
Is Google Always Listening: Live Test [video] - alexsideris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBnDWSvaQ1I&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3KVRJMoh0npk91GyJvnhNGYhWVn17IZZexX1EZehPLzeGQ0z4LLmvY5go
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rcheu
The fact that this dumb “Google/FB listens to you in the background and uses
it to serve ads” myth is still around even on HackerNews is insane to me.

Do you all really think that if this contributed a measureable portion of ads
that it wouldn’t leak? There’d also have to be a large amount of hardware
dedicated to speech transcription—running constant speech to text on every
google chrome browser would need so much compute.

Not to mention that it’d be possible to actually show that the company was
lying by modifying microphone drivers and showing that they activate in the
background. I’m pretty sure you could also just do it the same way they make
game hacks—get access to chrome memory and show that there’s sections that
match the recorded speech.

Indisputable proof that this happens would be a PR disaster for either company
and cause legal action too.

I’m really in dismay at how long this myth has persisted.

~~~
dexen
Myth or not, the technology's been around for some years[1] [2], and there's a
profit to be made from matching consumers and advertisers. One doesn't really
need to run voice analysis, just pick a keyword[3] every now and then. You add
two and two.

> _would be a PR disaster for either company and cause legal action too._

Didn't stop Sony [4], and didn't cost them all that much in money - on the
order of $1MM - or reputation either.

\--

[1a] [https://hackaday.com/2017/05/04/ultrasonic-tracking-
beacons/](https://hackaday.com/2017/05/04/ultrasonic-tracking-beacons/)

[1b] [https://www.wired.com/2016/11/block-ultrasonic-signals-
didnt...](https://www.wired.com/2016/11/block-ultrasonic-signals-didnt-know-
tracking/)

[2] [https://www.shazam.com/](https://www.shazam.com/)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QTzVoaua4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QTzVoaua4s)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal)

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RikNieu
I have had this happen with my Xiaomi android phone. I've had a couple of
times where I get ads served pertaining to conversations I've had with random
people when my phone is laying nearby, silently listenting. No googling the
topics from my side, simply random conversation.

It even seems to be able to translate conversations in my native language into
displaying English ads. Creepy as hell.

I'm thinking of going back to Apple, it's just that their phones as so bloody
expensive now. Sigh.

~~~
Paraesthetic
Make sure its not just cognitive reticulation, and the priming of your brain
where previously you wouldn't have noticed these things.

~~~
RikNieu
It's not. It shows ads based on other peoples interests or what they have
talked about with me. It was about things that wouldn't be in my personal
sphere of interests in general. Specific ride-sharing companies, specific
speakers a friend bought. A random conversation about a specific and obscure
topic I had with my wife...

Lets just say that I'm pretty sure its not may brain going bonkers with
pattern recognition here.

~~~
captain_mars
I've had the same experience.

Recently, we were visited by my sister-in-law. We ended up talking about a
topic, say Topic X. Topic X _never_ comes up when I and my wife are alone; it
is simply not a part of our life. We have been married for 15 years, without
talking about it even once.

However, it did come up while talking with my s-i-l, and my Android phone was
lying nearby. Minutes later, after my sister in law had left, I was presented
a Topic X - related ad on YouTube.

It was displayed only once, I ignored it, and no Topic X - related ad was
shown after that.

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msadowski
It hapenned to me on two different occasions that I've been discussing a topic
with a friend (one that I never searched for) that was later shown to me as an
ad. In one particular case he told me of metal casted spinners (like the one
in Ibception). About two days later I saw an ad for this. I don't believe this
could be a coincidence.

~~~
Zhenya
Did he search for them and we're you chatting on Facebook messenger that day?

~~~
msadowski
He doesn't even have facebook and he said he didn't search for them. We talked
in person while hiking, only our phones were in our pockets. I also never had
any facebook applications installed on my phone (except WhatsApp). Also I saw
the ad about 2-3 days after we had this chat. I should also note that we were
talking in Polish.

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Paraesthetic
Time for a company to leverage on hardware button to switch off mics, camera
and gps. I know a lot of people who would buy it

~~~
elliekelly
I believe Apple just did this with their new MacBook & MacBook Pro. Closing
the lid physically disengages the microphone.

Edit: Source[1] and also to say that I suppose Apple's solution only gets us
halfway to your suggestion. There's still no way to _physically_ disengage the
microphone (or Camera, for that matter) when the laptop is open. It's a step
in the right direction, at least.

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-macbook-air-
and-2018-m...](https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-macbook-air-
and-2018-macbook-pro-disconnect-microphone-when-lid-is-closed-2018-11)

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gmueckl
There are lots of anecdotes around about things like this, but correlation
does not constitute causation. Where are e.g. the wireshark dumps showing that
data was transmitted to some server while/after he was talking? Capturing the
traffic should be a simple exercises.

~~~
icebraining
I'm agnostic on the issue, but assuming they're just transmitting keywords, it
would be pretty easy (and sensible, considering the implications!) to hide
them inside otherwise innocuous packets.

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parliament32
I think the first step for solving this problem on mobile is having an
indicator that an app is "listening". Just like the "location" icon pops up in
the top bar on Android (and going into settings for location shows you which
apps recently requested location), having an identical icon/history setup for
microphone access would be perfect. Same goes for front/back camera.

------
Throwawayzoink
One could shoot everything on a desktop and search for dog toys on another
device on the same network/IP. I'd bet the guy is trolling.

~~~
badrabbit
I'm afraid not. Usually,some app like facebook is involved. You can search for
news articles on the subject and see other people's report as well.

Not only do they collect voice without consent,personal experience tells me
they're also sharing it with usgov(not elaborating on that).

~~~
Throwawayzoink
So facebook does speech recognition in realtime for every android device out
there and share it in realtime with the many ad networks. Someone is really
screwed up at facebook to share such an incriminating secret or business
leverage (depending on how you want to see it) with competitors.

The conspiracy theory doesn't seem to hold ground.

~~~
badrabbit
Experience is the best evidence. Give me a better reasonable explanation then?
Why do you think it's a conspiracy theory? There are lawsuits[1] and news
articles on this.

Someone really screwed up at facebook? Have you read the news recently? They
lie through their teeth to their owm shareholders and customers!

If I had to guess they merely transcribe audio on the device and send keywords
for ad targeting and other nefarious uses. They can claim there is no
"recording" since audio isn't stored anywhere. Honestly,I think this is fairly
harmless if you compare it to some of the other more serious conspiracy
theories.

Remember how NSA's surveillance was also a conspiracy theory?

IMO,it's a double edged sword for them,they do this sort of crooked business
for law enforcent and intelligence community but they also profit by
exploiting this for revenue generation.

[1] [http://digg.com/2017/facebook-phone-microphone-
ads](http://digg.com/2017/facebook-phone-microphone-ads)

~~~
Throwawayzoink
"Leaking" data they are supposed to have is not anywhere close to secretly
recording user audio. They have plausible deniability with what you hear on
news. There is no deniability when they are caught recording users.
"Carelessness" does not lead an app to go rogue and start listening and
transcribing audio.

Like I said, the problem I see with theory is that it doesn't hold ground even
with all the assumptions one should be expected to make.

As for NSA, none of their surveillance was happening on the device. So that
again is not the same as this theory.

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anonunt
to be fair could this not be any app on his phone that is listening?

I assume that the big ad aggregators like google etc. would be up for
integrating with anyone who provided testably good data, and also it may be
that the system is being gamed from the other end.. where hints are passed to
the ad bidding bot (of the dog toy company) to pay more for your attention.

its a pretty crappy state of affairs we have.. its a shame that our media (and
so much of everything) is owned by so few - it makes it very hard to fight
against any of this :( no one has any interest in actually fixing this or
making big changes as they are all using it to power their growth and so their
delusional valuations.

There was nothing more depressing than working as a BA for a big company and
realising that every metric was openly being gamed, objectives were stupid and
impossible to meet - but it didn't matter as so long as they kept a constant
suite of major structural change projects on the go (buying companies, moving
profits and ownership over boarders etc.) they could meet all of their targets
and just keep the lies going.

The lower level staff had to play along as their managers would fire them if
they didn't play the game. the managers had to keep to the line to maintain
their promoted state and keep moving up.. the most senior management could
just believe the numbers and fire a middle manager if they didn't like what
they got. and the shareholders didn't care as if the targets are hit the
share-price just keeps rising and rising.

There was no case i could make to do anything about this, I think i proved the
issue to several people but there was no way of people doing anything about it
without damaging their own lot :(

Since then I have had much more understanding with the broken nature of the
world, how long it will take to fix and how sometimes (often) you really do
just need to let the wheels come off before there will be any action - as by
that point people are less worried about being blamed and are more likely to
act.

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newnewpdro
The test in this video was obviously staged.

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gundmc
Betteridge's law of headlines strikes again.

