Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#391

Post by reaperducer » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 4:42 PM UTC

tfinniga wrote: post #213

underwater wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure Facebook would like to do what you're saying, but I think that they're a long way from having those capabilities. They have billions of users, billions of ads, and trillions of pieces of metadata. Sifting through that to produce a guess like "User 1234 burned themselves and would be interested in product 5678" would be an amazing and scary piece of AI. Not to mention that Facebook are limited by the ads they…

Last year there were 29,000 categories that could be targeted. If an ad sales rep wanted to close a deal, how difficult would it be to add one more for recent burn victims, or people who recently bought a specific product? From the links that m_ke posted, facebook already has ties to loyalty card information, so it's very possible that they didn't need to do any inference, they just had the data directly. In any case…

> facebook doesn't need to listen to what people are saying, it has a ton of other data streams

The same could be said for any of those data streams. But just because Big F has access to those other sources of data doesn't mean it excludes voice recognition.

I'd be very surprised if FB wasn't in this arena. That's how big tech companies work these days — they do what everyone else is doing. Like getting into self-driving cars.

Apple[1], Google, Amazon, MS, etc... all have voice recognition boxes. FB doesn't need to market a box for your living room, it already has one in everyone's pocket.

([1] Apple says it doesn't use any of your Siri words against you. If you don't trust FB's word, you might no trust Apple's, either. But at least on the Mac you can keep dictation off the internet, if you choose.)

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#392

Post by reaperducer » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 4:45 PM UTC

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #216

branchless wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suspicion on this is that stores offer "reward cards" so they can get you to sign something that allows them to gather and sell your data.

Rewards cards / loyalty card are designed to incentivize you to spend more with the stores. Ostensibly reselling data is a lot less valuable than directly trying to convince you to shop more at their establishments

That was true at the beginning of the loyalty card phage. But now the big chains are learning how to data mine and discovering the value of their data to others.

Now your loyalty card data is worth twice as much. Once to the retailer for internal marketing, targeting, purchasing, etc... and again selling it to outside parties.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#393

Post by reaperducer » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 4:53 PM UTC

corobo wrote: post #367

rando444 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not unimaginable, but the frequency of these stories should make you wonder. I had this happen personally. Had a conversation about my work with this girl I know which ended up being mostly about project management. The girl told me later she started getting ads for project management stuff. It's not a subject she's interested in, has ever searched for information on, and has no relevance to her job working the…

The issue is in the story teller. If the person telling the story doesn't understand what other data they're leaking or the data the people they interact with are leaking you cannot take their word that "Facebook is listening to my microphone" at face value, no matter how frequently they say it. Also wouldn't a constant stream of audio - even low quality audio - ruin battery life? I realise it's a phone so it's base…

>Also wouldn't a constant stream of audio - even low quality audio - ruin battery life?

Facebook is a well-known battery hog, at least on iOS. I can't imagine their devs are any better at Android.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#394

Post by rambojohnson » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 4:54 PM UTC

Cacti wrote: post #225

rickhanlonii wrote: post #103

They're listening, but not to your voice or with a microphone. Facebook is listening to your data--to all of our data, all at once. They have locations, searches, clicks, messaging, photos, hashtags, and any other form of browsing patterns for everyone in your country, everyone in your neighboorhood, everyone in the same room as you. They have enough data with such advanced analysis that on occasion they can get real…

Yes, I think people really underestimate how much data they leak all day long, and how strong the pattern is. Simply emitting bluetooth and wifi, nevermind cellular, all day long can expose an incredible amount of stuff, provided someone can piece it all together (which is exactly what Facebook and other ad companies do). We like to pretend we're unique and powered by free-will but the reality is most things you do a…

the other difference between us and 1984 is that we are volunteering that data for free.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#395

Post by wolco » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

corvallis wrote: post #389

widforss wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the reason for keeping your address a secret? Genuinely curious, as where I live (se) almost all peoples addresses are public information, and it's really practical.

I work with prisoners. I have a unique name. My family members and I are the only people with our names in the country, and possibly the world. If you google my name, you will find my family (parents, sibling), their home address, phone numbers, ages, occupations. It is local. Upon release or through veiled communication, I or my family members could easily be targeted for harm by inmates or former inmates. This is a…

Create a batch of new yous' with different addresses and make them public across the internet. Your problem is too little misinformation.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#396

Post by com2kid » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 5:13 PM UTC

null0pointer wrote: post #227

brad0 wrote: post #97

> "At work, happened to me though earlier this year. Working as a barista, got a burn, talked to my partner in person about it, went to Target, bought the burn cream, and saw an ad on FB for the exact product I purchased. Never searched for product either," wrote Brigitte Bonasoro. Facebook has data sharing agreements with many, many companies. It's most likely that the cream was bought with a card then linked togeth…

I have a similar anecdote. Girlfriend was having some symptoms, we briefly talked about it then walked to the pharmacy and bought a pregnancy test. Maybe 30 minutes after purchasing the test we watched a youtube video on her phone. The ad on the video was for the exact test we bought. I figured that youtube got the credit card info from the purchase but I was shocked at how quickly that translated into something show…

> I have a similar anecdote. Girlfriend was having some symptoms, we briefly talked about it then walked to the pharmacy and bought a pregnancy test.

The funny thing is, this is a horrible use of ad data. With a few exceptions (luxury cars being one, making someone feel good about their purchase) showing ads for a product someone just bought is the height of uselessness.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#397

Post by reaperducer » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 5:20 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #131

rickhanlonii wrote: post #103

They're listening, but not to your voice or with a microphone. Facebook is listening to your data--to all of our data, all at once. They have locations, searches, clicks, messaging, photos, hashtags, and any other form of browsing patterns for everyone in your country, everyone in your neighboorhood, everyone in the same room as you. They have enough data with such advanced analysis that on occasion they can get real…

So... Why should we care? If I had to give my father some reasons why this should concern him, I'd come up blank. Maybe you can fill in a few.

Already many companies check the social media accounts of people applying for a job. A company can't legally discriminate against you based on gender, race, ethnicity, age, etc... But an HR drone can easily roundfile your resume because he doesn't agree with your political views.

That's why employers requiring social media information is illegal in a dozen states or so. (Illinois, I know for sure. There are others.)

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#398

Post by reaperducer » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 5:24 PM UTC

qbrass wrote: post #140

brad0 wrote: post #97

> "At work, happened to me though earlier this year. Working as a barista, got a burn, talked to my partner in person about it, went to Target, bought the burn cream, and saw an ad on FB for the exact product I purchased. Never searched for product either," wrote Brigitte Bonasoro. Facebook has data sharing agreements with many, many companies. It's most likely that the cream was bought with a card then linked togeth…

I don't see how it's beneficial to the advertiser when the person has already bought the product before they've seen the ad? It sounds like someone is trying to game the advertiser by correlating ad views with sales.

Not all ads have to be relevant to be valuable. Especially when you're still training the AI.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#399

Post by m-p-3 » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 5:27 PM UTC

No one should trust what they say they can or cannot do. What we can only assume is their capabilities in doing it. This is where end-to-end encryption is important. If you can't encrypt it in a way that only the other end can see it, then assume that someone in the middle can eavesdrop it.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#400

Post by zild3d » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

glenstein wrote: post #77

denzil_correa wrote: post #73

> "I run ads product at Facebook. We don't - and have never - used your microphone for ads. Just not true," Mr Goldman wrote. Personally, I am so used to corp speak and word play by major companies that it is difficult to take anything at face value. Therefore, I think the nature of the question asked to Facebook should be different. It should be on what they do rather do they do X. So, here's my question - "What doe…

I was about to leave an extremely similar comment, but I was going to frame it in terms of the NSA "direct access" story. I got the impression from that story that immediate denials from tech companies, which seemed categorical, turned out to hinge on which magic words were used. In this case, when I read a sentence like "We don't use your microphone for ads" I end up doing that game where you re-read the sentence ov…

"We don't use your microphone for ads", we use the microphone of whoever is near you based on location data