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Your Phone Is Listening

bernorange

By bernorange
in Daily Texan

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bernorange

bernorange 8362

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A couple years ago, something strange happened. A friend and I were sitting at a bar, iPhones in pockets, discussing our recent trips in Japan and how we’d like to go back. The very next day, we both received pop-up ads on Facebook about cheap return flights to Tokyo. It seemed like just a spooky coincidence, but then everyone seems to have a story about their smartphone listening to them. So is this just paranoia, or are our smartphones actually listening?

According to Dr. Peter Hannay—The senior security consultant for cybersecurity firm Asterisk, and former lecturer and researcher at Edith Cowan University—the short answer is yes, but perhaps in a way that's not as diabolical as it sounds.

For your smartphone to actually pay attention and record your conversation, there needs to be a trigger, such as when you say “hey Siri” or “okay Google.” In the absence of these triggers, any data you provide is only processed within your own phone. This might not seem a cause for alarm, but any third party applications you have on your phone—like Facebook for example—still have access to this “non-triggered” data. And whether or not they use this data is really up to them.

“From time to time, snippets of audio do go back to [other apps like Facebook’s] servers but there’s no official understanding what the triggers for that are,” explains Peter. “Whether it’s timing or location-based or usage of certain functions, [apps] are certainly pulling those microphone permissions and using those periodically. All the internals of the applications send this data in encrypted form, so it’s very difficult to define the exact trigger.”
...

More:  https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listening-and-its-not-paranoia?utm_campaign=global&utm_source=vicefbanz

What's in your wallet smartphone?

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Orange&White

Orange&White 5528

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On my Android, I have an option to enable the phone to listen all of the time. This has to be turned on in order for me to be able to utilize the "OK Google" option to do voice searches. If I disable this option, I have to physically pres the microphone icon in order for me to search by voice.

Now, whether "disabling" the feature actually disables the feature is a valid question that I don't know the answer to, but I can say that I've never had the creepy ads coming from a voice conversation.

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Eastwood

Eastwood 4394

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There have been times when I talk about something random and an ad comes up for it on my phone around an hour later. Happens all the time. First time I remember it being something fishy was when I was talking with the wife about Back to the Future and ads for Back to the Future shirts and the box set Bluray popped up in Tapatalk later that day. She was the one that brought it up and I hadn't searched anything "Back to the Future" in years.

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Cheeseweasel

Cheeseweasel 26438

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52 minutes ago, Eastwood said:

There have been times when I talk about something random and an ad comes up for it on my phone around an hour later. Happens all the time. First time I remember it being something fishy was when I was talking with the wife about Back to the Future and ads for Back to the Future shirts and the box set Bluray popped up in Tapatalk later that day. She was the one that brought it up and I hadn't searched anything "Back to the Future" in years.

A lot of people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, "plate," or "shrimp," or "plate of shrimp" out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

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Prepuce of Doom

Prepuce of Doom 21074

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2 hours ago, Cheeseweasel said:

A lot of people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things. They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. Give you an example, show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, "plate," or "shrimp," or "plate of shrimp" out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

Just make sure you don't talk about doing any crimes where your phone can hear you. 

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Prepuce of Doom

Prepuce of Doom 21074

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3 hours ago, Eastwood said:

There have been times when I talk about something random and an ad comes up for it on my phone around an hour later. Happens all the time. First time I remember it being something fishy was when I was talking with the wife about Back to the Future and ads for Back to the Future shirts and the box set Bluray popped up in Tapatalk later that day. She was the one that brought it up and I hadn't searched anything "Back to the Future" in years.

Maybe you searched for Back to the Future in the future. 

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31487

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Yknow, I just noticed.  It used to be two tiers of settings in Google App/Assistant.  You could start Google App/Now/Assistant and have it respond to voice using OK google.  Or, with grant of extra permissions, have OK google start the app/assistant from anywhere, including lock screen. 

 

I just checked and it's only the latter now.

 

It is also off.

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Red Five

Red Five 40859

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A couple years ago, something strange happened. A friend and I were sitting at a bar, iPhones in pockets, discussing our recent trips in Japan and how we’d like to go back. The very next day, we both received pop-up ads on Facebook about cheap return flights to Tokyo. It seemed like just a spooky coincidence, but then everyone seems to have a story about their smartphone listening to them. So is this just paranoia, or are our smartphones actually listening?”
...
More:  https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listening-and-its-not-paranoia?utm_campaign=global&utm_source=vicefbanz
What's in your wallet smartphone?


Maybe they got messages about returning to Japan because they had just been to Japan.
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Fudge Nuggets

Fudge Nuggets 19191

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2 hours ago, Red Five said:

More:  https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listening-and-its-not-paranoia?utm_campaign=global&utm_source=vicefbanz
What's in your wallet smartphone?


Maybe they got messages about returning to Japan because they had just been to Japan.

That was my first thought, but doesn’t scare the masses so can’t be the reason.

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markstanco

markstanco 12577

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On my Android, I have an option to enable the phone to listen all of the time. This has to be turned on in order for me to be able to utilize the "OK Google" option to do voice searches. If I disable this option, I have to physically pres the microphone icon in order for me to search by voice.
Now, whether "disabling" the feature actually disables the feature is a valid question that I don't know the answer to, but I can say that I've never had the creepy ads coming from a voice conversation.
Good thing you disabled it, that means they cant listen anymore. Scouts honor or something.
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Armybrat

Armybrat 40850

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11 hours ago, Tom said:

I realize this is a real thing, but at the same time I get ads in Spanish all the time -- a language I don't speak -- so I think I've somehow successfully fooled my phone.

So you've been making a lot of those quick trips down to Ciudad Acuña?

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longhornsftmfw

longhornsftmfw 129

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If this stuff bothers you, turn off Siri/Ok Google, use DuckDuckGo as your search engine, and install the DuckDuckGo browser extension that provides information about and blocks trackers on pages you visit. Don't provide these companies with the data they need to creep on you, and it's probably a good habit to err on the side of caution when it comes to your data anyway. I don't use voice-activated Siri enough for deactivating it to bother me, and the other adjustments are pretty much set and forget (Safari and Chrome both allow DuckDuckGo to be set as your search provider, the extension does its thing in the background). I still use Google search for more ambiguous searches, as their algorithms seem to provide better results when the search string is nonspecific.

I'm more worried about these companies making a mistake with that amount of data than I am them being outright nefarious. 

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