going to be more useful than a statistical subset of that data, why should you not collect it?"

In this particular case (speech recognition), one harm done to the users is tying the product to the Internet, and thus requiring what should be closed-loop tasks to go through vendor's servers.

Re: Google in, Google out

#108

Post by TeMPOraL »

euyyn wrote: post #88
pacala wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a technological issue. This is a policy issue. The total size of Wikipedia text is 12 GB. The total size of a state-sized chunk of maps.me is under a GB. The total memory of an iPhone is 32GB - 256GB. I can store the entirety of Wikipedia + the entire geographical data of my state and neighbouring states on my mobile phone and have a Star Trek-esque voice-activated computer interaction without ever upload…

Good luck asking Wikipedia what's the weather today, what's your first meeting in the morning, and which route of your commute has less traffic at the moment.

Asking for weather is an API issue, it totally does not require uploading your voice.

Re: Google in, Google out

#109

Post by TeMPOraL »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #99
aiiane wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

Google. "When Voice & Audio Activity is off, voice inputs won't be saved to your Google Account, even if you're signed in. Instead, they may only be saved using anonymous identifiers." https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/6030020?p=accoun... Ergo, Google is going to collect your voice data no matter what you do, the only question is whether or not it's connected to your account, where you can manually go in an…

So the question now is, if you opt in and later delete your data, does the data actually get deleted, or just disconnected from your account and left only with "anonymous identifiers"?

Re: Google in, Google out

#110

Post by TeMPOraL »

Loic wrote: post #4
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more of a general Luddite / anti-tech paradigm. Historically, strange things were dangerous and/or poisonous. Tech people probably recognize these devices from science fiction books / movies / stories, so they don't get scared, but the rest of the world has no context to place them in and hence treats them like unexploded ordnance.

By framing this as "luddite/anti-tech" you do not address the fundamental question: Do you really want your life to have such high dependency on a single corporation? I am in no ways anti-tech, but the history has shown that putting your life in the hands of a single corporation is not a sane decision.

I think the topics of privacy and tech monopoly should be separated out a bit more in discussions. Different people object to different issues.
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