From a computer science perspective, what should Google do to train its models in a privacy conscious way?
There's enourmous amount of publicly available data to crunch all over the world; Podcasts, TV shows, talk radio, Youtube, etc.
Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
341–350 of 463 posts
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#342I'd love to read the piece but the cookie pop covers 70% of the window on mobile and I can't close it
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At 10%, I may find out an Italian chain has a sudden health issue and short their stock. Let's use scale at both ends please. At 10% of the population a nation state may ask Googazon to silently make changes to identify troublemakers.
Here’s an entirely plausible scenario: The person in the story said they thought they heard domestic violence in some of the recordings. I know some people who are into “consensual nonconsent“, a form of BDSM which I do not understand, but as these acquaintances tell me they like being on the receiving end I have reason to trust them. Any system or person which incorrectly identifies one of these groups as the other,…
> Note that in the UK, some forms of consensual BDSM have been prosecuted as serious assault, and the person on the receiving end has been prosecuted for conspiracy to commit assault because they consented to it.
Can someone versed in UK law clarify how such a stupid system emerged out of their laws? I'd guess that's an unintended consequence of how laws were worded, but it is mind boggling.
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a smartphone? Why would you bring that listening device (the smartphone) into your own house out of your own volition? Please explain, because I am very perplexed.
It's relatively straightforward on a smartphone to monitor the battery and bandwidth consumption that active listening and device server communications are occurring. Of course - then, the next apologist will always say: "the devices only transmit when hearing the 'Wake Word'"... Yeah, I don't think it takes an elite programmer to store/buffer audio, until the device hears the 'Wake Word', and then sends a "slightly"…
I think that may have been true in the past but I would not at all be surprised if modern smartphones can record 24/7 with negligible effect on battery life, and upload the audio while being charged.
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#345So Google’s response is (paraphrased as fairly as I can while removing the sugar-coating): ’Yes, we hire people to listen in to and transcribe some conversations from the private homes of our customers (so as improve our speech recognition engines); but the recordings aren’t linked to personally identifiable information.’ Even assuming they have only the purest intentions here, I still don’t understand how they can p…
> For example, what’s to stop me from saying “Hey Google, I am Even more fun, if you call a bank, you often have to key-in your account number (which can be easily decoded if your phone sounds back the tones, which most do), then tell you name, your address and sometimes your other PII like Social Security number or part of it. Record that call and that's a complete identity theft package, nicely wrapped, just replay…
I'm not sure Google devices can make calls, but if they could, the only part that would be sent to Google (which is what these people would have to analyze) is "hey Google, call bank"
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
Before I go further: do you own a smartphone? If not, you can ignore the rest. So, assuming you have a smartphone. That is a device which has: - Permanent network connection. Doesn't matter what you do on your Wifi, it has the cellular data network. Which is controlled by an independent processor with its own firmware - Excellent noise-cancellation microphones. They may not be able to pinpoint the sound source like a…
On my smartphone I can at least turn off the apps that would automatically listen for voice commands; I can use the phone just fine without them. And if I thought there was enough of a threat that Google or someone else was listening in using my phone's microphone without my knowledge, even with the apps turned off, I would switch to a rooted phone that would give me more control. For the Echo/Google Home/etc. device…
Even a rooted phone will not help, since the monopolistic baseband processor will do it. The big ARM CPU is just for the users, the baseband is for control of the public masses and mass surveillance.
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
In terms of GDPR: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-4-gdpr/ > ‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physi…
So you’ve identified a person. What information has been revealed about that person?
It could be anything - the voice snippet could include a query about a particular medical condition or include specific financial records for example.
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
>won't allow any of these things in my house period because they will always use them for things behind the scenes that they won't state. As OP stated, "this extends beyond home speakers to any voice-enabled device in general". Unless you're living like the Unibomber, it's not a matter of "just don't give it to them". The moment you step outside your house and socialize with almost anyone anywhere, it's liable to bei…
Neatpick: "unabomber" as in UNABOM (University and Airline Bomber).
As in Not EAT PICtures, oKay ?
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would they do with the indecent photos then?
Not take them in the first place, develop them at home or a private lab, or use Polaroids.
I worked in a photography store in Italy in the summer 30 years ago or so. That's not always what was happening.
Neither I nor anyone else working there ever looked at anyone's private pictures, but the guy delivering them from the lab would sometimes joke about or allude to customers' photos, always from some other store. Even as a kid, I found that troubling. It also made me wonder what he told other stores about our clients' pictures.
Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because Google's first allegiance is to the shareholders and data has value so it's not in their best interest to make it easy not to share your data.
No it’s not. Google has many primary concerns it needs to manage. That’s how you get big - by managing lots of concerns successfully. If they drop one too long, they start going backwards very quickly.
Then explain why they changed to Alphabet. Shareholders were sick of things like project loon, siphoning cash from google search. You are extremely naive if you think there are many concerns of higher importance than profit. Everything else is about maintaining and growing profit even if that means doing an ad campaign convincing people you are fighting the good fight..for profit.