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Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

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Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#161

Post by freeflight »

mateo1 wrote: post #113
vetler wrote: post #69

So no one opened up one of these and looked at the components?

Just like many physical and non-physical (software) products, very often, literally nobody reviews/verifies/checks them. Google will learn from this mistake, and next time they'll use a fancy MEMS microphone or a similar technology and place it inside a semiconductor package. When do you think such a feat will be discovered by independent researchers? Probably never.

There's also the reality that they can simply change the components/layout without ever telling anybody about it.

People just keep buying the same boxes without even being aware that the hardware inside these boxes might be completely different revisions.

Who's to say that future batches of Nest won't have cameras added for "future use"? Who's gonna go through the effort of checking every fresh batch of Nests for revisions like that? And what are the chances of actually catching it when it's only rolled out in small batches?

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#162

Post by krapp »

gduplessy wrote: post #154
natch wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Had to use a schtick, like in the old days. What is that? Google's not helping.

Stick, written weirdly.

No, it's Yiddish parlance for an act, gimmick or commonly employed routine.

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#163

Post by fixermark »

beatgammit wrote: post #156
fixermark wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a person hires a personal assistant, the person doesn't generally turn around and accuse the assistant of spying on them because the assistant listens too attentively.

Sure, but the assistant also doesn't typically record all conversations and give them to the service they work for, and they also don't typically bug the entire house so they can hear every conversation throughout the house. There's no way I'm getting a digital personal assistant like Google Home or Amazon Alexa. It's a novelty that trades privacy for a little convenience, and I'm not that lazy.

That's a personal choice you are welcome to make. I have a Google Home Mini sitting on the shelf behind my head right now, and it really doesn't bother me.

(... in fact, I tend to think about it in just the opposite way: if I'm ever murdered in my home, I want the cops to be able to subpoena Google to get evidence on who the killer was. It's nice to have a system watching my back all the time).

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#164

Post by sct202 »

userbinator wrote: post #110

Having worked at large companies before, I'm almost certain that more than one person working on the product raised the point "this has a microphone, why isn't it documented?" or "this has privacy implications", but was silenced. (Or it could be that everyone working at Google has been carefully chosen to not have such concerns; I do get that feeling sometimes too.)

My take is that maybe by that point that someone noticed all the product material had been printed or generated and someone else didn't want to redo it, or forgot, and hoped it would blow over.

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#165

Post by jerf »

kmlx wrote: post #60
vermilingua wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google is well past conspiracy territory. They are a company whose bottom line depends on collecting as much user data as possible; in an economy that compels them to improve their bottom line by any means available. Is there really any doubt that google can and will spy on you if given the slightest opportunity?

Yes, I have 100% doubt anyone is spying on anyone. I think most of it is paranoia. I also think this kind of paranoia is detrimental to our evolution as a species. We should be sharing more, not hiding in our caves.

"Yes, I have 100% doubt anyone is spying on anyone."

You can not possibly examine the evidence and claim 100% that there is no interest in spying on anyone.

Doubt that this particular case has that as the core issue? Sure. But be utterly convinced that literally no one, in any intelligence agency, against any target that might be near some sort of microphone-enabled device, has ever had the thought cross their mind that these things might be useful? No intelligence agency has ever looked at one of these companies hoovering up all the data they can get and installing all this stuff everywhere they can and stroked their chin for a moment?

You're basically claiming the NSA, CIA, Mossad, KGB, MI5, and all other such things have never existed, do not exist, and will not exist. The evidence for this is pretty poor.

I'm not asking you to wake up tomorrow and worry about whether your toaster is secretly sending all your thoughts to the alien overlords, but come on. Live in the world a bit. We're 7-ish billion people here on Planet Earth and they are not anywhere near all to a person nice, wholesome people who wish you all the best and would never even dream of exploiting you even a tiny little bit while they joyously enable you on your life journey of exploration and wonder. You're begging for exploitation.

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#166

Post by albeebe1 »

jrowley wrote: post #5

It’s really sad to see companies like google buy companies like nest, or more recently amazon and eero. These little companies build fantastic devices, then the companies get acquired and the elegant products get mutated to serve their new owners. Finally a new player enters the market and the cycle continues.

I often think, and i may be completely wrong here, that these little companies (Nest) get acquired with the intentions of the larger company (Google) to be as hands off as possible. You don't want to screw up the little companies culture.

However, what i think happens is that you see a headline "Google buys Nest for $3.2 billion" but the reality (again, i'm assuming here) is that in order for Nest to get that $3.2 billion, they need to reach certain sales goals. So now the little companies drive ends up being to reach sales goals.

So i'm not sure the elegant products get mutated so much to serve the new owners, i think the acquired company gets mutated to cash out.

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#168

Post by krapp »

fixermark wrote: post #138
atemerev wrote: post #105

One would have thought that in post-Snowden world, such reassurances would be completely unacceptable. Yet many people even here are dismissing the case with the "conspiracy" catch-all label.

If there's one thing we've learned from post-Snowden world, it's that most people don't care enough to dodge the surveillance because most people didn't respond by voluntarily throwing out all their computing devices, smartphones, ISP service plans, etc.

Another thing we've learned from the post-Snowden world is that people invoke the post-Snowden world as an excuse to abandon critical thinking and skepticism and assume all conspiracies are valid, and often don't actually understand what, specifically, Snowden did and didn't demonstrate. People still believe the PRISM program was about companies giving the NSA direct and unlimited backdoor access to their databases, and that every logo on a single slide is more or less an NSA front.

It's a similar phenomenon to the "post-Hilary" world of the Wikileaks email docs. People assume there was hard evidence proving a criminal conspiracy by the DNC to rig the election somewhere in there... mostly because that's what other people told them. Not because they've bothered to look.

People's cynicism has led them to put more trust in the metafictional reality of leaks than actual reality. Which, ironically, makes them easier to manipulate even as they believe themselves to be somehow above indoctrination and control having reached enlightenment through the "Snowden revelations."

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#170

Post by jamieson-becker »

balabaster wrote: post #153
s3r3nity wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember someone in a recent HN comment thread mentioning that, as an ex-Googler, Google today feels like Microsoft under Ballmer. So while I agree with you, it _also_ wouldn't surprise me if someone raised the concern, but that person was on a different / more silo'ed team and therefore the concern never reached the execution stage. Herego too many management layers and/or nodes of entropy for communication. But t…

Or was "yes, yes, we'll add a story to the backlog to add it to the specs" and it just flat out got forgotten. I've seen this happen so many times where I've been the one to raise the issue and because I've passed it off, I've forgotten about it only to circle back around 2 months later when someone says "Oh, we need to do this" and I say "I raised this 2 months ago, I thought X had put it in the backlog." And when y…

Although this is all possible and perhaps even more plausible than the alternative, it's still more fun and conspiratorial to view Google as the new Evil Empire, so I'll just keep doing that, thanks.
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