this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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Privacy
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I'm confused. Isn't "collecting keystroke data" just an alarmist way to describe text entry?
Not exactly. Timing between key presses can be used to identify people.
I am literally so paranoid I regularly vary my keysteoke rhythms and explore polyrhytmic techniques to create variations. Not even joking.
Maybe. They could also be doing things like paying attention to input cadence and typos/pre-send typo corrections to use as part of a fingerprint associated with the identifying information a user gives them when creating an account so that they can then attempt to detect the user elsewhere on the web whether they are using an identifying account or not.
This argument applies to literally every single web app you use.
So, basically using Facebook technology in their AI app?
You'll hear no arguments from me on that point, US tech companies are toxic af.
How far we've come
Not usually. Keystroke info is different than text input, like if you didn’t click onto any field and typed it would only be captured if keystroke are all being grabbed. It’s especially scary if you keep the app running in the bg and then type something and it still captures it. Not saying they’re doing that, but the privacy policy says they might.
The rhythm part is annoying, it’s commonly used to ID people even through things like ad blocks and dns blocks. Could also (in theory) be used to capture what people are typing just by hearing how they type.
this. i mean, the session logs for the prompt are kept at least for your user, right?
Yes.