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

businessinsider.com

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

#231

Post by jlarocco »

dantillberg wrote: post #221
illumin8 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrast this to Amazon: during design of the original Echo at Lab126, an engineering discussion took place where they determined that implementing the mute function in software would be less expensive in terms of component requirements than implementing a physical disconnect of the mic circuit. The engineering team refused to take the less expensive route, and insisted that the mute button physically disconnect the…

In this story, it was only lower-level engineers that took a stand for user privacy. It was them against everyone above them at Amazon. Doesn't sound like Amazon-the-company deserves credit. Update to clarify reasons for this characterization: Parent used the words "refused" and "insisted," which strongly suggest conflict between the pro-privacy engineers and others at Amazon involved in the project. And "so that no…

That's not fair. First of all, the OP didn't say it was only "lower level engineers", it could have been the entire engineering team, for all we know.

And second, Amazon did the right thing and listened to them, when they didn't have to. They could have given the project to a different team, reassigned people, or even fired them.

Instead, they had the sense to listen to their engineers, which was the right thing to do.

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

#232

Post by ceejayoz »

m0zg wrote: post #230
netphobee wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think you don’t need citations to know that over-surveillance is a consistent happening, my apologies if you aren’t American. New York recently finished settling and paying out a case where they were accused of heavily, unreasonably surveilling a number of muslim people and properties. In the end, they still admitted to no misconduct. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/nyregion/last-suit-accusi... This is just a…

What you're missing though is that without heavy policing a large city with very high income inequality like NYC would quickly turn into a dystopian shithole. And I don't know about you, but I also believe countermeasures are necessary to prevent Islamic radicalization (and any other kind of radicalization as well). Don't try nothing - won't be nothing. I do not for a second believe that US law enforcement is "system…

> What you're missing though is that without heavy policing a large city with very high income inequality like NYC would quickly turn into a dystopian shithole.

Sounds like an argument for addressing income inequality.

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

#234

Post by jancsika »

illumin8 wrote: post #185
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.)

Contrast this to Amazon: during design of the original Echo at Lab126, an engineering discussion took place where they determined that implementing the mute function in software would be less expensive in terms of component requirements than implementing a physical disconnect of the mic circuit. The engineering team refused to take the less expensive route, and insisted that the mute button physically disconnect the…

> The engineering team refused to take the less expensive route, and insisted that the mute button physically disconnect the circuit, so that no future engineering team could decide to stealth "unmute" the microphone through software.

Who are these engineers? Have they ever spoken publicly about this stance?

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

#235

Post by ameister14 »

m0zg wrote: post #215
ceejayoz wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of these POVs are a bit extreme versus actual real-life implementation. Police have a legitimate, important societal purpose, and have historically abused and over-surveilled minority populations in a way that's highly problematic. There's a compelling use case for facial recognition in law enforcement. There's also a compelling case that it needs to be closely scrutinized and regulated.

>> abused and over-surveilled minority populations Citation needed.

>Citation needed

See: South Africa

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

#236

Post by ameister14 »

m0zg wrote: post #230
netphobee wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think you don’t need citations to know that over-surveillance is a consistent happening, my apologies if you aren’t American. New York recently finished settling and paying out a case where they were accused of heavily, unreasonably surveilling a number of muslim people and properties. In the end, they still admitted to no misconduct. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/nyregion/last-suit-accusi... This is just a…

What you're missing though is that without heavy policing a large city with very high income inequality like NYC would quickly turn into a dystopian shithole. And I don't know about you, but I also believe countermeasures are necessary to prevent Islamic radicalization (and any other kind of radicalization as well). Don't try nothing - won't be nothing. I do not for a second believe that US law enforcement is "system…

That's because you're looking at US law enforcement as a unified system. It is not and never has been a unified system. I don't think the FBI is still running surveillance on all civil rights leaders so they can blackmail them, but that happened - I don't really doubt that the police department in Baltimore is planting drugs on people though, as was shown on their own video cameras in the last year.

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

#238

Post by patmcguire »

jhayward wrote: post #186
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.)

It seems at least as likely that the microphone feature, as a non-working component of a future product upgrade, was omitted at the request of attorneys reviewing the product literature so as to not create a false expectation of that unreleased feature. I've worked on several products that had capabilities that we were told by attorneys could not be "advertised" (i.e., no references to them) until the complete featur…

Yeah, I think it's most likely that. Seems very plausible Nest wanted to have some voice features but they got cut before launch. The mic's still there because changing hardware is hard, it's not announced because it doesn't do anything.

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

#239

Post by RHSeeger »

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.

Its not like Nest wasn't making some pretty horrible mistakes with the product before they got bought. There's a fair number of stories about the device failing, frozen pipes, and the like.

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

#240

Post by AlexandrB »

kmlx wrote: post #58
atoav wrote: post #28

What never ceases to amaze me, is the absolute inability of companies like google to understand what their actions look like for somebody who is concerned about privacy. Maybe they understand and do not care, because there are many vocal critics. But having a microphone in a product and not disclosing it? If not even google can keep track of what they should tell us, how on earth do they think they deserve trust?

who's "concerned about their privacy" and why?

"The cause is in my will."[1] It's no one's business why I don't want FAANG snooping on me. That's what a right to privacy means.

[1] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/julius_caesar/julius_caesar.2.2.h...

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