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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

#51

Post by jonknee »

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 can definitely detect OK Google on its own, here's what it looks like when you say "OK Google" when not connected to the internet (and it only shows up after saying it):

http://i.imgur.com/CCTGbsk.png

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

#52

Post by Oletros »

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.

> Has anyone actually confirmed that Chrome is continuously sending audio back to Google

I would change it to:

Has anyone actually confirmed that Chrome is continuously listening?

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

#53

Post by Oletros »

jonstokes wrote: post #44
Oletros wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide any proof of that? No, Android phones are not listening all the time

Nope, I have no proof, and of course I'd be happy to learn that they aren't listening. I just hypothesize that they are based on my experience, but I've not tried to test it in any systematic way.

Listening all the time and sending the audio to Google would kill an smartphone in a moment. Apaty of the bandwith used

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

#54

Post by dreamfactory2 »

mondoshawan wrote: post #36
gress wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can we stop with the witch hunts and the desire to maim folks over minor infractions like this? Consider that you're one of the developers that wrote this feature. You try very hard to make sure your users privacy rights are respected. Normally your work is strong and you catch all of the corner cases, but this one you missed. You've fixed it upstream, but folks are demanding 5% of the company's bottom line because o…

> If you don't like the company's behavior, /don't use the software/. Simple, clean, and effective in large numbers -- more so than regulation action

By that reasoning, tobacco and asbestos shouldn't be regulated

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

#55

Post by tremon »

mondoshawan wrote: post #36
gress wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can we stop with the witch hunts and the desire to maim folks over minor infractions like this? Consider that you're one of the developers that wrote this feature. You try very hard to make sure your users privacy rights are respected. Normally your work is strong and you catch all of the corner cases, but this one you missed. You've fixed it upstream, but folks are demanding 5% of the company's bottom line because o…

This is not a minor infraction, nor is it the work of a handful developers (the GP said Google, not Chromium). This is a business decision, and a hugely flawed one at that.

IMNSHO, user-hostile business decisions should be fined in a way that does impact the business. We've long since passed the point where this can be resolved with a slap on the wrist. So yes, 5% of revenue seems like an appropriate figure to start with.

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

#57

Post by lern_too_spel »

j42 wrote: post #34
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 not about consistently being bugged though--I see two troubling implications to this; a) Government A decides target B has valuable communications, and uses this audio capture functionality as an attack vector (ie, a MiTM server modifies the chrome binary blob request slightly to a version where chunked audio is sent back to a control server). b) (more likely) This binary blob contains a voice recognition algori…

This is true of any auto-updating software, including your operating system and all evergreen browsers.

The problem with this blog post is that the author gets in a tizzy about what could happen, not what is actually happening. What could happen has not been affected by the recent Chromium screw-up, nor is it specific to Chromium.

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

#58

Post by Retra »

mrj wrote: post #41
kiba wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that we're stuck in a tradeoff regarding software: Libre, high quality, and user friendly. Pick two.

Firefox is open, high quality and user friendly.

Firefox's success often seems to be the exception that proves the rule.

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

#59

Post by tremon »

Oletros wrote: post #52
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.

> Has anyone actually confirmed that Chrome is continuously sending audio back to Google I would change it to: Has anyone actually confirmed that Chrome is continuously listening?

Tell you what: you get me the source code, and I'll tell you what it's doing.

I'd say it's pretty much a given that it's continuously listening. How else would it know when to respond to an "ok, google" audio cue?

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

#60

Post by Oletros »

tremon wrote: post #59
Oletros wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Has anyone actually confirmed that Chrome is continuously sending audio back to Google I would change it to: Has anyone actually confirmed that Chrome is continuously listening?

Tell you what: you get me the source code, and I'll tell you what it's doing. I'd say it's pretty much a given that it's continuously listening. How else would it know when to respond to an "ok, google" audio cue?

> How else would it know when to respond to an "ok, google" audio cue?

Because you open a new tab or you go to the search bar and then starts to listen IF you have activated that option?

"Ok Google" only works on a new tab page. Look at the microphone icon in the search box to see whether it’s listening for the phrase "Ok Google" or not:

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2940021?p=ui_hot...

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