Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 107 posts

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#61

Post by izacus »

oneshot908 wrote: post #50
izacus wrote: post #19

ArsTechnica unfortunately again misleads people due to limited expertise. On modern Androids (6.0+) accessing the microphone requires an explicit permission granted by user (just like on iOS). Furthermore, due to Doze mode implemented in 6.0 and expanded in 7.0 running these kind of services without notifying the user cleary (with permanent notification) has become pretty much impossible and unreliable. To run in bac…

I would love love love if my Android phone would occasionally provide me a summary of which apps are making use of the camera, the GPS, and the microphone and allow me to disable them. Sure, I can hunt for this on my own. That's not the point here. If I'm walking around with a supercomputer in my pocket, I'd like it to do this sort of stuff for me automagically.

Settings -> Apps -> Gear icon in the top bar -> App permissions should do what you want (at least it does on 7.1.2 / Pixel).

Not obvious I know :/

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#62

Post by voidz »

Markoff wrote: post #47
baobrain wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but greenify might do the trick. You might need root. Also Android now has the doze feature that should hibernate apps by default when not used. [0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oasisfeng.... [1] https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/greenify

that's quite amusing suggestion considering Greenify is closed sourced Chinese root app which optionally (only?) report data back to mainland China and dev worked for some companies producing shady apps, before according his LinkedIn profile

Could you back this up / substantiate your claim, please?

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#63

Post by izacus »

cwyers wrote: post #59
izacus wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said or claimed anything like that. Where did you get that idea?

Then what were you claiming? Because I posted the worldwide stats and you called them misleading. Misleading who about what?

About the actual usage and activity of the devices in the wild. The network that does that is targeting western markets where the availability of devices that are vulnerable is dropping steeply - not fast enough, but still.

I've yet to also see a single worldwide USAGE statistic that would reflect that dashboard. Whatever Google is counting is not the users that actually download and use apps (and are thus vulnerable) - pretty much all stats I've ever seen (even on apps with millions of worldwide downloads) have significantly higher update rates. Hence - misleading.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#64

Post by voidz »

nom wrote: post #44
irq wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple would never do something like this. It's totally against their MO.

My point is that they could if they wanted to. Granted, they don't need the money, but still... it's something you can easily hide and nobody would be able to tell without spending weeks looking at disassembly.

Oh, but they do need the money. The goal of the company is to maximize profit for the shareholders.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#65

Post by amelius »

terminado wrote: post #30

Is it possible to damage human hearing with sufficiently loud pulses above 20Khz? Most search results point to a miniscule wattage delivered by typical ultrasonic noises, but controlling for wattage, I feel like it might be possible to overdrive a high-frequency pulse to deliver more wattage in the same range. Also, relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia

I don't know but I would say that if the ear does not pick up the energy above 20khz, then it cannot be harmed either.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#66

Post by lemuurd »

Grazester wrote: post #14
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go even further and light the notification LED the entire time something is reading the camera/mic from the firmware (such that applications can't disable it via software). The indicator works well for the webcams on most laptops.

Notification LED? A majority of phones(in the US) don't come with this and the ones that do need root permission to access it.

you are correct, but this was mostly brought up for historical reasons: researchers discovered an osx malware that after disabling the camera LED on older macbooks could secretly record the owner.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#67

Post by [deleted] »

Grazester wrote: post #14
CoolGuySteve wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go even further and light the notification LED the entire time something is reading the camera/mic from the firmware (such that applications can't disable it via software). The indicator works well for the webcams on most laptops.

Notification LED? A majority of phones(in the US) don't come with this and the ones that do need root permission to access it.

[deleted]

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#68

Post by lemuurd »

djrogers wrote: post #40
izacus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the fact that we're using Android because it's NOT locked down and just like malicious apps can use hardware in background... that actually lets useful apps use hardware in background as well. Free market at its best - if you want a corporation to babysit you, you have a platform. If you don't (and want to accept consequences) you can use another one. Great for all of us.

Nothing in iOS prevents an app from using the microphone in the background - I use apps that do it all the time. When I do however, there is a big, obvious, red bar at the top of my screen to remind me/let me know that it's happening. Why dont the android designers want to do something like that?

i think it is fair to say that android can do stuff ios does not allow.

for example you can add the behavior you just described to android using something like xprivacy.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#69

Post by H4CK3RM4N »

scottlegrand2 wrote: post #53
blurbleblurble wrote: post #42

I've become totally superstitious (convinced, even) that phones are listening to more than just ultrasound. There have been too many uncanny situations where youtube or google have recommended results that were far too specific to the conversation happening moments before. For example, one time I was telling my girlfriend about fourier transformations, something she'd never heard of before. She typed "Fo" into her ph…

No common friends, but college girlfriend recommended as potential friend on Facebook is my creepiest data mining moment ever.

I think that works based on location. A few years ago there were reports of people who shared a psychiatrist being recommended to each other, based on their frequent visits to the office.

Re: More Android phones than ever are covertly listening for inaudible sounds in ads

#70

Post by Dylan16807 »

izacus wrote: post #21
nom wrote: post #3

I wouldn't be surprised if Google, Apple or Amazon are doing (or going to do) something similar. It doesn't create much traffic at all, a couple of bytes is enough and they can be tacked on to the data stream without anyone noticing. Someone should build an ultrasonic detector that can recognize these kind of packets and have a look how wide spread this technique already is. We could also need an ultrasonic jammer an…

Hmm, did't people report that their Amazon devices fire up when Amazon ads are playing on TV?

When the ad uses the trigger phrase, or when it doesn't?

Hidden signals are actually a good way to make the device not fire up in the former case. Signals that don't need to be tracked or stored, of course.

Post reply on HN