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Google listening in to your room shows importance of privacy defense in depth

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Re: Google listening in to your room shows importance of privacy defense in depth

#21

Post by deoptimo »

rasz_pl wrote: post #8

I wonder if European Commission would be interested in adding this to their investigation, couple of hundred million dollars should be enough penalty for violating users privacy.

I agree with the sentiment, but I don't think a competition investigation is the appropriate forum to deal with this. There should be a fine, perhaps through a class action or criminal conviction.

I certainly hope the penalty for illegally wiretapping hundreds of millions of people is more than $1 per head. I value the privacy of my conversations (and life) way more than that.

Besides, if I opt-in to this service, why should everyone who ever walks into my home or office be presumed to have made the same choice? What if I am a doctor or lawyer who is not legally allowed to make that choice?

Re: Google listening in to your room shows importance of privacy defense in depth

#22

Post by jmnicolas »

I think this is the last straw for me : enough is enough.

I need to sit and reflect a bit on this, but I'm contemplating abandoning every bit of non free software I currently use (and there's a lot of it since I'm using Windows and Android).

Re: Google listening in to your room shows importance of privacy defense in depth

#23

Post by metric10 »

Has anyone actually confirmed that Chrome is continuously sending audio back to Google? I highly doubt that this is the case. Instead, the plug in knows how to recognize "OK Google" all by itself. Once activated, then it starts sending audio data.

IF it where really listening even when inactive, then people would be complaining about it sucking up bandwidth and data allotments.

Re: Google listening in to your room shows importance of privacy defense in depth

#24

Post by gress »

rasz_pl wrote: post #8

I wonder if European Commission would be interested in adding this to their investigation, couple of hundred million dollars should be enough penalty for violating users privacy.

A couple of hundred million dollars is a trivial write off for google. It should be a 5% of revenue.

Re: Google listening in to your room shows importance of privacy defense in depth

#25

Post by 51Cards »

metric10 wrote: post #23

Has anyone actually confirmed that Chrome is continuously sending audio back to Google? I highly doubt that this is the case. Instead, the plug in knows how to recognize "OK Google" all by itself. Once activated, then it starts sending audio data. IF it where really listening even when inactive, then people would be complaining about it sucking up bandwidth and data allotments.

I was thinking something similar... that would be a LOT of data being sent back continuously while Chrome was running, which for many people is 24/7. If you had an office of Chrome users the entire office pipe could be eaten up by what is essentially X number continuous VOIP calls.

Re: Google listening in to your room shows importance of privacy defense in depth

#26

Post by kiba »

jmnicolas wrote: post #22

I think this is the last straw for me : enough is enough. I need to sit and reflect a bit on this, but I'm contemplating abandoning every bit of non free software I currently use (and there's a lot of it since I'm using Windows and Android).

It appears that we're stuck in a tradeoff regarding software:

Libre, high quality, and user friendly. Pick two.

Re: Google listening in to your room shows importance of privacy defense in depth

#27

Post by metric10 »

51Cards wrote: post #25
metric10 wrote: post #23

Has anyone actually confirmed that Chrome is continuously sending audio back to Google? I highly doubt that this is the case. Instead, the plug in knows how to recognize "OK Google" all by itself. Once activated, then it starts sending audio data. IF it where really listening even when inactive, then people would be complaining about it sucking up bandwidth and data allotments.

I was thinking something similar... that would be a LOT of data being sent back continuously while Chrome was running, which for many people is 24/7. If you had an office of Chrome users the entire office pipe could be eaten up by what is essentially X number continuous VOIP calls.

Right. There's no way this would go unnoticed on any enterprise or government network, and once noticed it would end the use Chrome in those environments. In fact it would have unimaginably huge consequences. It would mean huge numbers of CEOs and government officials in all countries where being bugged, all dependent on Google securely keeping millions of audio streams private. This doesn't pass the giggle test.

Re: Google listening in to your room shows importance of privacy defense in depth

#28

Post by DennisP »

metric10 wrote: post #23

Has anyone actually confirmed that Chrome is continuously sending audio back to Google? I highly doubt that this is the case. Instead, the plug in knows how to recognize "OK Google" all by itself. Once activated, then it starts sending audio data. IF it where really listening even when inactive, then people would be complaining about it sucking up bandwidth and data allotments.

It's probably not actively listening to all users. But if it has the capability, then it can be activated upon request by law enforcement or the NSA.

Re: Google listening in to your room shows importance of privacy defense in depth

#29

Post by tzgur8 »

metric10 wrote: post #23

Has anyone actually confirmed that Chrome is continuously sending audio back to Google? I highly doubt that this is the case. Instead, the plug in knows how to recognize "OK Google" all by itself. Once activated, then it starts sending audio data. IF it where really listening even when inactive, then people would be complaining about it sucking up bandwidth and data allotments.

good point. However, don't trust them to care about your privacy too much. This is never the case.

Re: Google listening in to your room shows importance of privacy defense in depth

#30

Post by anaptdemise »

uptown wrote: post #2

Type this into your Chrome address bar to see the extension status: chrome://voicesearch/

I have never had the "OK Google" voice search option enabled and chrome://voicesearch/ shown below. I deleted the hotword file specified as the extension path and also `rm rf` directories under the "Extensions/lccekmodgklaepjeofjdjpbminllajkg" specified as the Shared Module path. I also changed owner of the directory "lccekmodgklaepjeofjdjpbminllajkg" to root and the permission to read only. After restarting chrome, the extension/module still shows up in the chrome://voicesearch/ and Enabled in the chrome://extensions/ when --show-component-extension-options is used. Further, chrome://extensions/ shows "Hotword triggering" as allowed in Incognito Mode. Unchecking the box is automatically re-enabled.

  Google Chrome	43.0.2357.124 ()
  OS	Mac OS X
  NaCl Enabled	Yes
  Microphone	Yes
  Audio Capture Allowed	Yes
  Current Language	en-US
  Hotword Previous Language	en-US
  Hotword Search Enabled	No
  Always-on Hotword Search Enabled	No
  Hotword Audio Logging Enabled	No
  Field trial	Install
  Start Page State	No Start Page Service
  Extension Id	nbpagnldghgfoolbancepceaanlmhfmd
  Extension Version	0.0.1.4
  Extension Path	/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/Versions/43.0.2357.124/Google Chrome Framework.framework/Resources/hotword
  Extension State	ENABLED
  Shared Module Id	lccekmodgklaepjeofjdjpbminllajkg
  Shared Module Version	0.3.0.5
  Shared Module Path	/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Default/Extensions/lccekmodgklaepjeofjdjpbminllajkg/0.3.0.5_0
  Shared Module State	ENABLED
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