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Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

businessinsider.com

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Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#61

Post by stewartm »

atoav wrote: post #28

What never ceases to amaze me, is the absolute inability of companies like google to understand what their actions look like for somebody who is concerned about privacy. Maybe they understand and do not care, because there are many vocal critics. But having a microphone in a product and not disclosing it? If not even google can keep track of what they should tell us, how on earth do they think they deserve trust?

It never ceases to amaze me, that despite the pattern of behaviour, people continue to be willing to consider that Google/FAANGs/politicians/etc are just a bit thick and don't get it.

(Not a dig incidentally, just that at some point the pattern of behaviour must reach a point that swings Occam's Razor to malevolence being the most likely explanation)

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#62

Post by akerro »

pdkl95 wrote: post #16

> It also said the microphone was originally included in the Nest Guard for the possibility of adding new security features down the line, like the ability to detect broken glass. Detecting broken glass with a microphone? Does the device even have enough CPU power (and RAM) to add advanced advanced audio processing features? Or was this going to upload the audio to Google's servers to do the work? If it's the latter,…

>Detecting broken glass with a microphone? Does the device even have enough CPU power (and RAM) to add advanced advanced audio processing features?

Remember the time google lied about performance impact of adblockers in chrome so they wanted to remove function that lets adblockers work? They changed their position after being pointed out that's a huge lie. It was last week.

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#63

Post by xg15 »

strictnein wrote: post #10

Infosec dramas are getting more and more tiresome. Between this and the Singapore Airlines story, it just seems like people need to ratchet everything up to 11. You have two options, choose one: - 1. Google wants to spy on you with a hidden mic - 2. They had future plans for the mic, but it was disabled, so it wasn't mentioned by the marketing department For the Singapore Airlines story, you have two options, choose…

> - 1. Google wants to spy on you with a hidden mic

You mean "gaining consumer insights to continually develop and improve our products".

Given the existence of a whole industry sector that is all about covertly gathering information about users and selling them off, I don't see what would be that particular far-fetched about this scenario.

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#64

Post by rightbyte »

benbristow wrote: post #50
coldtea wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - 1. Google wants to spy on you with a hidden mic - 2. They had future plans for the mic, but it was disabled, so it wasn't mentioned by the marketing department How about both 1. and 2.? Google wants to spy (for ad context etc) with a mic that will be enabled in due time? And why move the Overton window to "it's ok to have hidden mics in a bloody thermostat, as long as they're not enabled"?

That's getting close to conspiracy territory

Yes? Obviously it's not far fetched to fear that Google will spy on their alarm users, as its core business depends on it.

Conspiracys is not a nutcase dellusion it happens all the time but the term is somehow tainted, which in itself is somewhat of a conspiracy...

"the microphone has never been on", Google say about a passive device as it matters. More accurate would be "we did not record the microphone" but that might sound bad ...

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#65

Post by xg15 »

cbg0 wrote: post #41
est31 wrote: post #25

Oh wow, this is amazing. There's been a lawsuit in court about someone in Germany who sued their landlord because the landlord has put a Google Nest fire alarm into their flat against their will, ignoring offers by the renter to put in a non-google-non-iot fire alarm at the renter's expense. The landlord won because apparently the court was not convinced that the fire alarm could spy on conversations [1]... What woul…

> What would have happened if Google had secretly put a microphone into their fire alarms as well, not just their home security system? You could have found it by dismantling the device and the renter would have won their case against the landlord.

As people could - in theory - have with the security system, yet apparently didn't.

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#66

Post by xg15 »

strictnein wrote: post #10

Infosec dramas are getting more and more tiresome. Between this and the Singapore Airlines story, it just seems like people need to ratchet everything up to 11. You have two options, choose one: - 1. Google wants to spy on you with a hidden mic - 2. They had future plans for the mic, but it was disabled, so it wasn't mentioned by the marketing department For the Singapore Airlines story, you have two options, choose…

This is not really about infosec, this is about privacy and data protection. And you can try to play this down as much as you want, but I think this is another symptom how much the current discussion about how much data gathering is OK is needed.

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#67

Post by merb »

est31 wrote: post #25

Oh wow, this is amazing. There's been a lawsuit in court about someone in Germany who sued their landlord because the landlord has put a Google Nest fire alarm into their flat against their will, ignoring offers by the renter to put in a non-google-non-iot fire alarm at the renter's expense. The landlord won because apparently the court was not convinced that the fire alarm could spy on conversations [1]... What woul…

to be fair it was silly that this was handeld at the BVerfG. In now way could that be a "verfassungsproblematische" entscheidung. I mean the person argued, that the lower court argued wrongly about his informational self-determination which is stupid because the person had the chance to buy her own fire alarm (on her own expenses).

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#68

Post by merb »

cbg0 wrote: post #41
est31 wrote: post #25

Oh wow, this is amazing. There's been a lawsuit in court about someone in Germany who sued their landlord because the landlord has put a Google Nest fire alarm into their flat against their will, ignoring offers by the renter to put in a non-google-non-iot fire alarm at the renter's expense. The landlord won because apparently the court was not convinced that the fire alarm could spy on conversations [1]... What woul…

> What would have happened if Google had secretly put a microphone into their fire alarms as well, not just their home security system? You could have found it by dismantling the device and the renter would have won their case against the landlord.

it wouldn't the case was dismissed, because it's the wrong court. second it was dismissed because just because it's modern and has several technology that can be missused doesn't mean that it will be missused. in germany you need to actually have evidence to really get something like that dismissed. Especially since the landlord actually also offered that she can use her own fire alarm (when she buys it)

Re: Google says Nest’s built-in mic not listed in specs was not meant to be secret

#70

Post by reitanqild »

kmlx wrote: post #60
vermilingua wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google is well past conspiracy territory. They are a company whose bottom line depends on collecting as much user data as possible; in an economy that compels them to improve their bottom line by any means available. Is there really any doubt that google can and will spy on you if given the slightest opportunity?

Yes, I have 100% doubt anyone is spying on anyone. I think most of it is paranoia. I also think this kind of paranoia is detrimental to our evolution as a species. We should be sharing more, not hiding in our caves.

> We should be sharing more, not hiding in our caves.

I suggest you start, your profile here is even slimmer than mine.

More seriously: while there surely is some paranoia going on, recent events have made me more careful, not less.

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