Google admits its new smart speaker was eavesdropping on users
1–6 of 6 posts
Re: Google admits its new smart speaker was eavesdropping on users
#2"A major flaw has been detected in the newly-unveiled Google Home Mini"
Do they (Google) really think everybody will believe this was "a flaw"?!
Obligatory dilbert strip:
http://dilbert.com/strip/2017-07-14
This will probably become a scandal. Without good privacy assurance, we won't progress properly and fast in the IoT world.
Re: Google admits its new smart speaker was eavesdropping on users
#3As always, QA is an afterthought at Google.
Re: Google admits its new smart speaker was eavesdropping on users
#4This article provides less information than a previously posted article [0] written by the individual who discovered the problem.
[0] Google is nerfing all Home Minis because mine spied on everything I said - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15446206
Re: Google admits its new smart speaker was eavesdropping on users
#5"A major flaw has been detected in the newly-unveiled Google Home Mini" Do they (Google) really think everybody will believe this was "a flaw"?! Obligatory dilbert strip: http://dilbert.com/strip/2017-07-14 This will probably become a scandal. Without good privacy assurance, we won't progress properly and fast in the IoT world.
It was an over sensitive capacitive touch sensor. I can understand the scepticism but if you've ever tried to make one you'd understand it's easy to screw up in subtle ways that only repro on a subset of devices.
Re: Google admits its new smart speaker was eavesdropping on users
#6"A major flaw has been detected in the newly-unveiled Google Home Mini" Do they (Google) really think everybody will believe this was "a flaw"?! Obligatory dilbert strip: http://dilbert.com/strip/2017-07-14 This will probably become a scandal. Without good privacy assurance, we won't progress properly and fast in the IoT world.
No need for the alarm.
This issue simply occurred because a small number of Mini's given out at a Google event had a defect where the "press to send voice command" registered phantom touches.
Not only was this clearly unintentional, but the issue was "resolved" (not really because they just disabled the would-be feature) and deleted the data they accidentally collected in a few days. Very few people were impacted.