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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

#261

Post by lazide »

ipaddr wrote: post #235
dangus wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a small list of reasons why it needs to be "debunked:" 1. Your phone is gathering data that you don't realize that it gathers. One of the biggest examples of this is real-time location data that is brokered by cellular carriers and sold as aggregated marketing data. You don't have to give your apps permission to do anything like that because your cellular carrier can get that data regardless of your phone's…

That's much worse compared to listening for keywords. You're looking up men's enhancement products and everytime you enter a room all ads on everyone's phone change to those products?

Now this could be a fun adversarial exercise, with more interesting products of course.

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

#262

Post by dangus »

lodovic wrote: post #243
dangus wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a small list of reasons why it needs to be "debunked:" 1. Your phone is gathering data that you don't realize that it gathers. One of the biggest examples of this is real-time location data that is brokered by cellular carriers and sold as aggregated marketing data. You don't have to give your apps permission to do anything like that because your cellular carrier can get that data regardless of your phone's…

This assumes that companies such as TikTok control their timeline up to the individual post, perfectly analyzed in order to extract your unique traits, and they have specifics ads lined up for you. Where - in my view - their timeline is just a bunch of random submissions. TikTik is just trying to sell ads and will try anything to match your profile to one of their active ad compaigns so they can bill their client mor…

I'm confused at what you're claiming here. Yes, the submissions are rather random, but TikTok definitely figures out what type of content you like and what advertisements are most effective.

Your feed is almost certainly personalized up to the individual post, but I think if we are making an analogy to human curation it's certainly not working the same way behind the scenes.

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

#263

Post by jeffhuys »

sroussey wrote: post #168
gruez wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? AFAIK they only have hardware indicators for webcams on cams, and it's not used for microphones.

Different person here, but Apple has tried it multiple times in different ways. They started in ios14, iOS 17 got new Secure Exclave path that (A18, M4). Search for “Secure Indicator Light”. Also searching for “Secure Exclave” will reveal some fun reads.

That’s cool, but on iPhones, there is no indicator LIGHT. Only part of the screen indicates it. And if they can trigger stuff on your phone, maybe a daemon that accidentally covers that part with black also appears, and you wouldn’t notice.

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

#264

Post by jeffhuys »

user_of_the_wek wrote: post #183
dist-epoch wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phones today show in the status bar if the camera/microphone is active.

Does that mean the phone will not react to „Hey, Siri“ without a mic icon showing up in the status bar?

“Hey Siri” is activated by the mic, which is always listening, but only for the key phrase. It’s not going through the OS in the traditional sense, hence the “light” only comes on when it starts to listen through the OS.

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

#265

Post by dangus »

ipaddr wrote: post #235
dangus wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a small list of reasons why it needs to be "debunked:" 1. Your phone is gathering data that you don't realize that it gathers. One of the biggest examples of this is real-time location data that is brokered by cellular carriers and sold as aggregated marketing data. You don't have to give your apps permission to do anything like that because your cellular carrier can get that data regardless of your phone's…

That's much worse compared to listening for keywords. You're looking up men's enhancement products and everytime you enter a room all ads on everyone's phone change to those products?

While I don't agree with these sorts of industry practices and believe the US needs a universal data privacy law, I don't see how matching up some relatively impersonal metadata could be considered worse than directly listening in to private conversations.

The advertiser trying to sell my friend appliances didn't really get a lot right about them. They're a renter and the advertiser thought they’d like to buy a major kitchen appliance just because we were in the same location.

If they were able to listen in to our conversations they wouldn't have sent them an advertisement at all.

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

#266

Post by jeffhuys »

paulcole wrote: post #260
intended wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. They 100% do not share an interest in ear wax removal, or had a medical need of that nature. Why do you think I would put up a comment on HN of all places, with this degree of confidence. > tested with other ads… If I knew that this , was going to be needed to study, 5 years into the future, I would have conducted a double blind study. Sadly I could not, however, it’s still fun, so we can always replicate. The q…

I was kidding… Of course you and your friends share some demographics and interests—- making it unsurprising that you’d get similar ads. > The question is, have you found a horrid ad yet? Side note, this was in the UK The question is, why does it have to be a horrid ad? Does the phone only listen for things about horrid ads to show you? You have to know that your phone isn’t listening to you right? That it’s just a c…

You can’t be 100% confident about what you’re saying and it horrifies me that people go through such lengths to protect these… ad companies? Oh you’re just bringing some sense to the situation, right? Ad companies are the sleaziest of them all and I would not be surprised if they did stuff like this. Smart tvs, dishwashers that NEED wifi to get full functionality, phones always with me and (especially android) users accepting everything willy nilly…

Your phone might not be listening to you straight out of the box. Might. You don’t know for sure, nobody here does. Why err on the side of blissful ignorance? And then you accept 10 end-user-agreements you don’t read, install dozens of apps you don’t read the small letters of… and you think nobody had been listened to?

It’s a bigger chance it happens than that it doesn’t, in my mind. I haven’t been able to catch it using mitm proxies, but I’m not the best at that, and I haven’t a pretty virgin iphone on purpose.

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

#267

Post by alternatex »

user_of_the_wek wrote: post #183
dist-epoch wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phones today show in the status bar if the camera/microphone is active.

Does that mean the phone will not react to „Hey, Siri“ without a mic icon showing up in the status bar?

As an Android user I think there's no way for Google to assist unless directly called upon.

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

#268

Post by paulcole »

jeffhuys wrote: post #266
paulcole wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was kidding… Of course you and your friends share some demographics and interests—- making it unsurprising that you’d get similar ads. > The question is, have you found a horrid ad yet? Side note, this was in the UK The question is, why does it have to be a horrid ad? Does the phone only listen for things about horrid ads to show you? You have to know that your phone isn’t listening to you right? That it’s just a c…

You can’t be 100% confident about what you’re saying and it horrifies me that people go through such lengths to protect these… ad companies? Oh you’re just bringing some sense to the situation, right? Ad companies are the sleaziest of them all and I would not be surprised if they did stuff like this. Smart tvs, dishwashers that NEED wifi to get full functionality, phones always with me and (especially android) users…

> You can’t be 100% confident about what you’re saying

Yeah but I am.

If you tell me a story about your phone listening to you that you absolutely swear is true, I know you love the idea of conspiracy theories and would laugh at someone who believes in astrology. But they’re the same thing.

It’s fun to see coincidences. It’s fun to think you’ve outsmarted the man. But that’s all it is — fun.

It’s not real.

> Ad companies are the sleaziest of them all and I would not be surprised if they did stuff like this

OK prove it.

> It’s a bigger chance it happens than that it doesn’t, in my mind

OK, should be easy for someone to prove then.

Is it really more likely that this thing is happening that nobody has been able to prove or that people like to see patterns to explain the weird things in the world?

> I haven’t been able to catch it using mitm proxies

Shocker lol.

But should be easy for you to find someone who has caught them red handed, right?

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

#269

Post by coldtea »

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)

>You can opt out, just say you do

And then be flagged and 10x more targeted because of that

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

#270

Post by DontchaKnowit »

dist-epoch wrote: post #120
ThinkBeat wrote: post #77

At the time I am typing this, the title on the page is: ""Your phone isn’t secretly listening to you, but the truth is more disturbing"" Which is presently also the title on this post. Then as I read it becomes clear that it is merely focusing on Facebook. However the confusion that may stem from "Your phone isn’t secretly listening to you" The blog post never attempts to establish that your phone is not listening to…

Phones today show in the status bar if the camera/microphone is active.

And you think that wouldnt be disabled by malware that can turn your microphone on at will? Lmfao
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