Continuous low-power music recognition • Hacker News Board

Re: Continuous low-power music recognition

#31

Post by pavel_lishin » Thu, Jan 11, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #29

xr4ti wrote: post #17

> Now Playing, has a daily battery usage of less than 1% on average, respects user privacy by running entirely on-device and can passively recognize a wide range of music. Maybe I am missing something, but this seems to be much less respectful of my privacy than an app that only listens to the ambient sound around me when I explicitly give my consent (by opening/activating the app).

What's your actual privacy concern? If the whole process happens entirely on-device, then this reveals absolutely no information of any kind to anyone, correct?

> If the whole process happens entirely on-device

Sure, if. Which I can verify, but I don't want to have to. I don't want to have to verify that a corporation isn't fucking me at every turn.

And it's possible that vulnerability will be discovered that lets people stream the audio somewhere, or listen to key words and send just those portions. I don't know enough about Android to know whether it's more plausible for that to happen, or if that sort of vulnerability would likely grant an attacker access to my mic even without this feature.

I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect my device to not always be listening to me.

Re: Continuous low-power music recognition

#32

Post by itp » Thu, Jan 11, 2018, 3:44 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #30

keytarsolo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This option has to be explicitly turned on. It's off by default (at least it was on my German Pixel 2).

It was enabled on my phone - which I discovered at the dentist's office. Now, it's possible that I idly clicked "ok" while setting up my Pixel 2 - it's not out of the realm of possibility - but I'm not very likely to turn that on at all. Germany has much more stringent privacy regulations than the US does - maybe that's the difference.

I've just recently set up a Pixel 2 XL straight from factory a few times over the last couple weeks, all in the US. Every time I had to opt in to the background music detection feature, even in the US.

Re: Continuous low-power music recognition

#33

Post by itp » Thu, Jan 11, 2018, 3:47 PM UTC

spdustin wrote: post #27

Seems to me that it’s another part of a fingerprint for a user that can locate them, and possibly place you with others in the vicinity who have ID’d the same audio. Retail outlets have playlists that could be ID’d, possibly with enough granularity to indicate your path through a shopping mall or your dwell time in a particular department. I know the recognition is done on-device for some percentage of tracks, but it…

It's not sent anywhere or even stored locally on the device. Some people view that as a missing feature, actually, so there are apps that add this functionality[0], so you can review the songs you heard and find it later.

[0] http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/10/26/add-track-id-history...

Re: Continuous low-power music recognition

#34

Post by cromwellian » Thu, Jan 11, 2018, 3:49 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #31

Ajedi32 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your actual privacy concern? If the whole process happens entirely on-device, then this reveals absolutely no information of any kind to anyone, correct?

> If the whole process happens entirely on-device Sure, if. Which I can verify, but I don't want to have to. I don't want to have to verify that a corporation isn't fucking me at every turn. And it's possible that vulnerability will be discovered that lets people stream the audio somewhere, or listen to key words and send just those portions. I don't know enough about Android to know whether it's more plausible for t…

Then don’t turn it on, it prompts you and asks permission to be enabled during setup.

Re: Continuous low-power music recognition

#35

Post by azinman2 » Thu, Jan 11, 2018, 3:51 PM UTC

xr4ti wrote: post #17

> Now Playing, has a daily battery usage of less than 1% on average, respects user privacy by running entirely on-device and can passively recognize a wide range of music. Maybe I am missing something, but this seems to be much less respectful of my privacy than an app that only listens to the ambient sound around me when I explicitly give my consent (by opening/activating the app).

Less than 1% sounds high to me. If everything on the phone used 0.3-7%, it adds up pretty quickly.

Re: Continuous low-power music recognition

#36

Post by chadlavi » Thu, Jan 11, 2018, 4:12 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #31

Ajedi32 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your actual privacy concern? If the whole process happens entirely on-device, then this reveals absolutely no information of any kind to anyone, correct?

> If the whole process happens entirely on-device Sure, if. Which I can verify, but I don't want to have to. I don't want to have to verify that a corporation isn't fucking me at every turn. And it's possible that vulnerability will be discovered that lets people stream the audio somewhere, or listen to key words and send just those portions. I don't know enough about Android to know whether it's more plausible for t…

In 2018, that is unreasonable. Not philosophically, but pragmatically speaking.

Re: Continuous low-power music recognition

#37

Post by kosmet » Thu, Jan 11, 2018, 4:13 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #29

xr4ti wrote: post #17

> Now Playing, has a daily battery usage of less than 1% on average, respects user privacy by running entirely on-device and can passively recognize a wide range of music. Maybe I am missing something, but this seems to be much less respectful of my privacy than an app that only listens to the ambient sound around me when I explicitly give my consent (by opening/activating the app).

What's your actual privacy concern? If the whole process happens entirely on-device, then this reveals absolutely no information of any kind to anyone, correct?

Anything sensed can be transmitted but not necessarily in its current form. It can be used to train some ml algorithm about you and the parameters can be transferred. Privacy should start at the sensing level.

Re: Continuous low-power music recognition

#38

Post by Ajedi32 » Thu, Jan 11, 2018, 4:16 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #31

Ajedi32 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your actual privacy concern? If the whole process happens entirely on-device, then this reveals absolutely no information of any kind to anyone, correct?

> If the whole process happens entirely on-device Sure, if. Which I can verify, but I don't want to have to. I don't want to have to verify that a corporation isn't fucking me at every turn. And it's possible that vulnerability will be discovered that lets people stream the audio somewhere, or listen to key words and send just those portions. I don't know enough about Android to know whether it's more plausible for t…

> Sure, if. Which I can verify, but I don't want to have to.

Wouldn't that be a risk even if this feature didn't exist? How do you know your phone isn't currently listening for music/speech and sending that data to the cloud without your knowledge?

> And it's possible that vulnerability will be discovered

Again though, that's already true regardless of whether this feature exists or not. Is there any reason to believe this feature is more likely to have a vulnerability than any other feature on your device? Why would you trust this code less than, for example, the code for your WiFi driver?

Re: Continuous low-power music recognition

#39

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 11, 2018, 4:18 PM UTC

Ajedi32 wrote: post #29

xr4ti wrote: post #17

> Now Playing, has a daily battery usage of less than 1% on average, respects user privacy by running entirely on-device and can passively recognize a wide range of music. Maybe I am missing something, but this seems to be much less respectful of my privacy than an app that only listens to the ambient sound around me when I explicitly give my consent (by opening/activating the app).

What's your actual privacy concern? If the whole process happens entirely on-device, then this reveals absolutely no information of any kind to anyone, correct?

[deleted]

Re: Continuous low-power music recognition

#40

Post by Ajedi32 » Thu, Jan 11, 2018, 4:19 PM UTC

kosmet wrote: post #37

Ajedi32 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your actual privacy concern? If the whole process happens entirely on-device, then this reveals absolutely no information of any kind to anyone, correct?

Anything sensed can be transmitted but not necessarily in its current form. It can be used to train some ml algorithm about you and the parameters can be transferred. Privacy should start at the sensing level.

So you're saying you'd prefer that your phone not have a microphone? Because that's where this information is ultimately coming from. (At the "sensing level".)