Some random company claiming this capability without any further evidence should probably be treated with some level of scrutiny.

Do people seriously still think this is a thing?

Literally anyone can run the basic numbers on the bandwidth that would be involved, you have 2 options:

1. They stream the audio out to their own servers which process is there. The bandwidth involved would be INSTANTLY obvious, as streaming audio out is non-trivial and anyone can pop open their phone to monitor their network usage. You'd hit your data limit in 1-2 days right away

2. They have the app always on and listening for "wakewords", which then trigger the recording and only then does it stream audio out. WakewordS plural is doing a LOT of heavy lifting here. Just 1 single wakeword takes a tremendous amount of training and money, and if they wanted the countless amount of them that would be required for what people are claiming? We're talking a LOT of money. But thats not all, running that sort of program is extremely resource intensive and, once again, you can monitor your phones resource usage, you'd see the app at the top burning through your battery like no tomorrow. Android and iPhone both have notifications to inform you if a specific app is using a lot of battery power and will show you this sort of indicator. You'd once again instantly notice such an app running.

I think a big part of this misunderstanding comes from the fact that Alexa/Google devices seem so small and trivial for their wakewords.

What people dont know though is Alexa / Google Home have an entire dedicated board with its own dedicated processor JUST for detecting their ONE wake word, and not only that they explicitly chose a phrase that is easy to listen for

"Okay Google" and "Hey Alexa" have a non-trivial amount of engineering baked into making sure they are distinct and less likely to get mistaken for other words, and even despite that they have false positives constantly.

If thats the amount of resources involved for just one wake word/phrase, you have to understand that targeted marking would require hundreds times that, its not viable for your phone to do it 24/7 without also doubling as a hand warmer in your pocket all day long.

They've redirected the page now that it's getting attention, but here's the archived version.

I'm very skeptical of their claims, but it's possible they've partnered with some small number of apps so that they can claim that this is technically working.

We already knew this was happening at least a decade ago when people realized why Facebook and Instagram needed unrestricted microphone permissions.

This is why I generally ensure my phone is configured ahead of time to block ads in most cases. I don't need this garbage on my device.

As for how they could listen? It's pretty easy.

By waiting until the phone is completely still and potentially on a charger, it can collect a lot of data. Phones typically live on the nightstand by your bed at night; and could be listening intently when charging.

Similarly it could start listening when it hears extended conversations; simply by listening to the microphone for human speech every x minutes for y minutes. Then it can record snippets; encode them quickly and upload them for processing. This would be thermally undetectable.

Finally it could simply start listening in certain situations; like when it detects other devices (via BT). Then it could simply capture as many small snippets of your conversation as it could.

Of course this is possible. Is it practical? Nope. There is already so much data harvested by the likes you Google and Facebook that they can tell what you like, what videos or articles you read, what you share, in some cases who you talk to. Importing a shit ton of audio data is pointless, they already know what you like.

I don't know why, given recent impressive developments, but I've always met thie idea that this is really happening with heavy skepticism and I still do. This is definitely the most concrete thing I've ever heard and I definitely don't doubt companies would do this, I just... I don't know, it's hard to believe they really are.

One reason is it just seems like they'd be absolutely overwhelmed by useless data, it's not like AI is cheap to run, and it'd be so hard to link a conversation that's captured to a genuine sentiment and then to an ad connecting to that person and then a purchasing decision to that ad. This is scary for sure but it feels like this is more marketing hype to marketeers than a real thing.

Will be watching closely. I feel like this might actually be that bridge too far that the mainstream of society will demand action be taken against if it gets widely adopted and widely known. Even if it technically works and is provably effective to advertisers I think you'd need Google or Amazon to be the ones pulling it off and to have done so silently so we all just kinda assume they're doing it but don't know. If a company "starts" offering this service in a way the public can latch on to it would likely cause a massive backlash that would hopefully scupper such plans.

And people kept telling me I was wrong when I said this.

I wouldn't even know because I don't see ads on my phone or pc.

Copyright © 2023 Cox Media Group, LLC.

Fucking COX, why am I not surprised a fucking ISP like this garbage is behind it.

I found that gem as well.

Not sure about every company lol, but this article is helpful. I had everything off but the driving one, and can confirm I got ads from stuff I mentioned in the car the other day.

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/google-chrome-listening-in-to-your-room-shows-the-importance-of-privacy-defense-in-depth/

Fascinated by this. Especially because it seems now (ideally) someone with more time and expertise than me will now have to verify or disprove whether companies really do this.

"Unprecedented understanding of consumer behavior"

Scary stuff

CMG’s website addresses this with a section that starts “We know what you are thinking…”

“Is this legal? YES- it is totally legal for phones and devices to listen to you. That's because consumers usually give consent when accepting terms and conditions of software updates or app downloads,” the website says.

Well, yes, but actually no. No idea how this might play out in other parts of the world than the US. But in most places, you'd usually need consent of all parties, that are involved. If my neighbor were to install an (infected) app like this, then carries his phone around and talks to me, I did not consent and it would be illegal to record me, even if he were not tricked into consenting, but did knowingly accept it. Worse yet, in the last scenario, he might be on the hook for legal consequences, too...

Besides that legal minefield, I thinks it's a bluff. The tech is either way less accurate than they claim, or quite ressource intensive by either eating through your data plan on a mobile phone or draining your battery. My bet is on a PR stunt.

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I wonder if they are gathering this audio data from their own cable boxes, so the data transmission wouldn’t be noticed, they have remotes with microphones for voice commands.

I KNEW IT