Article is from 2018. Someone must have pasted the url from hacker news where the same story was dug up recently.
Is that to say that it’s no longer valid? Or just that it’s old news? The list of apps associated with the software is still pretty extensive; Google Assistant even showed up.
Well these days Android asks for more permissions so I guess it would prevent it in many cases by preventing access to the microphone for apps where you don’t want to allow it…
Android also shows an indicator when any app is accessing the microphone or camera now.
Yeah, most people just click beyond that in a millisecond because it’s just an an annoyance between them and the needed dopamine.
I think app stores can do a whole lot more, especially with he insane amounts of money they’re earning from it (hello and fuck you, apple). They can make microphone access a special privilege that requires the developer to make a special request that gets verified on the app store before the app can be released, for example
7 years is a long time in tech.
Google Assistant is supposed to listen for the “Hey Google” trigger word. How else do you expect to use your device hand-free.
That’s kinda my point, though. You have the Google Assistant app for a legitimate reason, and its need to use your microphone is also equally legitimate…the problem comes in when Google says that they don’t monitor what you’re saying, or worse, they say they can’t because your phone processes it all locally. They have this giant loophole that they take advantage of here, in that while they do not keep track of what you say themselves, they embed a third party service that does. While not particularly surprising given it’s Google, that’s shady as fuck and they shouldn’t be able to say they don’t monitor just because they let their little bro Alphonso do it on their behalf and they magically get off on a technicality.
I used to work for a mobile advertiser, and we installed hella bloatware on phones.
This idea was floated a couple times but was deemed not very effective cause you’d have to store and process hours and hours of audio data that didn’t tell us much more than just having a week or so of GPS data, your Facebook profile, and your phone IMEI.
It’s pretty easy to see if you’re near a Popeyes and what other IMEIs are connecting to the same tower, extrapolate that to you being near your wife and you and your wife thinking about shit on the Popeyes menu.
Boom targeted ad/video for fried chicken.
The rest is general tech paranoia leading to Apophenia.
There’s no microphones or cameras, it’s just the already gigantic mountain of data anyone who uses a smartphone is constantly broadcasting getting ground through the big data machine that has been the pillar of all tech since the last recession.
you’d have to store and process hours and hours of audio data that didn’t tell us much
I mean that could be solved as simply as a local transcription service…
And do what? Sentiment analysis on the conversation you were having?
Remember semantically aware models are still fairly new and even they lack the context for a particular field of text. That’s something even the new fancy LLMs struggle with.
Unnecessary when there’s way better targeted models trained on years of data that people willingly send as part of everyday smartphone use.
Sentiment analysis on the conversation you were having?
Among other things, sure. More simply, keyword analysis.
Remember semantically aware models are still fairly new and even they lack the context for a particular field of text.
All of these “models” are useless garbage but it doesn’t stop them from trying to absolutely cram them everywhere they can.
Unnecessary
None of what they do is “necessary”. They could just ask you what your relevant interests are and you could tell them, but they do it anyway. They go to great lengths for any seemingly insignificant amount of data they can get their hands on.
But wouldnt it be a moot point if I restrict access to GPS for all apps?
How much of that data is from Google/Apple (e.g. Google Maps)?
If you use android google grabs your GPS data regardless, you have to root and disable it.
Apple does the same thing but they didn’t have their pants occupied by third-party network’s fingers like google did until the pixel came out.
Google maps is basically a beacon for AdMob to target you nearly perfectly.
Also using “fine location” in any app grabs the nearby wifi list and sends it to Google/apple if it’s not cached.
Also most ad providers these days have made deals with major networks that let them tell what tower your IMEI pinged off of.
It’s why google tried to push android/ad IDs, way less info for the networks to advertise over, and it also put the tracking in their hands instead.
If it’s trying to figure out if you’re watching Stranger Things it can look for when you’re stationary at home and just needs to record a few seconds at a time every few minutes. I don’t know how the fingerprinting works. It might be able to run locally and not use a ton of power. We’re talking Shazam, not full text transcription.
Here’s the thing. If you watch that, Netflix know your IP. If you’re on an Android TV box, Google will know your IP.
Odds are your phone is on the Wifi. Linked through IP. Now you get ads for Stranger Things on your phone. It doesn’t need to listen because everything is so leaky. You are linked on so many devices.
Yeah, Netflix knows I’m watching Stranger Things. But afaik they don’t sell that information. And even if they do, there’s still reason for this company to try to get it themselves for cheaper. And they know something else about you based on these crappy apps they’re embedded in. So that’s all extra data points they can cross reference and get even more data.
I thought Android has a non bypassable green dot in the notification bar when the micro is on ?
I feel like you’re missing the point. Showing a green dot still doesn’t solve the problem or make it ok, especially when this technology works in the background and can capture sound even while the device is in your pocket, like the article says.
I don’t think we should have to be on the lookout for a little dot showing up on the screen constantly. It shouldn’t even ask for microphone access unless it’s absolutely essential for the app’s main purpose. “Features” like this should always be off by default and buried deep in the settings. If people really wanted it (they don’t), they’d go in and turn it on themselves.
This is literally how it works. In modern android you need to explicitly grants microphone permission to apps the first time you use them. Now, if they are clickjacking the permission notification, that’s something different, but the article doesn’t mention this. You can download your own microphone logs and verify if you are curious about this.
It’s probably bypassable too. And, anytime the microphone is used, you have no idea the multiple extents that data is being used for.
Apps can use the microphone in secret and there’s no way to know when they’re using the microphone? This is a major security flaw in Android!
Are you kidding? You do know that basically anything is hackable, right? And that’s why old people put tape and stuff over their cameras if they don’t just outright unplug them, right? It seems silly, but like… They’ve always been right, with their insane passwords and avoiding using their real names and stuff.
Go ahead, make TVs more smart. We literally removed our TV thus weekend. If you want me to upgrade it, please removed the spyware.
My tvs are connected to an SSID that can’t hit the internet. I blocked them before but my dumb ass neighbor left their WiFi unprotected and my tvs just connected to them because it couldn’t get out the internet on my network. So I created an SSID logged them in and blocked it from the internet. It doesn’t bounce to open WiFi anymore. If I block it completely from the network the WiFi just disconnects from the network because it can’t hit anything. I have LG’s.
Why is it even legal for it to just hop open networks automatically? Sure, if you leave your wifi unsecured you’re dumb and anyone can access it, but it’s still not a network you have permission to access
The fact that they just desperately jump on any network is absurd. Its acting like malware.
On the other hand, it’s amazingly easy for advertisers to figure out what topics / products you’re talking about without the need for constantly recording via your microphone. In most instances, it doesn’t even really make sense to constantly record audio via the mic to monitor folks, other means are much more cost efficient while being just as effective. That’s not to say that some app isn’t or hasn’t done it, just that historically speaking, it hasn’t been as ubiquitous as a lot of people seem to think or imply.
Sometimes with these things, you have to apply Occam’s Razor.
I stayed with some family during the holidays a few years ago and they are conspiracy theory fanatics unfortunately. The type that swear their phones are listening to everything they say. They get ads for things they’ve only ever talked about in person. That sort of thing.
As proof, they pointed out how the prior night the topic of old timey candy from our childhoods came up and all of a sudden they were getting news stories and facebook ads about those liquid filled wax bottle candies. To them, the only plausible explanation is that our phones were listening to us.
Except, as I pointed out, I specifically looked those wax bottle candies up later that night because I was curious if they were still for sale. They live way out in the country and there’s limited cellular data, so basically everybody there that night was using the same wifi connection. Which means, our internet activity is all linked because to the outside world, we’re all on the same network/IP address. Even more curious, though, nobody got ads for any of the other candy that we talked about and which I didn’t specifically look up. So, if our phones were actually recording us and serving up ads based on the things we talked about, then why didn’t we get ads for Blackjack gum, wax lips, and Brach’s? Only the very specific one I happened to search for.
This is what a lot of people don’t get. Plus often people see an ad or content and forget. Later they bring it up without realizing the thing is trending. It’s all self feeding.
So much of social media (and online in general) is just ads in disguise and people shilling products, intentionally or otherwise, and it ultimately spills over into real life conversations. So I agree with you completely.
You might have given a thumbs up to your aunt Gina’s photo of her and her friends at the office party celebrating her promotion. Ad networks see it as you interacting with a photo that contains a bottle of Schmudd soda, even if that’s a detail you didn’t even notice.
You have dinner with your dad that night and the topic of Schmudd comes up due to the latest forced controversy (ermagerd the trans) so naturally when you start seeing Schmudd commercials the next day, you might assume your phone was listening to that conversation. But actually the reason you’re seeing the ads is because of the thumbs up to aunt Gina’s post.
And yes, the tracking and analytics tools find those types of patterns and relationships, and so much more. And they’ve been able to do that for over a decade. No telling how good it’s gotten since I was last working adjacent to that field.
