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Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

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Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#511

Post by outworlder »

sterlind wrote: post #424
TeMPOraL wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't. In fact, people there are uncomfortable about computers giving them orders (TNG S03E06). It works because in Star Trek, the society works. For instance, a ship's captain could easily access plenty of surveillance records about their whereabouts and activities, but as a matter of course, they don't . Cases where someone abuses technology for ulterior reasons are presented as negative, and protagonists do the…

In TNG they ask the computer for someone's location every other episode, usually without hesitation. Didn't go so well for Barclay, when they walked into his cringy holodeck fantasy program.

> In TNG they ask the computer for someone's location every other episode, usually without hesitation.

Which is appropriate. There's nothing wrong about locating a crew member on a _military vessel_.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#512

Post by hanniabu »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #2

>"Gosh, I haven't thought about this before in quite this way," Osterloh said. "It's quite important for all these technologies to think about all users... we have to consider all stakeholders that might be in proximity." How much do they not care about privacy that a chief exec with an army of lawyers and advisors "haven't thought about this before"?

They've thought about it but they won't say that outside of closed doors for plausible deniability.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#513

Post by dmix »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #5
LudwigNagasena wrote: post #2

>"Gosh, I haven't thought about this before in quite this way," Osterloh said. "It's quite important for all these technologies to think about all users... we have to consider all stakeholders that might be in proximity." How much do they not care about privacy that a chief exec with an army of lawyers and advisors "haven't thought about this before"?

It's the wild west -- corporations are just doing what they want while governments are asleep at the wheel. Also, having an army of lawyers is exactly what allows for this -- you need to know which areas are gray in order to exploit them without risk of retribution/regulation. A basic minutes-long conversation would have likely arrived at the point of how recording of the owner themselves/third parties would affect t…

The government should regulate whether devices alert themselves to new guests in the house?

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#514

Post by dmix »

snarf21 wrote: post #250
have_faith wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stakeholders that might be in proximity I didn't realise visiting a friends house made me a stakeholder in all of their technology choices.

Or they might not even be friends. Walk down a street filled with Ring doorbells. You are being surveilled by strangers who have been fear mongered because a pedophile will steal their Amazon delivery.

A small Austrian retail shop got a $4k fine from GDPR because their surveillance camera pointed too broadly at a sidewalk. It'd be funny seeing regulators try to apply such restrictions on consumers.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#515

Post by [deleted] »

mey wrote: post #322
oppositelock wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…

I value privacy, my nest thermostat is the only IoT device in my house that talks to the internet or can be accessed remotely without a VPN. What I find most valuable is it programs itself. Am I cold? Turn it up a bit, hot? Turn it down a bit. Suddenly I have stopped having to adjust it at all. Even as life has changed. It has some nice other features, such as preheating/cooling, telling me how long it will take to g…

[deleted]

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#516

Post by heavyset_go »

kelnos wrote: post #466
heavyset_go wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What does having a Nest thermostat get you? Nothing that a programmable thermostat plus a Home Assistant instance won't get you.

I run OpenHAB at home (and have tried HA), but setting all this up is not in the wheelhouse of the majority of people. Doing the in-home setup is difficult enough, but safely exposing it to the internet is not something I'd ever ask a non-technical person to do. Meanwhile, you just swap your old thermostat with the Nest, tell it how to get to your wifi, install an app on your phone, and you're done.

I think you're overestimating how difficult it is to setup a smart device with something like Nabu Casa's Home Assistant Cloud.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#517

Post by outworlder »

urda wrote: post #486
jachee wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every time you interact with ... Amazon, you are doing so deliberately. Don't forget that Echo devices are Amazon's always-on listening devices.

Echo's listen for their wake word, which is done on device and offline. It detects the wake word, and then connects to the internet. It is not actively transmitting in the background. If you have proof of echo devices not doing this, you need to yield a source. Wireshark logs, anything.

> If you have proof of echo devices not doing this, you need to yield a source. Wireshark logs, anything.

I suspect most of these comments are from people who don't own, haver never used, let alone sniffed traffic from those devices.

They conveniently ignore all the networks (including my own) which will throw a fit if these devices start sending unusual traffic.

I'll worry the day they embed a cellular modem.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#518

Post by Sendotsh »

hnaccount141 wrote: post #375
davinic wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. It has been on by default since iOS 9.

I've got a phone here on iOS 12 that started from a a clean wipe this morning. The initial setup asks you if you'd like to enable siri (and certainly pushes you in that direction), but if you don't accept, neither hey siri nor holding down the power button will activate it.

Yeah I can confirm. I just set up my iPhone and it absolutely asks if you want Siri activated. I said no, and it doesn’t respond to any of the keywords or button presses and is completely disabled throughout the phone.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#519

Post by finestkludge »

oppositelock wrote: post #304
saluki wrote: post #115

I was a huge Google Fan but this is becoming lunacy. I understood trading some data and privacy for great search results, maps and free quality email. But people willingly bringing always on listening devices in to their homes (beyond what smartphones are already capable of) I just can't comprehend it. Why would people voluntarily do this in exchange for being able to ask for weather, play a playlist, add a todo and…

What does having a Nest thermostat get you? I'm a tech dude, I build modern software, but I live in a dumb, old fashioned house. My programmable Honeywell thermostat, which has no internet connection, does a perfectly fine job of keeping my home the right temperature. My door locks use a key, and keys have great battery life, and my smoke detectors beep instead of speaking to me. What am I missing by not having inter…

Nothing, in my opinion, but I do have a sort of funny story about IoT thermostats.

My SO's dad is a gadgets guy, and he travels constantly for work. He is also incredibly vigilant about bills. They're the kind of family that can't touch the thermostat until a certain time of year, weighs insurance costs into every decision they make, etc.

Anyways, when he was traveling—even in cold months—he would see the thermostat going up on his phone and panic, turning it down. His kids, who were freezing in the house, would turn it up again because winter, and several hours later the cycle would repeat. They were basically locked in a constant battle to warm their house against their miserly dad and the cloud.

Re: Google chief: I'd disclose smart speakers before guests enter my home

#520

Post by jfoster »

saluki wrote: post #115

I was a huge Google Fan but this is becoming lunacy. I understood trading some data and privacy for great search results, maps and free quality email. But people willingly bringing always on listening devices in to their homes (beyond what smartphones are already capable of) I just can't comprehend it. Why would people voluntarily do this in exchange for being able to ask for weather, play a playlist, add a todo and…

As you noted, smartphones are already capable of this. Smart speakers are relatively moot from a privacy perspective, unless you keep your phone in a soundproof case.
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