this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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322
Cox deletes ‘Active Listening’ ad pitch after boasting that it eavesdrops though our phones (www.fastcompany.com)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Cox deletes ‘Active Listening’ ad pitch after boasting that it eavesdrops though our phones::undefined

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (10 children)

this was such a weird claim, and I never really understood how it could be true specifically for phones, where they aren't in control of system software. there's like a gradient of possibility here:

  • Android phones from major manufacturers, and Apple phones: doubt it. those things are too heavily scrutinized, someone would've found it, and the companies that make them don't have the impetus.
  • official "smart" voice devices from Amazon, Google, et al: doubt it, same reasoning as above
  • Android phones from small players, heavily subsidized models, etc.: sure, could be
  • smart TVs from major manufacturers: probably not? medium "maybe"? I bought one of these with a hardware mic switch so I guess that shows my paranoia
  • other smart TVs: I dunno, feels highly likely

so: I'm careful about what I use so my risk felt pretty low, but I also feel like if this were true security researchers would've discovered it. let alone the fact that what they describe is bandwidth and battery intensive (off-device or on-device respectively, I don't remember what they claimed as I read the 404 media report some weeks back) but it still makes me wonder: what led them to make these claims then? fascinating, pretty scary.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The spying that's openly admitted in terms and conditions should be alarming enough — if anyone actually read and understood all the legalese. Consider this: https://time.com/5568815/amazon-workers-listen-to-alexa/

I've seen Android phones activate Google Assistant seemingly at random many many many times. They're only supposed to activate when called by a specific phrase like "okay Google", but there are plenty of false positives, and every time that happens, an audio recording gets sent to Google. Same deal with Alexa and Siri. This is, of course, allowed by the terms and conditions.

At least Android makes it visible to the user when this happens. I wouldn't bet on smart TVs doing the same.

At this point there's not much you can do about it. Even if I secure my own devices and my own home network, that all goes out the window the second anyone else walks in my door with their own smartphone.

That said, I agree that the claim is likely false with third-party apps on modern smartphones from major brands. It's not easy for background activities to access the camera or microphone without the user's knowledge on iOS or Android. First-party and second-party spying is hard to avoid, though.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Except Siri processing is actually done on your device, as of iOS 15. Which kind of blew my mind when it was announced.

Nothing is sent to Apple unless you request an online service (such as weather, maps, etc.) or unless you allow your recordings to be sent.

Try it: in airplane mode on an iOS 15 device: Siri still works at a basic level. Language processing happens locally.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Thanks for the correction. More details here: https://www.macrumors.com/guide/ios-15-siri/

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