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Your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing

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Re: Your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing

#191

Post by vel0city »

uoaei wrote: post #176
kelnos wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us want to be able to cross the country in an afternoon, and not have to spend days on a slow, uncomfortable train to make the same trip. I don't think that's unreasonable.

Certainly not unreasonable. But it does require you to commission your own transport subject to the rules that that private entity seeks to impose. Public entities which indiscriminately service residents and visitors of a given territory would obviate this requirement. But if you're in the US, good luck convincing taxpayers to agree to pay for that.

> subject to the rules that that private entity seeks to impose.

It's not the private entity taking a 3D face scan, nor are they necessarily wanting for that scan to be taken. It's federal laws and regulations being done by federal agents in spaces controlled by the federal government.

Re: Your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing

#192

Post by shermantanktop »

hammock wrote: post #177
limbero wrote: post #98

This article reminds me of this excellent tongue-in-cheek piece of writing by Jonathan Zeller in McSweeney's: Calm Down—Your Phone Isn’t Listening to Your Conversations. It’s Just Tracking Everything You Type, Every App You Use, Every Website You Visit, and Everywhere You Go in the Physical World https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/calm-down-your-phone-isn...

The article omits a real, serious source of microphone data though: your smart TV. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my TV (a Toshiba Fire TV, although I’m sure many do it) is listening to every conversation I have within earshot, even when I am not using the voice remote, and selling it to ad networks. And of course it is also doing screen recognition (the kind of stuff OP article mentions), but that is not wha…

Beyond a shadow of a doubt? Can you describe what you’ve experienced?

Re: Your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing

#193

Post by walterbell »

hammock wrote: post #177
limbero wrote: post #98

This article reminds me of this excellent tongue-in-cheek piece of writing by Jonathan Zeller in McSweeney's: Calm Down—Your Phone Isn’t Listening to Your Conversations. It’s Just Tracking Everything You Type, Every App You Use, Every Website You Visit, and Everywhere You Go in the Physical World https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/calm-down-your-phone-isn...

The article omits a real, serious source of microphone data though: your smart TV. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my TV (a Toshiba Fire TV, although I’m sure many do it) is listening to every conversation I have within earshot, even when I am not using the voice remote, and selling it to ad networks. And of course it is also doing screen recognition (the kind of stuff OP article mentions), but that is not wha…

Privacy-seeking users have physically removed microphones from phones. This should also be possible with laptops and televisions.

If Toshiba Fire TV is related to Amazon Fire TV, then it may include Alexa for voice recognition, which could be optionally disabled. In theory, Alexa is only activated after on-device recognition of the configured wake word.

Re: Your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing

#194

Post by api »

hammock wrote: post #177
limbero wrote: post #98

This article reminds me of this excellent tongue-in-cheek piece of writing by Jonathan Zeller in McSweeney's: Calm Down—Your Phone Isn’t Listening to Your Conversations. It’s Just Tracking Everything You Type, Every App You Use, Every Website You Visit, and Everywhere You Go in the Physical World https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/calm-down-your-phone-isn...

The article omits a real, serious source of microphone data though: your smart TV. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my TV (a Toshiba Fire TV, although I’m sure many do it) is listening to every conversation I have within earshot, even when I am not using the voice remote, and selling it to ad networks. And of course it is also doing screen recognition (the kind of stuff OP article mentions), but that is not wha…

I am suspicious of all “smart” devices, much more so than phones because phones have a lot more scrutiny on them.

If your smart toaster, light bulb, or fridge was listening to you, would anyone even notice? Does anyone examine these devices in depth?

Re: Your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing

#195

Post by walterbell »

hammock wrote: post #178
spunker540 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with drivers licenses and passports having a photo requirement too

The TSA photos are worse. They use a stereoscopic camera to take a 3d image of your head, which makes facial recognition up to 10x more accurate. You can opt out, just say you do (and preferably cover the camera with your hat or bag)

WiFi 7 Sensing is bringing similar functionality to consumer routers and many laptops, with the bonus of passing through walls.

Re: Your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing

#196

Post by rr808 »

Ichthypresbyter wrote: post #142
trollied wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were probably in the same place using the same IP address, and both browsed - doesn’t matter which sites you both visited, the trackers have you. You might have shown him where you were going. Ad trackers thought “I’ll serve ski ads to people that were on that IP address because somebody else looked at xyz”.

How do IP addresses work with cell towers? The WiFi where I work doesn't allow personal devices to connect, but there's reasonable 5G.

At my last 3 jobs they've had a public wifi network for staff to use for personal use.

Re: Your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing

#197

Post by torben-friis »

immibis wrote: post #86
mindcrash wrote: post #85

Way back then I exposed massive data collection from Twitter by Google which made it possible to plot locations at which you used Twitter in Google Maps by simply putting your Twitter handle into the search field. Somehow they knew about these locations even when you opted out of sharing location data with Twitter (I checked) -- so this was only possible by Twitter privately providing this information to Google. This…

Doesn't every site route every support request for every reason into the digital trash can? You're supposed to just make a new account, using as many mechanisms as possible to make sure the site can't link it to your old account.

I’m not even sure that’s possible for some sites.

A few years ago I tried to create a separate digital footprint from scratch (just an experiment out of boredom when my isp offered a second number for free). I used an ultra cheap never before used android phone and set it up outside my home.

Google went nuts. All sorts of captchas, security checks and attempts to link me to other information popping up on every step. Eventually it wouldn’t let me use the phone unless I provided a credit card number.

Re: Your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing

#198

Post by [deleted] »

latexr wrote: post #166
gruez wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't believe that my phone is not listening to me and I challenge you to choose a random word out of the dictionary and say it 100 times in front of your phone. The person making the claim should be responsible for furnishing the proof. If it's really so simple to prove, why hasn't anyone done a carefully controlled experiment proving this once and for all? At the very least, it'd move us beyond vague anecdotes o…

> If it's really so simple to prove, why hasn't anyone done a carefully controlled experiment proving this once and for all? They did, and found no listening being done. It’s in the article under “The data doesn't add up”.

[deleted]

Re: Your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing

#199

Post by dyauspitr »

walterbell wrote: post #193
hammock wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article omits a real, serious source of microphone data though: your smart TV. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that my TV (a Toshiba Fire TV, although I’m sure many do it) is listening to every conversation I have within earshot, even when I am not using the voice remote, and selling it to ad networks. And of course it is also doing screen recognition (the kind of stuff OP article mentions), but that is not wha…

Privacy-seeking users have physically removed microphones from phones. This should also be possible with laptops and televisions. If Toshiba Fire TV is related to Amazon Fire TV, then it may include Alexa for voice recognition, which could be optionally disabled. In theory, Alexa is only activated after on-device recognition of the configured wake word.

Removed microphones from… phones? How do you use the phone then?

Re: Your phone isn't secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing

#200

Post by detaro »

dyauspitr wrote: post #199
walterbell wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy-seeking users have physically removed microphones from phones. This should also be possible with laptops and televisions. If Toshiba Fire TV is related to Amazon Fire TV, then it may include Alexa for voice recognition, which could be optionally disabled. In theory, Alexa is only activated after on-device recognition of the configured wake word.

Removed microphones from… phones ? How do you use the phone then?

Most things people use phones for nowadays don't need a microphone. And in the rare case you do, you plug in/connect a headset.
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