As long as it is possible (closed source software and hardware which is unaudited by trusted organizations), then it's going to continue to be assumed to be happening.
Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations
21–30 of 415 posts
Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations
#22Dozens of times in the past few years I've been served relevant ads on some topic instantly after discussing it in person in proximity to a smartphone. I've encountered countless other anecdotal stories from friends. When this happens I feel an acute sense of violation and vulnerability. It's hard to imagine a less sinister explanation for this phenomena.
You can't imagine a less sinister explanation other than Facebook or some other entity is secretly recording your voice and the voices of millions of people, in violation of numerous state and federal laws, through their smartphone microphones, uploading it to their servers surreptitiously, performing voice analysis on it to determine who is speaking out of 350,000,000 possible cases (presumably they've already catal…
True, it seems far-fetched at first. We should keep in mind that a even few short years ago theorizing about the US Government operating a widespread domestic electronic surveillance dragnet was still the realm of delusional conspiracy theorists.
Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations
#23Once happened while remarking on the Fruit Loops shake at Burger King. Opened Facebook minutes later and got a Fruit Loops ad. I assure you I don’t message, post, or in any other way remotely suggest an affinity for Fruit Loops. Commenting on it at Burger King was the definition of a one-off incident. I guess another possible explanation is some very sophisticated combination of location tracking and Kellogg’s target…
Out of curiosity, why did you remark on the Fruit Loops shake? Could it be due to an ad campaign that started prior to your remark, and continues after it?
We were going through the drive-thru and saw a sign. It seemed so magnificently revolting, I wondered at the time if it was a red herring to drive word of mouth.
Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations
#24Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations
#25https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2013/02/20/snapdragon-wake... https://developer.qualcomm.com/blog/using-qualcomm-hexagon-s... "Industry wide adoption" 2013 The rest is PR.
IMHO this is irrelevant to what is being discussed here.
> enables devices powered by Snapdragon 800 processors to be “woken up” by a custom voice command (beginning with a custom phrase set by the device OEM like “Hey Snapdragon”, for example)
Because they are always on and have to use minimal power, these chips are used to recognise a very specific term (probably why these companies don't let you customise how you summon the assistant), and cannot do anything like voice transcription, network calls, ... (which would just kill your battery).
Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations
#26Once happened while remarking on the Fruit Loops shake at Burger King. Opened Facebook minutes later and got a Fruit Loops ad. I assure you I don’t message, post, or in any other way remotely suggest an affinity for Fruit Loops. Commenting on it at Burger King was the definition of a one-off incident. I guess another possible explanation is some very sophisticated combination of location tracking and Kellogg’s target…
I was once sitting at a bar having a beer, chatting with the bartender (one of my best friends) and the guy sitting next to me, whom I had never met before. I pulled out my phone to show my friend something that had been posted on Facebook and, while browsing Facebook right after that, the app showed the guy sitting right next to me as the first person under "People You May Know". I had not "checked in" or posted any updates while I was there, FWIW. It was at that point that I removed all permissions (i.e. location tracking) that I could from the Facebook app.
More on-topic: I recall reading that the Facebook app would activate the microphone when one was posting a status update, apparently listening for things like a movie playing in the background and such.
ETA: Related Snopes articles:
https://www.snopes.com/computer/facebook/facebooklisten.asp
https://www.snopes.com/2016/06/04/professor-claims-facebook-...
Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations
#27Once happened while remarking on the Fruit Loops shake at Burger King. Opened Facebook minutes later and got a Fruit Loops ad. I assure you I don’t message, post, or in any other way remotely suggest an affinity for Fruit Loops. Commenting on it at Burger King was the definition of a one-off incident. I guess another possible explanation is some very sophisticated combination of location tracking and Kellogg’s target…
What about the possibility of geofences detecting your proximity to a Burger King and perpetuating through ad networks to trigger the current ad campaign which happens to be the Fruit Loops shake?
Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations
#28https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2013/02/20/snapdragon-wake... https://developer.qualcomm.com/blog/using-qualcomm-hexagon-s... "Industry wide adoption" 2013 The rest is PR.
IMHO this is irrelevant to what is being discussed here. > enables devices powered by Snapdragon 800 processors to be “woken up” by a custom voice command (beginning with a custom phrase set by the device OEM like “Hey Snapdragon”, for example) Because they are always on and have to use minimal power, these chips are used to recognise a very specific term (probably why these companies don't let you customise how you…
Why would audio have to be transcribed locally on battery power? You could do that server-side and/or keep the data stored locally as audio until the device is charging and on WiFi.
Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations
#29Once happened while remarking on the Fruit Loops shake at Burger King. Opened Facebook minutes later and got a Fruit Loops ad. I assure you I don’t message, post, or in any other way remotely suggest an affinity for Fruit Loops. Commenting on it at Burger King was the definition of a one-off incident. I guess another possible explanation is some very sophisticated combination of location tracking and Kellogg’s target…
What about the possibility of geofences detecting your proximity to a Burger King and perpetuating through ad networks to trigger the current ad campaign which happens to be the Fruit Loops shake?
It wasn’t an ad for the shake though. It was for Fruit Loops cereal.
Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations
#30Once happened while remarking on the Fruit Loops shake at Burger King. Opened Facebook minutes later and got a Fruit Loops ad. I assure you I don’t message, post, or in any other way remotely suggest an affinity for Fruit Loops. Commenting on it at Burger King was the definition of a one-off incident. I guess another possible explanation is some very sophisticated combination of location tracking and Kellogg’s target…
I was once sitting at a bar having a beer, chatting with the bartender (one of my best friends) and the guy sitting next to me, whom I had never met before. I pulled out my phone to show my friend something that had been posted on Facebook and, while browsing Facebook right after that, the app showed the guy sitting right next to me as the first person under "People You May Know". I had not "checked in" or posted any…
After Obama’s comments on the NSA surveillance program back when sh*t was hitting the fan, I’m always keenly parsing these kinds of statements for word play. There’s usually a way out of accountability and liability through evasive rhetoric.