Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#251

Post by quickben » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 1:58 AM UTC

halflings wrote: post #206

quickben wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What minimal power? Phones are being charged at home all the time. Android apps can prevent sleep. Dsp to parse voice is there. There are sdks for all this.

These chips are built to use an unnoticeable amount of power. One of the biggest factors for a mobile is battery life, hence my comment.

I fully agree with you on that. However, please grant that mobile devices spend a substantial amount of the day plugged in and can draw full power (people mining coins, etc).

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#252

Post by cyberferret » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 1:58 AM UTC

DanieI wrote: post #242

cyberferret wrote: post #149

I was totally skeptical when I first heard stories about people's feeds being curated to suit what they were talking about in front of their computers, but then a couple of things made me rethink my views. I was in the car with my friend once (both our phones were in the car with us too), and we were driving and it started raining. His wiper blades were shoddy and doing a bad job of clearing his windscreen. We had a…

I think that it's more likely that the companies that manufacturer wiper blades run targeted ads in places where it's raining and that your son looked up the sheet music for the Seinfeld theme on his phone and Facebook thought you would like it because you are Facebook friends or because your GPS coordinates were next to each other.

Fair call - this reasoning I can relate to. I was the first spot of rain in a long dry season spell, so it stands to reason that drivers in the area were highly likely to have dried out, unserviceable wiper blades just when they needed it.

The link about friends search history and close GPS co-ordinates also makes sense.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#253

Post by croatoan » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 1:58 AM UTC

What I'm getting out of "We don't use your microphone for ads" is that they use your microphone, they just don't use it for ads. Which as many comments have already stated makes sense because you don't really need the recordings to determine a suitable ad when they are already getting all the data they need from just using facebook.

What I think they do is, they record everything using the microphone, and they store it if you are a person of interest. A person of interest could be that maybe you have a over 1000 friends or something, maybe your a ceo of some tech company, maybe you're a lead programmer at intel, maybe you're someone the US government wants to track, maybe your a senators staff member, maybe you work for the Skunk Works at Lockheed, maybe you said a key word/phrase that throws you into the 'person of interest' category like 'electrogravitic propulsion'. When these surveillance companies do this type of stuff, they do it to people of interest, and if they ever need to put the squeeze on someone, or steal important information like get secret information about a stock trade or something, they go to that person of interests microphone records (which probably get transcribed into text by some program) and search for whatever they want to know. This is why this shit should be utterly banned, it controls people, it steals from people, it destroys innovation and scientific progress before they ever get off the ground, and its just plain manipulative.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#254

Post by jeffdavis » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 2:18 AM UTC

Cacti wrote: post #234

paloaltokid wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We _are_ in 1984, but unlike the book, it's not imposed on us. We signed up for it. And those of frequenting HN most likely are the ones helping to build it. Think about it: tomorrow is Monday. How many folks on this board will be working on analytics and tracking once they get in to the office? A lot of us, guaranteed. And how many of us will take a principled stand, swearing not to work on products until surveillan…

You say people will take a stand, but the vast and overwhelming number of us wont, we will just continue to help build the greatest surveillance system in history. And then tell each other how we’re unicorns that are saving the world, that we cherish freedom and liberty and the hacker ethis, when really we just want to get paid.

Nobody knows what stand to take. We stood and fought for open source everywhere, thinking that would be our salvation. But apperently there is more to it than that, and we aren't exactly sure what.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#255

Post by propogandist » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 2:20 AM UTC

branchless wrote: post #196

tfinniga wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, like the example from Target. It is possible that facebook has access to a stream of Target purchases or credit card purchase information. I'd be 0% surprised if there was a data sharing agreement with credit rating companies. Even if they just knew the price of the purchase, combined with the job (burn risk) and location data (traveled from work to nearest store with pharmacy during the day), it's possible th…

My suspicion on this is that stores offer "reward cards" so they can get you to sign something that allows them to gather and sell your data.

If you read the Walgreens Rewards privacy policy, it covers everything from retail transactions to security camera footage and they are able to tie everything together. They're also able to gather and sell data about your health, which would otherwise be protected by regulation using the rewards program, especially as people are incentivized to use the card, even for prescriptions...and no one actually reads [between the lines] of the privacy policy

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#256

Post by Jach » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 2:23 AM UTC

j_s wrote: post #130

Linking to the discussion that just jumped off the front page for my own benefit when I get back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15580281

http://kuuv.io/i/ACXDGGp.png

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#257

Post by cooper12 » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 2:24 AM UTC

alehul wrote: post #194

0898 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did Zuckerberg say that?

http://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims... It was back when he was 19, so I think it's fair to cut some slack for that, but the quote is true.

Just because it was when he was young, does it diminish the truth of his statement or that he actually felt that way?

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#258

Post by sumedh » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 2:29 AM UTC

qbrass wrote: post #140

brad0 wrote: post #97

> "At work, happened to me though earlier this year. Working as a barista, got a burn, talked to my partner in person about it, went to Target, bought the burn cream, and saw an ad on FB for the exact product I purchased. Never searched for product either," wrote Brigitte Bonasoro. Facebook has data sharing agreements with many, many companies. It's most likely that the cream was bought with a card then linked togeth…

I don't see how it's beneficial to the advertiser when the person has already bought the product before they've seen the ad? It sounds like someone is trying to game the advertiser by correlating ad views with sales.

These ads also help in talking to you unconsciously, the next time a person is looking for a burn cream, its the company's product whose ad you saw will be the first thing that comes to your mind.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#259

Post by alsetmusic » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 2:36 AM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #222

mikeash wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did a quick search and found a Forbes article based on a New York Times article which claims it really happened: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habi... It is possible that their source was lying or mistaken, of course.

I think degrees of hearsay is getting up there, but that's for everyone to decide.

You have now refuted the story twice in this thread without providing any evidence of its inaccuracies. While I don’t know for certain the validity of the story, you aren’t doing much to persuade me of your position.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#260

Post by cvwright » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 2:40 AM UTC

rickhanlonii wrote: post #103

They're listening, but not to your voice or with a microphone. Facebook is listening to your data--to all of our data, all at once. They have locations, searches, clicks, messaging, photos, hashtags, and any other form of browsing patterns for everyone in your country, everyone in your neighboorhood, everyone in the same room as you. They have enough data with such advanced analysis that on occasion they can get real…

You make a very good point. However, in this case there is very strong evidence that Facebook is also listening to the microphone.

Coincidentally, I recently had a friend convey a story where the Facebook app suddenly recommended a new connection immediately after certain information was spoken in a verbal conversation. This instance was particularly damning because, due to the sensitivity of the information that was spoken, it had been very carefully kept out of the digital footprint.