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SimianSci | on: Root shell on Samsung TV
The idea was always that Facebook or Google were listening to us and whenever we would talk about something we would shortly thereafter see an ad related to it.

Now we can basically say that its not Facebook and Google doing this directly, its our televisions and appliances that are listening and just selling that data back to the ad-networks.

gumby | parent | next
This is similar to Flock and Palantir who collect info the government is not allowed to and then sell it to the government.

In this case Meta, Google etc can honestly say they aren't surrepticiously listinging to you or collecting data not in their privacy statement. They just buy it instead.

So I need to write a chaffing agent that runs when I am not home and randomly spouts synthetic conversations through non-smart speakers about nappies (kids a re long gone), nuclear weapons development, plumbing, union membership, crochet, video games, crypto coins, and other things we don't normally do.

agilob | parent | next
This does not mean that Google and Facebook never do it.
notnullorvoid | parent | next
> Now we can basically say that its not Facebook and Google doing this directly

Finding out that TVs are listening does not mean Google and Facebook aren't. I've had plenty of times in an old car, or on a walk talking about something only to have related ads pop up later.

tempest_ | root | parent
They can already do that with most of the information they already have, they don't need to listen for that type of thing (though they still might be as you see here, data is data after all).

Most people are not that unique. They know where you are and who you are with and any searching or sites you have been to and what is in your text messages or whatsapp as well as that same information for all the people 6 degrees away from you. They know people like you, who are your age and like the things you like and are where you are with friends like yours etc etc it goes on and on.

People rarely talk about things unprompted and you will only notice when you think you talked about something and then see an ad for it so there is a confirmation bias as well.

lincon127 | parent | next
Has this not been proven by now? That smart devices are used to do this, including smartphones? Their OSes just ship with apps that that record that audio information right out of the box.
iJohnDoe | parent | next
Facebook was always doing this. It just wasn't proven they were.

VoIP has been around for 25 years. Compressed audio is a tiny amount of packets. It doesn't need HD audio, it just needs enough to recognize words. Enterprise VoIP only needed a 128kb connection 25 years ago to work. On a smartphone, 128kb is nothing and will blend in with background connections. Facebook could record and monitor your audio 24/7 and it won't even be a blip in the network traffic, especially if it does a quick process of the audio before sending it to Facebook.

rdtsc | parent
That's a pretty good point. We kept hearing these rumors for a while now and all the usual suspects keep saying "we don't listen to your microphone on your phone" but yeah nobody expects the TV and fridge to do it, so maybe that's how it happens and people are not crazy.
BoxwoodSeed | root | parent
That's just weasel language. For "hey, Google" to work, the phone needs to listen. Just like it can react to "hey, Google", it can also react to any amount of other trigger words without ever actually recording your conversation.