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How much proof is there that smart tvs and phones listen to you? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
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Like, we all know they're listening , but can we provide proof?

My friend was complaining about all the new super surveillance that will be government required in cars after 2027, and I said to him dude you have a stock android, you use every AI slop feature, you use a smart TV on your unsecured network, and uses x every day. They have everything they could possibly need on him. Oh and he posts questionable things to fb daily under his real name.

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[–] 34 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

Here's court cases lost by Google and Apple

Also, whenever monolithic megacorporations not recording you directly, virtually everyone is still buying any data about you they can get from actual malware distributing criminals.

Microphone hijacking is real and commonplace. (Edit: Fixed link thanks to some feedback.)

The malware vendors sell what they learn about us on black markets. And in net effect, everyone is buying from them.

They "Privacy Wash" the things they learn from the illegal recordings, by passing them from one disreputable broker to another. Each broker can keep poor quality records of exactly where they got their data. Pretty soon it's just "part of your digital fingerprint" and "can't be helped".

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  • [–] 11 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Thanks for providing links but I don't trust the ny post.

    Here's a story where people working for Apple got access to audio recorded during seemingly unwanted times like during sex.

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/26/apple-contractors-regularly-hear-confidential-details-on-siri-recordings

    But I imagine these people were enabling voice recording in the first place. I trust my phone not to record if I disable those features (though sometimes they make this difficult).

    I think Apple is generally better about this stuff then other companies though? Since they actually went to court to protect e2e encryption.

    Lastly, if youre someone of interest to powerfull people, there are otherways they can use your phone against you like with pegasus:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    One's a settlement with a blanket denial of guilt for Siri and Google Assistant. At least mild circumstantial evidence, because there's a real mechanism (accidental activation and recording) is identified, but no proof, and certainly no proof of an ongoing intentional data broker style program. But at least enough of a pain that they won a settlement. So that counts as a trace of meaningful circumstantial evidence.

    But the second one is just a link to sell you a product that doesn't provide any evidence whatsoever and doesn't even pretend to, it discusses the possibility in vague generalities as something hackable and tries to sell you a product. I'm baffled as to why you think that counts as a source.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

    I'm baffled as to why you think that counts as a source.

    I mean, just Google it. Microphone hacking is a thing. (Edit: You know what, Let me Google that for you.)

    I only felt obligated to grab a link grabbed because folks keep repeating the misinformation that "no one is hacking your phone microphone, or it would be in the news". It's just not news anymore.

    Android and iOS malware will try to grab stuff off of your microphone.

    It's not a conspiracy theory. It's not news.

    Malware actors do malware things, and sell whatever they can harvest.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

    Hello? Is this thing on? I sometimes worry that it's impossible to get anyone in a thread like this to stay focused on a train of thought for even five seconds. You posted an article that you thought was a good source, but it wasn't. Then instead of addressing any of that whatsoever, you say "just google it." What we just witnessed was a breakdown in your ability to tie sources to claims, not to mention your ability to keep attention focused on one point before jumping to the next one. You need to fix that before you recommend any more sources.

    And I have googled it. The closest thing to a smoking gun is Cox Media Group claiming it as a capability, inspiring uproar and then walking back the claim that they could do it. That's the best media report on it. And this has been directly studied in an academic setting, finding basically no evidence of secret listening. It doesn't mean there's no incentive or that they aren't bad actors, but you can't use a vague feeling that "it's proven" that to justify a breakdown in your ability to think critically or actually look at evidence.

    Hacks can and do happen, we already knew this from camera hacks of yesteryear. What we don't know is that major social media platforms or tech companies are doing this, either at all or at scale. And yes, it's important to distinguish those two things, because that's also part of critical thinking.

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