Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex, and contractors hear it • Hacker News Board

Re: Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex, and contractors hear it

#81

Post by Kye » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #43

forgotmyhnacc wrote: post #24

Many HNers have a weird belief that Apple is somehow a privacy focused company, despite it actually being no more private than Facebook or Google. The main concern people have (voice assistants beside) is data gathering for ads, which Apple does for their app search, among other places. Also, their data centers are in China, which gives Chinese authorities full access to their iCloud account. If you want privacy, don…

Knowing your users and how they use your software is too big of an advantage, and it seems users doesnt care, or is there a market for users willing to pay for privacy!?

This is a "blue ocean" situation. Plenty of people would care if they understood the hazards of the status quo and a viable alternative existed. People can already make their own privacy-respecting phone, but most people aren't up for it. Someone will have to get close enough to the UX polish of Apple and Google to pull people away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy

Re: Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex, and contractors hear it

#82

Post by jtbayly » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

I think the most important piece of info isn't even in this article. The Verge article I submitted[0] had this quote:

"Additionally, as The Guardian notes, while Amazon and Google allow customers to opt out of some uses of their recordings, Apple doesn’t offer a similar privacy protecting option, outside of disabling Siri entirely. That’s a particularly bad look, given that Apple has built so much of its reputation on selling itself as the privacy company that defends your data in ways that Google and Amazon don’t."

I was shocked by this because I opt out of sending analysis data to Apple at setup of my devices. I figured that would also prevent sending Siri recordings. Apparently not, though.

[0]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/26/8932064/apple-siri-privat...

Re: Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex, and contractors hear it

#83

Post by jtbayly » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #62

xiphias2 wrote: post #44

It would be great if people could review what voice recordings were sent to the companies past week. After that people could make a decision whether they want to continue using the product.

This would be a security issue. What if your SO's private conversations are reported to you?

You seem to be implying it is safer to send a recording from my phone to a huge corporation where it will be heard by any number of people I don't know than sending the recording to myself, the owner of that phone.

Surely not. Perhaps that's not what you meant?

Re: Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex, and contractors hear it

#84

Post by jtbayly » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

mettamage wrote: post #78

Wait, isn't it possible to research this by setting up a hotspot that shows the traffic on your computer? Or would it be an issue because it's encrypted? Couldn't you then still at least correlate traffic with sound/voice?

Audio has to be sent to do the recognition. The only question is whether the company then turns around and saves it and sends it for further analysis. You can't track that step.

Re: Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex, and contractors hear it

#85

Post by Kye » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #31

bredren wrote: post #25

This may be tangential but I’m regularly amazed at how bad Siri is at basic things still. I’ll try to use it for things in front of guests on the HomePod and Siri is embarrassing half of the time

I've never quite gotten the allure of voice assistants myself, it just seems like a really frustrating way to use a computer.

It's great with my sometimes inadequate working memory. "Hey Siri, ..." is faster and more reliable than trying to get into an app and do a thing before I forget what I was trying to do.

Re: Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex, and contractors hear it

#86

Post by jtbayly » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #51

Aloha wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never quite gotten the allure of voice assistants myself, it just seems like a really frustrating way to use a computer.

As someone who doesn’t use any digital assistants, voice activated or not, I’m facinated by the marketing and media hype. It’s still not clear to me why anyone would want them.

(Safely) Creating a reminder while driving is very handy.

Re: Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex, and contractors hear it

#87

Post by sorokod » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #80

sorokod wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"my partner has Alexa set up to turn lights on and off" Do you really need the help of a megacorp to turn lights on and off?

No, but it does feel very Star Trek.

Yea, with star fleet analysts keeping tabs on crews.

Re: Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex, and contractors hear it

#88

Post by dingo_bat » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

theshadowknows wrote: post #54

One thing that happens to me is sometimes I’ll accidentally send people random texts from my watch while I sleep. I’ve started putting it in “water mode” and also airplane mode just before I go to bed to help keep that from happening. All I need is to accidentally text my boss an audio from having sex with my wife.

You can also try taking off the watch just before you go to bed.

Re: Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex, and contractors hear it

#89

Post by jbverschoor » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

The thing is, I don’t even want siri to do anything smart.

It needs to: dial a number, and keep a lot of frequently dialed people so it doesn’t think I meant someone else

Set the alarm / timer

Understand the street I want to navigate to.

The whole smart thing, looking up things on the internet or contextualized answers don’t work, and they’re frustrating as hell.

Also, I want Siri to work offline. So basically I want voice recognition with a short set of instructions I’m happy to memorize.

Re: Siri records fights, doctor’s appointments, and sex, and contractors hear it

#90

Post by jwatt » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

Havoc wrote: post #57

Ordered a nice far field microphone and raspberry 4. Gonna try to build my own voice assistant with Mycroft.

Does Mycroft need a network connection for voice recognition to work? I wasn't able to conclusively tell from a quick scan of their website but their Get Started document[1] says "Mycroft devices need to be paired with your Mycroft Home account to work", which sounds like it does.

I had been intending to do something similar to you, but using Snips[2] since it supposedly has on-device voice recognition (and use of Rust, which I like).

1. https://mycroft.ai/get-started/ 2. https://docs.snips.ai/getting-started