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Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

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Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#171

Post by _visgean »

MiroF wrote: post #121
_visgean wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I have heard you don't need any fancy AI models for detecting either of these sounds. Some of the older alarms were using classic signal processing to to this decades ago.

But why wouldn't they have AI models? It's how I would do it.

Well they might do it with AI, there are however some issues, constantly running sounds through ML models is power hungry which is as far as i know why devices such as these optimize a lot for commands prompts such as "OK google" which is when the ML loop actually starts.

On the other smoke alarm sound is very easy to detect with classical methods so might be extremely cheap to run it without any ML.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#172

Post by Androider »

secabeen wrote: post #40
paul_f wrote: post #16

There is a big difference between smoke alarm detection built into the wake-up-word circuitry, versus every sound sent to Google's servers for analysis. I am not bothered by the former, but would be aghast at the latter. Does anyone know for sure?

Now that the feature is disabled, it's hard to know. Once the feature is enabled, it's pretty easy to tell by looking at the network traffic the device generates. Sending every sound to google is going to be obvious.

The article makes it unclear, but this feature is available right now for all Nest Aware subscribers (if you have any type of Nest camera, you'll have a Nest Aware subscription). The article mentioned that this feature was "accidentally" available to non-Nest Aware subscribers as well, but it's the same existing feature and not some test of upcoming features.

You can toggle glass break and fire alarm detection on any of your Google Home devices in the Home app, and this includes the old Google Home mini pucks and hubs, as well as new Nest branded minis and hubs.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#173

Post by lern_too_spel »

marricks wrote: post #126
changoplatanero wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're spreading conspiracy theories. There is no way Google is listening to your phone calls and using the information for ads.

If you told someone 2008 that the fun scrappy startup offering Gmail would be reading your emails for ads* (see reply to this!) until 2017 and only stopped when another tech company had a massive leak of personal information which helped sway a presidential election* people would call you absolutely mad. Emails were sacred back then and it took Google and long and slow creep to face little backlash when they started…

> If you told someone 2008 that the fun scrappy startup offering Gmail would be reading your emails

Google explicitly stated their would read your emails to show ads next to them at launch. This was a surprise to nobody.

> and only stopped

It never stopped reading mail. How do you think searching your inbox or filtering spam work?

In light of this, the rest of your post is pure conspiracy theory nonsense. Google was upfront about the reasons for reading your mail at the beginning. Why should any of that change?

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#174

Post by jhardy54 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #148
jhardy54 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. Google didn't originally scan emails. Then they did. Then they didn't. Countering "Google scanned emails" with "well the don't right now" is the only ridiculous behavior in this thread.

But they did[0] from the beginning. And then later they stopped. There was no start then stop. There was only a stop. (I work on Gmail) [0]: https://privacyrights.org/resources/privacy-and-civil-libert... (from 2004, the year Gmail launched)

Interesting, thanks for the correction! I could've sworn that Gmail provided some "we don't scan your email" privacy since the beginning but it sounds like I was confused.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#175

Post by lern_too_spel »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #132
function_seven wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they were upfront with it. When GMail was released, they straight up told users that’s how they were paying for the enormous 1GB storage.

Ask average person - hell, average techie - about it, and I'm pretty certain you'll discover they don't know what you're talking about. They really weren't up front about it, they might have just not been hiding it very hard. Part of the solution to the tech vs. privacy problems could be forcing companies to be actually up front about their business models. After all, it's not wrong for an individual to give up their…

It was obvious. The ads were displayed right next to the messages and we're relevant to the messages being shown. At launch, they prominently described how this worked on the sign up page. https://web.archive.org/web/20040410020148/http://gmail.goog...

To my mind, the biggest privacy violator that doesn't admit it's privacy violations right now is Apple. Even as a non-Apple user, I have my WiFi location slurped up by Apple, and they don't give me any way to opt out. People who use Apple devices have it far worse.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#176

Post by TeMPOraL »

joshuamorton wrote: post #151
TeMPOraL wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you think Google would sell pii? It doesn't make business sense. In these discussions, "selling PII" is sometimes a short for "providing a service that allows targeting ads based on PII without actually releasing PII itself to the service users", which is only a little less bad.

Given the context, it's clear that's not what GP means. Also, from a privacy perspective, there is a vast difference between the two. One person who you trust to keep your data safe (but not to use it in ways you find ethical necessarily) is vastly different from them giving it to other parties who you don't know.

I don't think the difference is that vast in practice.

What's currently stopping evil actors from exfiltrating data from Google's PII through buying narrowly targeted ads, each time with slightly different targeting, and intersecting these results to build a more detailed picture of people who viewed the ads?

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#177

Post by MiroF »

_visgean wrote: post #171
MiroF wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why wouldn't they have AI models? It's how I would do it.

Well they might do it with AI, there are however some issues, constantly running sounds through ML models is power hungry which is as far as i know why devices such as these optimize a lot for commands prompts such as "OK google" which is when the ML loop actually starts. On the other smoke alarm sound is very easy to detect with classical methods so might be extremely cheap to run it without any ML.

> constantly running sounds through ML models is power hungry which is as far as i know why devices such as these optimize a lot for commands prompts such as "OK google" which is when the ML loop actually starts.

How power hungry is it actually? I'd only have to run it on the big model if a pretty dumb model thinks that the voice is even in the audio stream.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#178

Post by harha »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #140
ourmandave wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...so I had it in the bathroom to limit what my employer could listen to. Uh, this feels like Opposite Day.

This is a good choice of location. If they snoop on GP, they'll hear exactly what they deserve to hear.

And that is what I consider functioning as intended.

While I don’t think they target me specifically, I can’t be really sure either and like many other companies the people there behave quite contrary to what is advertised.

This is just too obvious of a potential attack to simply ignore and too easy to avoid.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#179

Post by Balgair »

theshadowknows wrote: post #129

For the folks who think your devices aren’t listening try an experiment: start talking out loud about a product you’ve never, ever searched for. Something you’ve never, ever needed or wanted. See how long it takes for ads for that very thing to start showing up in Facebook and in your targeted ads. I’ve done it and Started getting ads in a matter of days.

Try the experiment with friends!

First, get a friend or relative to go along with the ride here. Try to have that person not be on your local network of wifi and the like.

Then, go a website that will generate a list of random words: https://www.randomlists.com/nouns . Make sure that you are selecting for nouns or adjectives. Copy the first three words that you get. More is fine too. Just get enough words to be pretty specific.

Then go to amazon or some such online retailer: https://www.amazon.com/ . Search for the three random words you got.

Now, here is an important step, sort the returned list by price, from high to low.

Take the most expensive item as your experimental item. You can do this with a few items if you'd like. You're just trying to get something that is not what you or your demographic would normally look to purchase.

Then, talk about that item around your gadgets, critically, with someone that is not you. Your amazon search history is already corrupted just by searching for this.

Check back in with your friend or relative in about a week. You can set a reminder in your phone to do this. See if they got any ads that were trying to sell them on the random item you chose.

Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands

#180

Post by jowsie »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #132
function_seven wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they were upfront with it. When GMail was released, they straight up told users that’s how they were paying for the enormous 1GB storage.

Ask average person - hell, average techie - about it, and I'm pretty certain you'll discover they don't know what you're talking about. They really weren't up front about it, they might have just not been hiding it very hard. Part of the solution to the tech vs. privacy problems could be forcing companies to be actually up front about their business models. After all, it's not wrong for an individual to give up their…

> They really weren't up front about it, they might have just not been hiding it very hard.

It was the answer to the main question everyone had, how are they providing 1GB (huge at the time) inbox space for FREE? Because they were serving relevant ads against your mail. It was in no way a secret.

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