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GameboyRMH
GameboyRMH MegaDork
12/15/23 3:43 p.m.

In reply to camopaint0707 :

That "research" was tobacco industry disinformation. Mainstream science just built up an increasingly strong consensus over time that smoking caused cancer, it was pretty strong even before WW2:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3490543/

GIRTHQUAKE
GIRTHQUAKE UltraDork
12/15/23 4:33 p.m.

Sound waves must be difficult for our phones to pick up at distance, because I find that peoples like myself who keep their devices in one region of their home don't see many- or any- ads. I also run basic privacy software with things like browsers, addons and behavior training, so it's very possible in my eyes to break this "chain" and protect yourself so long as you have the will. I frankly haven't even given up any comfort with my devices either despite using a google phone.

I find it really funny the number of people who bought alexas that were shocked that it listened in- that's literally what amazon sold you, thankfully my few loved ones who got them rapidly ditched them after teardowns began coming out about their real potential. Thankfully with stuff like this, the silver lining is people realizing that a corporation has arguably, far more reason and desire to spy on you as a profit incentive than some governments, relatively speaking of course.

 

 

 

Noddaz
Noddaz PowerDork
12/15/23 9:38 p.m.

As I walked past a co-worker with i-phone in hand at work I said "Hey Siri, download all the porn."  I guess the phone did not hear me.

SV reX
SV reX MegaDork
12/16/23 12:19 p.m.
GameboyRMH said:

I've never said it was impossible that this was happening, and this company's offering shows that it's been happening prior to yesterday. I don't personally have any experience to go on because I don't have anything capable of doing this - no smart TV or voice assistant devices, and my phone is rooted running an open-source Android distro. And then I hardly see any ads on web sites with the browser addons I run. Black-box testing on phone apps suspected of doing this has always come back showing no signs of listening or streaming audio out, but of course it's much harder to analyze dedicated smart voice assistants like Alexa.

You are definitely in the 1% of the population capable of having your electronics set up like that to avoid this kind of stuff. For the rest of us 99%, it became completely normal years ago. 

racerfink
racerfink UberDork
12/17/23 12:02 p.m.

I had a friend that insisted that his home device couldn't listen when he told it to shut down, so I asked him how he turned it back on.  By telling it to turn on, he said.  It took him about 15 seconds to realize.

Daraku
Daraku New Reader
12/21/23 2:10 a.m.

i’ve been advertised E36 M3 i was only thinking about. not even said out loud. freaks me out.

The0retical
The0retical UberDork
12/21/23 11:21 a.m.

Except they clarified that they're literally not:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/no-a-marketing-firm-isnt-tapping-your-device-to-hear-private-conversations/

Then COX, Amazon, Google, and Apple got their lawyers involved to make statements about how their platforms work, how to tell when the system is on, and how to review the data so it aligns with GDPR and other relevant statutes.

Afterward, they probably ritualistically and inhumanely culled the marketing guy who wrote the ad copy at the Bohemian Club.

There are other ways of getting this data and drawing these conclusions. There's literally no need to open up that can of worms with the granularity of other data that's available. That doesn't mean some dumb-berkeley isn't going to think they're the first to have this idea, usually because they don't understand how the data is aggregated currently, but there really isn't a need to do so.

That said, there are always zero days, etc, that various agencies can use to do this. However, I doubt even marketing guys are stupid enough to use one without a legal shield.

ShawnG
ShawnG MegaDork
12/21/23 11:48 a.m.

5 or 6 years ago, having burgers with a buddy.

Ive never googled or searched for this drafting program on my phone or p.c. or any drafting program for that matter.

Our phones are on the table, buddy is talking about the drafting software he's been playing with.

Next day, targeted ads for that very program are showing up on my Facebook. 

After that, I started locking my devices down pretty hard and it's never happened since.

Also, I'm sure all those lawyers are totally trustworthy. 

The0retical
The0retical UberDork
12/21/23 12:03 p.m.

In reply to ShawnG :

I can give you the technical explanation about how this works, like I did in the last thread about this, but I can't disprove a negative.

The way it technically works is by using what's known as network mapping. Basically, you were in contact with your buddy, and he had been working with, and likely heavily researching tutorials on the CAD package. The advertising algorithms looked at the activity logs related to his advertisingID, noted that there is a high probability that, because people like to talk about their hobbies or work, he spoke with you about it. Then it grabbed your advertising ID and used that information to show you an ad related to the specific CAD package. Basically, it uses networks of friends, family, and acquaintances to draw conclusions about shared interests and likely topics of conversation.

Once you "locked down" your profiles, one of the options is probably to turn off a unique advertisingID which the network mapping relies on. Thus you get more generic ads these days.

SV reX
SV reX MegaDork
12/21/23 1:39 p.m.

In reply to The0retical :

I get it. 
 

But I don't believe it. Not for one second. 

The0retical
The0retical UberDork
12/21/23 1:54 p.m.
SV reX said:

In reply to The0retical :

I get it. 
 

But I don't believe it. Not for one second. 

I worked in defense long enough, and spent enough time around SCIFs, to be suspicious of anything with a microphone or camera.

My current view, that I appear to have made a hobby of, is that I should at least have a basic understanding of how the underlying tech works for some of the largest industries in the world. Especially ones where I know I'm the product. That helps significantly with risk analysis for my personal life and my business while allowing me to still utilize some of the opportunities the tech enables. It also helps me to control (or actively poison the data sets) about me.

There's a fine line between paranoia and defense, but until there are privacy laws in the US that prevent or dissuade surveillance capitalism, it's really important to understand how the data is being collected and utilized because opting out isn't really an option for most people.

slefain
slefain UltimaDork
12/21/23 1:58 p.m.

GameboyRMH
GameboyRMH MegaDork
12/21/23 2:09 p.m.

In reply to SV reX :

One thing to keep in mind is that the hardware needed to make stealthy "active listening" plausible has only just begun to hit the market in consumer devices. For this to work, the speech-to-text processing needs to be done on the local device, and unless it's a high-powered device like a desktop PC or a game console, that requires a NPU which have only been commonly available on-die with CPUs and SoCs over the last few months. Without those, the idea would run into the same technical limitations listed in the 2018 article I linked previously.

03Panther
03Panther PowerDork
12/21/23 6:48 p.m.

That's amazing, that it's been happening for so many years, and yet the tech to do it didn't even exist! 
I guess everyone that has seen the results, are just having the exact same coincidences happening over and over, the exact same way. 

ShawnG
ShawnG MegaDork
12/21/23 7:06 p.m.
03Panther said:

That's amazing, that it's been happening for so many years, and yet the tech to do it didn't even exist! 
I guess everyone that has seen the results, are just having the exact same coincidences happening over and over, the exact same way. 

Someone will be along to call us conspiracy theorists soon enough.

NermalSnert (Forum Supporter)
NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) HalfDork
12/21/23 7:22 p.m.

I might throw SWMBO'S smart phone in a card board box with books on tape book and see what happens. devil

SV reX
SV reX MegaDork
12/21/23 7:31 p.m.

In reply to The0retical :

I'm pretty sure corporations have created loopholes through their Terms of Use agreements that have made many privacy laws thoroughly ineffective for the average user. 
 

I respect that you are more knowledgeable about the technical details than I. But "coincidences" have become really normal occurrences for quite a few years, and I gave up on true privacy a long time ago. 
 

I think privacy is a joke to many corporations, and I have worked for a few that demonstrated it.

ShawnG
ShawnG MegaDork
12/21/23 8:40 p.m.

They're not even trying to hide it anymore. 

GameboyRMH
GameboyRMH MegaDork
12/21/23 8:47 p.m.
03Panther said:

That's amazing, that it's been happening for so many years, and yet the tech to do it didn't even exist! 
I guess everyone that has seen the results, are just having the exact same coincidences happening over and over, the exact same way. 

The technology to do it if you didn't want to hide it and weren't particularly interested in turning a profit has existed for well over a decade. The technology to do it in a potentially profitable way that wouldn't be easily noticeable by anyone who could monitor a device's network bandwidth and CPU usage at the same time is just being rolled out.

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter)
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) PowerDork
12/21/23 8:58 p.m.

If you go into a secure facility, everyone has to leave their personal device outside and even an agency supplied device unless it's a secure device. No idea how I might know this or if it's even true.  You can do whatever you wish with that tidbit of information.  

GameboyRMH
GameboyRMH MegaDork
12/21/23 9:23 p.m.

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

It's true that a lot of military sites require this, even places where military vehicles are worked on (I remember someone once asked about scientific calculators on here because they weren't allowed to take their phone with a camera and communications into such a place, and needed a dedicated calculator to be approved for that location). In rooms where top secret material can be accessed digitally (called SCI facilities), basically no device is allowed in there unless it was approved to be installed in there permanently.

Not because they're sure that everything is spying on you, but because it's difficult to prove that any random thing could not be spying on you (and/or wouldn't be used to copy info out against policies) and with no legitimate reason to take personal devices into such facilities other than convenience, it's far easier to just ban them. This covers everything from the most meticulously secured personal devices to those that may have malware infections or nightmarish privacy out of the box, to the free phone that mysteriously showed up in the mail from a Chinese secret Santa.

AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter)
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) PowerDork
12/22/23 11:40 p.m.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Not all secure things are military related, but yes to all of that.

03Panther
03Panther PowerDork
12/23/23 7:14 p.m.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Patato/potato (yes, I'm well aware that they would be spelled the same) 

Its been being done a very long time, and you have tied up a lot of fancy techno words to say , well i really don't know. But lots of words. 
You definitely know more techno words than I. 

VolvoHeretic
VolvoHeretic SuperDork
9/2/24 9:44 p.m.

I made a new thread before being made aware that this thread already existed, so I am posting my new information here also to keep this thread up to date. The other thread can be allowed to die out.

Ever wonder if your phone or smart TV is listening to your every word? Well it is.

The news article below:

MSN.com: "Is this even legal?" A leaked pitch reveals marketing agency uses 'Active Listening' software to eavesdrop on calls and push curated Facebook and Google ads 

"We know what you're thinking. Is this even legal? It is legal for phones and devices to listen to you. When a new app download or update prompts consumers with a multi-page term of use agreement somewhere in the fine print, Active Listening is often included."

John Welsh
John Welsh Mod Squad
9/2/24 10:31 p.m.

As a test, tonight at 10:30 pm I held my phone, close to my face with the phone on a with the screen "awake" but not on a call or on an active website and said, "I have to wonder where I would even find an alternator for a John Deere Combine"  We'll see how long before I get anything John Deere related.  

Note: I do not and have never owned anything John Deere; nor is it something in my regular conversations.  

I predict that within 24 hour I have something like an email offer for 0% John Deere financing.  Also murking the waters, I have now written JD thrice on the internet.  

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