Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations • Hacker News Board

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#411

Post by stickfigure » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:13 AM UTC

bscphil wrote: post #377

outworlder wrote: post #336

Earlier 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…

> Similar functionality to an Echo / Google Home / Apple whatever. They'll be listening for "hey siri" or "ok google" This seems to be a pretty big assumption, without which your whole argument falls apart. In my case, at least, I have no such functionality enabled. You could argue that the manufacturer of my phone could push a software update that enables it without my knowledge (in fact, they likely couldn't, becau…

because I don't have automatic updates turned on

...the malicious entity already pushed it out silently in the last update you did accept...

You really have to trust the entity building the software on these devices. These little half-measures are purely psychological protection.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#412

Post by serf » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:15 AM UTC

pnutjam wrote: post #406

michaelmrose wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turns out the NSA has an implant for smart tvs that among its features is keeping the tv on and recording you while turning the indicator light that indicates its on status off. You don't own the device despite paying for it. It updates itself when it feels like it and does whatever its actual owner says including compromising itself if told to.

Not without internet.

my parents smart tv has over a gig of storage for apps.

i'd be really surprised if that couldn't act as an offline cache.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#413

Post by verall » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:19 AM UTC

agentphil wrote: post #388

bscphil wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Similar functionality to an Echo / Google Home / Apple whatever. They'll be listening for "hey siri" or "ok google" This seems to be a pretty big assumption, without which your whole argument falls apart. In my case, at least, I have no such functionality enabled. You could argue that the manufacturer of my phone could push a software update that enables it without my knowledge (in fact, they likely couldn't, becau…

EU governments and telcos spy on you by law. 10 years ago there was a law across entire EU that forced telecom companies to store the position and call numbers of users for the past 6 months. Germany got even fined because it did not implement the law.

And in US all SMS are stored for not less than one year, also required by law.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#414

Post by SquareWheel » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:38 AM UTC

css wrote: post #236

rosszurowski wrote: post #224

A bit tangential, but I tried sharing this link with a few friends on Facebook Messenger, and noticed it's blocked because it "violates Community Standards" [1]. Even shortened bit.ly links are blocked. Anyone know why that would be the case? I'm trying to not assume malice (eg. maybe it got misflagged?) but it certainly feels like censoring and is yet another push for me to drop Messenger too. [1]: https://i.imgur.c…

Google Translate links have been blocked for a long time because translate.google.com can be used as a proxy.

And for the record, so can bit.ly links. URL shorteners or redirection services are often blocked from being posted (eg. also on reddit).

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#415

Post by weq » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:42 AM UTC

cronix wrote: post #307

gringoDan wrote: post #95

I think the responses to this can be broken down into a 2x2 matrix: level of concern vs. understanding of technology. 1) Don't understand ML; not concerned - "I have nothing to hide." 2) Don't understand ML; concerned - "I bought this device and now people are spying on me!" 3) Understand ML; not concerned - "Of course, Google needs to label its training data." 4) Understand ML; concerned - "How can we train models/c…

I'm in the 5th category. 5) Understand ML; concerned - 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. I don't care how well trained they are, or "ethical." Ethical... according to who, and at what time period in the future? Ethics change. The data they have on you won't. Look at all of the politicians and other people getting in…

"oh but i deleted all my data through the helpful portal they provided. they said i had full control?"

Data is Googles game. Once they have it, they have it. Nothing else matters. You own nothing. Your image, your voice, your ideas, your conversation, your habits, your medical records. Google wants it all. Thats is Googles world.

Google aint giving that up. Everything they do is about getting more and more of it. Everything to the contrary is just PR spin.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#416

Post by la_barba » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 3:48 AM UTC

Analog24 wrote: post #339

la_barba wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We test our medicines on a small group that is representative of the entire worlds population. We build soil models based on sampling a small region. We don't test your entire blood to do a medical test. I don't know what you mean by "real data", but representative sampling is how work gets done in every single domain in the world. Google can do this.

This is a very different kind of problem than the ones you listed. One drop of blood is going to be very similar to any other in and individual. That's not true when it comes to language data (or many other types of data for that matter). The data you would record in a prepared setting (i.e. reading from some predefined set of phrases) is typically not even close to representing the full distribution of phrases/dialo…

>One drop of blood is going to be very similar to any other in and individual. That's not true when it comes to language data (or many other types of data for that matter).

Why? Please do explain. If you claim that our biology doesn't change at all in one domain, but varies significantly in another, it would be easy to show this scientifically, or more specifically, how this variance is applicable in this context of voice recognition.

Just to take a simple example of blood glucose. Using continuous glucose monitors attached at various sub-cutaneous sites over the body, it is trivial to show how the local glucose is not identical at all sites.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#417

Post by meruru » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 4:07 AM UTC

outworlder wrote: post #336

cronix wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the 5th category. 5) Understand ML; concerned - 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. I don't care how well trained they are, or "ethical." Ethical... according to who, and at what time period in the future? Ethics change. The data they have on you won't. Look at all of the politicians and other people getting in…

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…

I use Lineage OS (https://lineageos.org) with the cameras taped. It's not perfectly secure, but it's the best tradeoff I can make at the moment. Here's a few better options I want to switch to in the future:

Graphene OS, a security-hardened Android ROM: https://grapheneos.org

Librem 5, probably the ideal solution: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ Just look at the bullet-point features:

  + Does not use Android or iOS. The Librem 5 comes with the mobile version of our FSF-endorsed operating system PureOS by default, and is expected to be able to run most GNU+Linux distributions.  
  + CPU separate from baseband, isolating the blackbox that the modem may represent and allowing us to seek hardware certification of the main board by the Free Software Foundation.  
  + Hardware Kill Switches for camera, microphone, WiFi/Bluetooth, and baseband.  
  + End-to-end encrypted decentralized communications via Matrix over the Internet.  
  + We also intend the Librem 5 to integrate with the Librem Key security token in the future.

Pinephone, not as good as the Librem 5, but much cheaper: https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#418

Post by meruru » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 4:08 AM UTC

inflatableDodo wrote: post #373

outworlder wrote: post #336

Earlier 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…

>Before I go further: do you own a smartphone? Someone really needs to make a decent modular smartphone with a detachable radio.

The Librem 5 has a kill switch for the radio: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#419

Post by pryce » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 4:13 AM UTC

cronix wrote: post #307

gringoDan wrote: post #95

I think the responses to this can be broken down into a 2x2 matrix: level of concern vs. understanding of technology. 1) Don't understand ML; not concerned - "I have nothing to hide." 2) Don't understand ML; concerned - "I bought this device and now people are spying on me!" 3) Understand ML; not concerned - "Of course, Google needs to label its training data." 4) Understand ML; concerned - "How can we train models/c…

I'm in the 5th category. 5) Understand ML; concerned - 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. I don't care how well trained they are, or "ethical." Ethical... according to who, and at what time period in the future? Ethics change. The data they have on you won't. Look at all of the politicians and other people getting in…

If you visit your friends or relatives, you cannot fully protect yourself from this data collection by simply choosing not to own these devices yourself.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#420

Post by la_barba » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 4:20 AM UTC

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #325

la_barba wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're free to have your own opinion, but anything specific beyond "it doesn't work"? I work in pharma, and we use representative sampling every single day in every single thing we do, and it works.

Representative sampling, does 'work' in the sense that it may or may not 'prove' whatever it is you had a question about. But the issue is that you effectively building in your assumptions about what is 'representative' into your sample. Its (imo) the central issue in the reproducibility crisis: our assumptions about the world and how that impacts the questions we ask about it. It was previously intractable to do a c…

>But the issue is that you effectively building in your assumptions about what is 'representative' into your sample.

Even if I agree with your premise, Google is not going to build a custom voice model for every individual anyway. There will be simplifications made. There will be assumptions made, and they will end up with a representative model anyway. So you're actually just bolstering my point. It makes a ton of sense to record people in a known, controlled environment and tweak variables one by one- such as the size of the room, the location of the microphone, introducing varying amounts of background chatter, etc etc. This is how normal science happens all the time, and it has worked for us so far. And we haven't even addressed the ethics of spying on people in such a blatant manner. That is a whole another conversation.

> It doesn't work very well (imo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis) and usually is reflecting back to us something about our assumptions in how we sampled. But thats just it.

Modelling aggregate human behavior/psychology is not a proper science. The same is true of macro economics and other such non-exact fields. Problems in those fields do not apply across other fields.