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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

#231

Post by fuzxi »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #157
ineedasername wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You addressed storage but skipped the CPU portion: Yes, Opus can create good quality audio with low storage requirements, but it cannot do so without a high CPU cost.

ARM CPUs can be rather performant, especially for specialist tasks. These things are always plugged in and don't need to save battery, therefore they can always run at maximum performance. The HomePod for example uses the Apple A8 chip which is a very capable chip used to power the iPhone 6 than did way more than encode/decode audio.

Wouldn't heat generation start to become an issue? As far as I know, none of these assistants have fans. I think the average consumer would notice that their device starts giving off a lot of heat if there's a lot of speech in range of its microphone - "I wonder why my Echo turns into a space heater when I leave the TV on."

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

#232

Post by choeger »

notatoad wrote: post #220
choeger wrote: post #97

I might sound like a grumpy old granddad to some of you (and I am not even that old), but did you really think that a huge company would offer to put microphones into your living room for your advantage? They are going to benefit from this and you are going to pay for it. How? For instance with dynamic pricing. Your loved ones tell you how much they want that vacation on that Greek island? Good luck finding a cheap f…

>did you really think that a huge company would offer to put microphones into your living room for your advantage? can you not think of any advantage that google could gain from their smart speakers other than the nefarious ones? All these conspiracy theories here just seem so incredibly shortsighted. like yeah, google could listen in on your every word and do their best to fuck with you, but the instant they got fou…

> can you not think of any advantage that google could gain from their smart speakers other than the nefarious ones?

There is literally no advantage that you won't pay for. The commission you just mentioned? Your money. The advertisement they show you? Your rational decision being attacked. The browser they let you download for free? Your choice of a suitable alternative. They are not evil, mind you, but they are also not your friend or partner. They make money, lots of it, and that money comes from your pocket.

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

#233

Post by zizee »

harha wrote: post #86

I had one of these when I worked for Google, I didn’t quite trust it though, so I had it in the bathroom to limit what my employer could listen to. Imagine discussing a product idea at home with friends, then having that stolen by an engineer at one of these companies (who figured out how to find the interesting conversations) for a promotion or new position. On a larger scale these might get hooked up with some adve…

> I had one of these when I worked for Google, I didn’t quite trust it though, so I had it in the bathroom to limit what my employer could listen to.

I don't understand why you just didn't throw it away, or put it in a box powered down.

A possible subtext to what you have written is that your employer (google) was mandating that you keep using the device at home as part of your employment... but that is outrageous and I would like clarification as I feel it cannot be true.

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

#234

Post by notatoad »

choeger wrote: post #232
notatoad wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>did you really think that a huge company would offer to put microphones into your living room for your advantage? can you not think of any advantage that google could gain from their smart speakers other than the nefarious ones? All these conspiracy theories here just seem so incredibly shortsighted. like yeah, google could listen in on your every word and do their best to fuck with you, but the instant they got fou…

> can you not think of any advantage that google could gain from their smart speakers other than the nefarious ones? There is literally no advantage that you won't pay for. The commission you just mentioned? Your money. The advertisement they show you? Your rational decision being attacked. The browser they let you download for free? Your choice of a suitable alternative. They are not evil, mind you, but they are als…

>The commission you just mentioned? Your money.

the price isn't going to be lower without the commission. the price is set by what people will pay. if a comission doesn't go to google, the money will just go to somebody else. it was my money, but if i'm booking a trip that same amount will be paid.

Google isn't my friend, or my partner, but nor are they my enemy. They're just competing with all the other entities who want some piece of every purchasing decision I make, and the best way to do that is to be a bit more convenient and a bit more available than somebody else, rather than engaging in elaborate conspiracies or trying to make me angry at them.

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

#235

Post by fuzxi »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #153
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.

I've always dismissed this as coincidence. But over the past few months, my wife reported to me several incidents of a relevant Facebook ad showing up a day or two after a conversation she had with me or her friends, and that was not followed up by any on-line searches on the topic. At this point, I'm starting to consider something may be going on after all - it seems to happen too often to be easily explained away a…

My theory is that those friends did search for those topics/products, and Facebook decided it would be wise to advertise them to your wife because of her proximity to the people searching for them. "Proximity" determined either literally with geotracking, or simply with something like chat records.

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

#237

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

zizee wrote: post #233
harha wrote: post #86

I had one of these when I worked for Google, I didn’t quite trust it though, so I had it in the bathroom to limit what my employer could listen to. Imagine discussing a product idea at home with friends, then having that stolen by an engineer at one of these companies (who figured out how to find the interesting conversations) for a promotion or new position. On a larger scale these might get hooked up with some adve…

> I had one of these when I worked for Google, I didn’t quite trust it though, so I had it in the bathroom to limit what my employer could listen to. I don't understand why you just didn't throw it away, or put it in a box powered down. A possible subtext to what you have written is that your employer (google) was mandating that you keep using the device at home as part of your employment... but that is outrageous an…

> A possible subtext to what you have written is that your employer (google) was mandating that you keep using the device at home as part of your employment... but that is outrageous and I would like clarification as I feel it cannot be true.

The requirement to use a Google device at home has never been imposed to the best of my knowledge, at least unless this individual was working on the product. Even then they would not be required to have it on unless they were actively working on it. If they were working on it, then they should know its capabilities and trust or distrust would be irrelevant, since they would have actual knowledge instead.

Also, the devices are not recording all the time. Presumably this experiment added the ability to treat fire alarms as a hot word, in support of the feature in question. That doesn't mean that Google has access to recordings of every conversation.

Also, there is no way anyone would ever be permitted to run the type of conversation analysis that the GP proposes. Far more benign analyses are rejected all the time due to privacy concerns. It's unlikely that any single person could even run such an analysis due to various access controls (e.g. the inability to access logs as a person-user, system-enforced requirements to run only checked in, reviewed code over logs). Even if a person could run an analysis like this as a rogue, it would be extremely risky, because they would get terminated immediately if it were ever discovered.

Also! Identifying useful, novel product ideas is beyond even Google's ML capabilities.

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

#238

Post by makomk »

jefftk wrote: post #130
exitheone wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en This is most definitely false. Google still states that they do not scan your emails for as targeting.

Right: this went in the other direction. Initially, GMail scanned messages for ads, and was public in that this was part of how it was funded: "Google also places advertising on Gmail based on key words that appear in messages transmitted through our system (it’s a good example of ads helping to pay for the free services we all enjoy online) - so if you’re emailing a friend about a trip to Paris, for example, ads mig…

Yeah, as far as I can tell this is actually the exact opposite from what was described - in reality people didn't really care about GMail scanning messages for advertising that much back in 2008, but it turned into a big deal later due to worries about Big Tech and then Google dropped it.

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

#239

Post by comboy »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #152
croutonwagon wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just dont have them in the house. Every now and then i get called paranoid. And sure, my phone can function the same (though i specifically have siri disabled on our iphones) Its just a cost benefit. I can get off the couch and flip a switch or use a remote to turn on a song. I really dont need speach recognition for those functions.

I unplug my parents' Google wiretap device when I enter the house for holiday parties. For some reason my parents can both know that I know way more about this topic than them, and still totally disregard me and spend hundreds on Google hardware devices because they seem cool. \o/

Just a friendly outside view that maybe it's their house and you could just assume you are talking in a public space if that fits your worldview.

Otherwise you may not want to talk to them on the phone if they are using android phones and should ban them from discussing anything you talked about while you were there after you're gone and they plug devices back in.

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

#240

Post by squarefoot »

dr_kiszonka wrote: post #227
jankiehodgpodge wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it's pretty easy to prove that's not true. Just stick it on a network and check the network traffic. The bandwidth required to do that would be immense anyway for basically no benefit.

Is there a simple app that notifies users about changes in internet traffic patterns of IoT devices on their networks?

You can't trust the devices themselves to tell you that, so the best approach is to put them behind a (hardware) firewall that protects both ways, not just from external connections but also to prevent devices to call home if their behavior is unclear.
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