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 prett…
Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands
251–260 of 287 posts
Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands
#252I get gizmos like this as gifts every now and then. I never bothered opening any of them up. What are some fun things that we can do with these things besides their intended use?
Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
> It's great that they do that, but it's still the bare minimum over here on the Old Continent. We can and should demand more.
Sure, but its been possible to do this since well before the GDPR mandated it. Now maybe you can argue that the threat of regulation is what keeps Google in check here, and ok fine that's an unfalsifiable claim but maybe it's true. But even still, that doesn't actually justify "we should demand more". Maybe more privacy regulation is justified, but "we already have some" isn't actually justification.
> What's currently stopping evil actors from exfiltrating data from Google's PII through buying narrowly targeted ads, each time with slightly different targeting
The snarky answer first. PII has a specific meaning. It means personally identifying information. Your ZIP code isn't PII. Your name is. No matter what ad targeting tricks you do you can't pull my name or address out of what Google sends you. So you don't get PII.
Now the less snarky answer. The actual attack you're describing does this repeated targeting thing, which ties private data to some pseudonymous ID, like a browser fingerprint. At this point they don't have any PII. Then, you get the victim to enter their personal information on your site. Now you can tie the PII to the other information from the shadow profile you've built.
So why isn't this useful? Mostly, cost. To get this to work, you need to have some one or some group click on multiple different ads you control ($ + time cost) and then enter their identifying information on a site you control. Click through isn't assured, and conversion to entering information is very unlikely. When you're, you know, actually selling a product, this is a worthwhile investment.
But this attack is essentially paying to advertise to people with the goal of learning who you are advertising to. As a result, this only really makes sense in the context of targeted attacks or generic blackmail. Targeted attacks don't work because now you need a specific person to enter their PII in your site (and then what?, you've learned that someone is interested in LGBT topics. I'm interested in LGBT topics and straight). And similarly broad blackmail doesn't work.
But I'm interested in how you think an attacker could do something in a cost effective manner.
Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands
#254Earlier 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?
Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands
#255Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands
#256Earlier 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/
Side note: If a houseguest came over and unplugged my Google Home without asking, they would not be invited back.
Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands
#257I took all my moms hand-written recipes and made dithechef.com after she died. Never added any features. [1] http://www.dithechef.com/
On first glance, this looks like spam, but perhaps it was meant as a comment in this other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24091577
Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's clear that your parents have different values from you regardless of what you tell them, an obvious point that seems to be lost on many commentators in this thread who perpetually oscillate between "you don't know what you're doing!" and "how could you use such a device?!"
The problem isn't different values, it's that non-technical users aren't able to make informed consent, they don't understand how they're being harmed.
Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's clear that your parents have different values from you regardless of what you tell them, an obvious point that seems to be lost on many commentators in this thread who perpetually oscillate between "you don't know what you're doing!" and "how could you use such a device?!"
The problem isn't different values, it's that non-technical users aren't able to make informed consent, they don't understand how they're being harmed.
Re: Google speakers are listening to more than just voice commands
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
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/
You don't have to be a tech genius to comprehend that putting a microphone in your house comes with privacy concerns. Your parents aren't idiots; they just have different priorities than you. Side note: If a houseguest came over and unplugged my Google Home without asking, they would not be invited back.