Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations • Hacker News Board

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#221

Post by flatline » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

gringoDan wrote: post #95

I think the responses to this can be broken down into a 2x2 matrix: level of concern vs. understanding of technology. 1) Don't understand ML; not concerned - "I have nothing to hide." 2) Don't understand ML; concerned - "I bought this device and now people are spying on me!" 3) Understand ML; not concerned - "Of course, Google needs to label its training data." 4) Understand ML; concerned - "How can we train models/c…

I fall into (3) but not for the reason you mentioned. "Privacy" is largely an industrial age phenomenon and practically speaking we can never go back. I think we need new constructs to talk productively about issues like this and the research in this area hasn't even really started to take shape yet. We are only beginning to understand the implications of social graphs, information security, data as a product - let alone critically analyzing their intersection and having informed discussions thereabout.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#222

Post by einr » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

fwip wrote: post #202

einr wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The devices have a mute switch Why would I trust that this does anything at all?

Because you can check. Open it up, see what it does. Use Wireshark to inspect traffic. More importantly, anyone can check, and many people have. Imagine the scoop that "the mute switch does nothing" would be for a tech journalist.

Here is a Google Home teardown:

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Google+Home+Teardown/72684

You will note that the mute button is not a physical switch that cuts the signal from the microphone, but a soft button. It will probably do what it claims most of the time, but if Google for whatever reason wanted to secretly unmute it remotely, I have no doubt they could.

Wireshark? Sure, but what am I even looking for? They could be holding on to recordings in storage to send them later when the device is unmuted again. They could be embedding audio in encrypted form into other innocuous-looking packets -- I doubt a device like this is quiet on the network even when muted.

Until all the software is open source and auditable and the switch verifiably breaks the physical signal path to the mic, a device like this can never be trusted.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#223

Post by inerte » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

microtonal wrote: post #75

inerte wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I meant "they" in the sense of the companies, not necessarily the home devices. Sorry about the confusion. I know 100% that it happens with Siri. If Apple is excluding HomePod conversations from Siri's dataset, that I don't know.

Do you have a source for human annotation of Siri recordings? Do they use subcontractors like Google?

First hand source, it was the first job several of my Brazilian friends (or their spouses) got when they relocated to the Bay Area. They use companies like Moravia or Welocalize. Take a look at some of the job posts from my link above.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#224

Post by rosszurowski » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

A bit tangential, but I tried sharing this link with a few friends on Facebook Messenger, and noticed it's blocked because it "violates Community Standards" [1]. Even shortened bit.ly links are blocked.

Anyone know why that would be the case? I'm trying to not assume malice (eg. maybe it got misflagged?) but it certainly feels like censoring and is yet another push for me to drop Messenger too.

[1]: https://i.imgur.com/9n1Hyqb.png

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#225

Post by ben_w » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

isostatic wrote: post #134

arien wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some rules concerning security cameras as well. I recently found out that private CCTV (at least in the UK) can't record public areas (e.g only your porch). Someone got sued over this recently. There have been some stories in HN about opting out of face recognition as well. Maybe the laws for video are different as the other reply says, but there are privacy concerns in there as well. edit: here's a list of…

> There have been some stories in HN about opting out of face recognition as well Easiest way to do that is to wear a niqab or burka.

Face coverings are not legal in public in all countries, but even where they are, why should someone concerned about creeping surveillance go to great lengths to modify their own behaviour because someone else is unwittingly breaking the law because a product they bought was made by someone who couldn’t be bothered to do it right?

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#226

Post by SolaceQuantum » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

okmokmz wrote: post #159

gringoDan wrote: post #95

I think the responses to this can be broken down into a 2x2 matrix: level of concern vs. understanding of technology. 1) Don't understand ML; not concerned - "I have nothing to hide." 2) Don't understand ML; concerned - "I bought this device and now people are spying on me!" 3) Understand ML; not concerned - "Of course, Google needs to label its training data." 4) Understand ML; concerned - "How can we train models/c…

>To me, category 3 is the most dangerous. Tech workers have a responsibility not just understand the technologies that they work with, but also educate themselves on the societal implications of those technologies. And as others have pointed out, this extends beyond home speakers to any voice-enabled device in general. Yes I'm frequently amazed how many coworkers I have that are still completely plugged into Google,…

"... I think there needs to be a massive breach or abuse of power from one of these organizations/services that has severe real world consequences for those that utilize/support them..."

One of my greater fears is the knowledge that, should this happen, there's a nonzero chance that no one would care.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#227

Post by RosanaAnaDana » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 5:11 PM UTC

gringoDan wrote: post #95

I think the responses to this can be broken down into a 2x2 matrix: level of concern vs. understanding of technology. 1) Don't understand ML; not concerned - "I have nothing to hide." 2) Don't understand ML; concerned - "I bought this device and now people are spying on me!" 3) Understand ML; not concerned - "Of course, Google needs to label its training data." 4) Understand ML; concerned - "How can we train models/c…

Category 3 checking in here.

TBH its not the Googles I'm worried about. They're under a fair amount of scrutiny, but ultimately, I think its mostly chicken little screaming regarding the 'how' of how they'll use this data. The ones I'd be more concerned about are the ones not on your radar. Google knows security, anonymity, they have share-holders, governments know to regulate them, etc.

What you really have to worry about is the companies getting data on you with out your permission that you have ZERO knowledge they are doing so, and as well, almost no ability to know they are taking data on you.

The reality is, most people are almost completely ignorant of how much real world data on them is out in the wild with no google or facebook or any tech giant involved. I can't get into too much detail on it, but the data is there. You just have to be savvy enough to find it, process it, predict, and refine.

In terms of morality? I don't know.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#228

Post by RosanaAnaDana » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 5:12 PM UTC

rndgermandude wrote: post #179

gringoDan wrote: post #95

I think the responses to this can be broken down into a 2x2 matrix: level of concern vs. understanding of technology. 1) Don't understand ML; not concerned - "I have nothing to hide." 2) Don't understand ML; concerned - "I bought this device and now people are spying on me!" 3) Understand ML; not concerned - "Of course, Google needs to label its training data." 4) Understand ML; concerned - "How can we train models/c…

What we need is an AI to label the training data for ML to cut out the need for human workers to listen to people scream "Alexa" during sex. Or new laws to stop people from naming their kids Alexa or variations of it such as Alexander. I am sure we can whip up some such AI easily with some quantum computing. Preferably in a blockchain so we can verify correct operation and scale better. ducks

Cloud. Data lake. Immutable.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#229

Post by omnimkar69 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 5:12 PM UTC

google employees listen to the recording made with the smart google home speakers and via the google assistant app on smartphones as well as worldwide in belgium and netherlands , people listen to those recordings to make the search engine smarter. VRT NWS was able to listen t more than 1000 tracks these are pieces usally spoken conciously.

Re: Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

#230

Post by JoshTriplett » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 5:13 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #147

ovi256 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This classification is very useful to discuss this issue. The difference between 3 and 4, noble as it is, can be caused by feasability concerns that push people into 3, not just ignorance of the privacy impact. Human labelling of training data sets is a big thing in supervised learning. Methods that dispense with this would be valuable for purely economic reasons beyond privacy - the cost of human labelling of data s…

It's not wrong for humans to label training data. It's wrong to let humans listen to voice recordings that users believed would be between them and a computer. The solutions are obvious: sell the things with a big sticker that says, "don't say anything private in earshot," revert to old fashioned research methods where you pay people to participate in your studies and get their permission, or ask people for permissio…

> ask people for permission to send in mis-heard commands

Note that you also want the "correctly" heard commands, because some of them will have been incorrect. It's frustrating when an assistant gives the "I don't know how to do that", but it's even more frustrating to get "OK, doing (the wrong thing)".

Also, another alternative: provide an actual bug reporting channel. "Hey Google, report that as a bug" "Would you like to attach a transcript of the recent interaction? Here's what the transcript looks like." "Yes."