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.
Mark Zuckerberg puts a sticker over his laptop camera and microphone.
You can get sound from any speaker by hacking the electrical signals generated in reverse.
He also gave his famous opinion about Facebook users. Deep down, he agrees with privacy advocates. The diff is that he’s a shitty enough person to take advantage of the less techy people out there even if his society will be damaged badly in the process. Most of us are not that shitty.
they trust me
dumb fucks
I think we can move beyond Facebook here. Trusting big tech with your data never works out well.
the biggest hypocrites are tech CEO’s limiting their children’s screen time and forbidding social media
Think of something you’ve never mentioned or discussed before, then out of nowhere, start having a conversation with a friend about it, how much you like it and are thinking about getting it, taking lessons etc then see what happens over the next week on either your or your friend’s ads (turn off ad blocker if you use one).
I recommend something completely unusual for most people like an instrument (didgeridoo or cowbell)
Every device made to receive voice commands (Smart TVs, Amazon Echo) WILL listen to everything you say.
And if they provide a button or setting to turn that off you are relying on trusting them to comply with it (I don’t think they do and even if they are found doing it they will probably pay a minuscule fine for it)
The very notion of proof implies that you can reproduce it. So I would suggest you forget what anybody here or elsewhere said. Instead, you :
- get a cheap phone (so typically Android)
- reset/format/flash it to a blank state
- make a new testing account on it
- use for random browsing, using app, etc and you log your history, namely what did you actually do AND what ads you actually see
- test for something outside of your new habits with a search query, then log and compare again, seeing the threshold to change
- repeat the last step for something said using e.g. a voice assistant, log&compare
- repeat WITHOUT explicit search, log&compare
Yes this takes a of time but that will help you make YOUR own opinion on the matter if you genuinely care.
AFAIK this is the only evidence: a claim by a marketing company that they’re actually doing it. However, they have some reason to lie about this, bc it makes them sound all-knowing and powerful to their clients.
https://www.404media.co/cmg-cox-media-actually-listening-to-phones-smartspeakers-for-ads-marketing/
paywall?
It is not the only evidence, as you say, but it is particularly good evidence.
The manufacturers tell you.
And they even make you click the “I have read and understood this” button under the document that explicitly states that they’re spying on you and selling all your data.
When I talk to somebody who has Facebook on their phone, an ad for that thing pops up in their feed. It’s been obvious for years.
don’t need any such “proof”. the whole industry has lost any and all benefit-of-doubt privileges, for ever. they don’t get an opportunity to gain a foothold in mi casa and possibly be in a position to do harm.
I don’t get the idea that after all the shit they pulled someone’s like “well maybe this new thing’s nice”.
those are immoral people with zero compunctions about doing anything that hurts you, your community, and humanity as a whole. we are in an adversarial position and you’d do well to remind yourself of that constantly.
I don’t get the idea that after all the shit they pulled someone’s like “well maybe this new thing’s nice”.
I look at my friends who do this even though I advize them not to. For them, data is invisible and out of sight, out of mind. Their TV is a consumer device like IDK a toaster or washing machien. They put it online with no real thought to data or privacy. From their perspective this is normal. Their neighbors all do it with their TVs. Their friends all do it! I am the only one who makes a warning to them. Everyone else they know does it. Who wouldn’t want a “smart” TV???
They don’t understand tech very well and they feel like what they see most people doing must be good. They are not thinking about the eroding effect on their whole society from normalizing dragnet surveillance and total privacy loss. It’s too abstract, and the allure of the shiny is too much.
don’t need any such “proof”
I’m gonna stop you there. I’m okay with no benefit of the doubt in terms of them being bad actors, but your worldview still has to be built at the bones and joints out of things known to be true otherwise there’s no stopping you from believing every conspiracy with no guard rails.
I don’t think there’s yet a specific smoking gun on this front, but I think once there is, then it is okay to presume it likely happening in other instances. But no smoking gun just yet.
you’re ignoring the important part - who that’s coming from.
analyzing a new shit-sandwich from the shit-sandwich-shop to determine “does this one have shit in it” is a valid academic endeavor, but hardly something you’d spend one second of your life pondering.
Puedo yo poner in foothold en tu casa?
the English would be un pie, and you can drop the yo :)
Oh, no the preocupes, el uso de foothold aquí fue una elección artística
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”.
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.
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:
I don’t trust my smartdevices farther than I can throw them. Hence, I run GrapheneOS.
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.
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.
You don’t need a microphone, any speaker can be a microphone.
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/154343/can-a-speaker-be-used-as-a-microphone
Wait. Government required in cars?
Yep 2027 head and eye tracking with llms that dictate if you’re tired.
Link?
One of many,
https://www.gadgetreview.com/federal-surveillance-tech-becomes-mandatory-in-new-cars-by-2027
"The tech involves infrared cameras mounted on steering columns or A-pillars, tracking eye movement, pupil dilation, and drowsiness patterns. Unlike the breathalyzer ignition interlocks from DUI convictions, these systems operate passively—no blowing required. Your car simply watches and decides whether you’re fit to drive.
If the AI determines you’re impaired (blood alcohol ≥0.08% or showing fatigue), it can prevent ignition startup or limit vehicle speed. Think Minority Report, but for your morning commute."
Not that new cars aren’t already tracked every moment and government controlled, they are. This is just a worse version of it.
And fuck me not even here did I see or any of my automotive adjacent family had mentioned or knew of this. Fuck thats grim
Samsung TV’s have an ai assistant: https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-redefines-ai-search-on-smart-tvs-with-a-smarter-bixby-voice-assistant
Samsung Ai assistant privacy policy: https://d264isyiyrfhr3.cloudfront.net/storage/tos/usa/2.1.3/1765237389944/eng/usa_eng_pp.html
Other Samsung Scandals if the above wasn’t enough: https://cybernews.com/privacy/samsung-settles-lawsuit-collecting-texans-tv-data/
My Samsung TV is not on the WiFi and I have AdGuard running network-wide because of shit like this.
https://www.howtogeek.com/you-can-still-buy-a-dumb-tv-but-should-you/ This article outlines the situation really well. your two options to not be spied on out of the box are to buy a terrible TV or to buy a commercial one. They dont make “dumb tvs” anymore. I wonder if theres a way to implement one’s own firmware n all that to turn a nice samsung into something more private.
I heard older versions of Android running on older smart TVs can be overwritten with Linux but once it’s updated past a certain 2023 threshold that option is closed.
The thing I find so funny about all of this is that people would rather believe that their phone is spying on them with the Mic that there is no proof of. Then what is more likely the truth you are not as unique as you think you are and they have so much data on you they have no reason to spy on what you say because they know you better then you know yourself (we lie to ourselves).
But yes it is easier for people to believe the mic is spying on them because thy can’t or won’t accept the more likely option.I don’t think it’s about people lying to themselves, it’s just some of the stuff it predicts seems oddly specific they don’t even consider it.
Found the sane comment. What we know for sure is that a combination of browser fingerprinting, de-anonymization (you can take anonymized hashed emails and compare them to hashes of known emails), and the third party broker marketplace that they can predict things with disturbing specificity like pregnancy, and obesity, to hidden patterns you might not even realize are in the data.
Plus there’s enough statistically informed shots in the dark that drive specific ads that, sometimes, they strike with perfect resonance. That’s enough to explain uncanny similarity. And the microphone listening thing is still plausible, but without stone cold proof it’s just a guess, and it overestimates how much data they need to be able to track you and sell you shit.
Apparently the lie I craft for myself is so good it went to medical school because I’ve been getting spam addressed to Dr Me asking about my oncology clinic for years
You could take extreme measures like Louis Rossmann has said he does to his phones.
He said he disassembles his phones and desolders and removes all the microphones. He said if he wants to make or receive a call, he’ll use his Bluetooth headset or earpiece.
I don’t see why the same can’t also be feasible for televisions either, aside from how difficult they can be to properly disassemble and service.
Snowden says he does the same thing.
Technically you can do the same for your TV since the mic is probably in the remote. But that’s not the TVs worst threat. The constant snapshots of your screen no matter what is displayed is the bigger deal. That is a software issue and not being disconnected without an entire custom firmware/OS approach.
Where do you get this information that the microphone is in the remote? That’s about the dumbest shit I’ve heard all year, unless your remote is now Bluetooth or something.
Infrared remotes are output light flashes only, and only work when you point them in the general direction of the television.
Now if I’m mistaken about the most modern ‘smart’ televisions, well just let me know, with reference. Because I’m an infrared hacker, and Hisense and Roku televisions still give to my infrared hacks, output signals only.
Umm, because my Hisense remote has the mic button and a little hole for the mic to collect sound. Which makes sense when a person wants to speak and be heard and have the mic a foot from their mouth vs 6 feet across the room. But I guess your TV is different and listens with infrared.
Umm, then we must have a pre-spyware HiSense/Roku, no microphones to be found here, none that I know of anyways.
Also, no WiFi connection either, so…
if he wants to make or receive a call, he’ll use his Bluetooth headset or earpiece.
Oh boy he should not look up how insecure Bluetooth is then
No electronic device is secure.
Eh, it entirely depends on your threat model. If you’re trying to protect against mass surveillance, it makes sense because you’ll only sometimes have a functional microphone powered on. If you’re trying to protect against a targeted attack against you specifically, then yeah Bluetooth had some problems. You have bigger issues at that point, though. I also think Bluetooth is probably more secure than you think.
If you’re worried about the guy 10 m away from you eavesdropping, BT is not a great option. If you’re worried about the hackers on the other side of the planet, BT should be fine.
I mean graphene would be easier for phones.
Theoretically if you never hook a smart TV to the net it shouldn’t be able to spy. I’m sure they do tho
Theoretically if you never hook a smart TV to the net it shouldn’t be able to spy.
I think you are right (today!), but look what happens with cars… the car connects to a wireless network without asking you, to send back telemetry. The cost of doing that is coming down all the time, and there is a big juicy profit stream just waiting to be harvested. I will not be surprised if we see TVs do this eventually, like cars do already.
They could also be designed to simply refuse to function if they can’t connect. I didn’t hear about any like this so far, but it feels like a matter of time. Enshittification comes for everything.
Graphene is still only for Pixel phones right now isn’t it? I heard something about them working to expand out to other model phones eventually, wonder how that’s going and how many more devices it’ll eventually support? 🤔
They announced last week their partnership is with Motorola. I’ll keep using my pixel and see what they roll out and let them work the bugs out of it for a bit first.
Only pixel yes and google is working hard to kill it.
What sending postcards in the mail. Yah loran wan sure but who actually has that in density enough.
It’s still never been proven despite countless very smart people looking for this exact behaviour for well over a decade now. The first person to actually prove this whole mass spying via microphone to sell ads thing is actually happening, would be world-famous overnight.
For instance on an android phone, it’s not really possible for an app to do something that a determined enough security researcher couldn’t ultimately detect if they were looking for it. When you can build your own version of the operating system and decompile the application easily, there’s not really any other places to hide that won’t give something away.
If you feel like your phone is acting off of a conversation you had without interacting with it, it’s nearly always one of these three:
- The vast majority of people are super predictable most of the time.
- You are not accounting for other people in the conversation, who may well have just googled the thing. These companies know who you spend time with, they don’t need a microphone for that.
- Baader meinhof phenomenon
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve thought surely something fishy was going on plenty of times, but the reality is, until someone can actually prove it (which is entirely possible to do if it’s happening), it’s gotta just be the above. We’re being tracked a crazy amount, but it’s not passively by microphones in our pockets
Note: none of this applies if you’re actually being specifically individually targeted (i.e. by a hostile government). All bets are off in that instance
Oh Baader Meinhof phenomenon, I’ve been seeing that everywhere recently!
The first person to actually prove this whole mass spying via microphone to sell ads thing is actually happening, would be world-famous overnight.
The first person that proves that Google, Microsoft, Amazon or Meta are directly doing it, using their hardware vendors privilege - would be famous overnight.
But that won’t happen, because they don’t have to.
(Okay, it might still happen with Meta. I’m not sure those jackasses have any self respect.)
In general, the big vendors don’t need to listen to anyone’s microphone, because the average user installs a free flappy bird clone that runs the microphone continuously, and then sells that to absolutely every single limited liability corporation, coffee shop, or data broker - to correlate for advertising.
Saying “they’re not using the microphone” is splitting hairs to death.
Yes, a few of the biggest players can’t be arsed to directly use the microphone.
Instead they buy the result of malware microphone use indirectly from the malware pushers who do absolutely use the microphone.
Absolutely every tech company, employer and three letter agency is buying the content of your voice recordings through a form of Privacy Washing. They didn’t collect it themselves, and they didn’t look to closely at how it was collected, so it’s okay, right?
For the average user, whose kid installed some stupid little free games, yes, someone is almost certainly “listening” right now, and all the time.
But they’re not using it to decide who to arrest, who to deport, or who to hire or fire (for saying “union”), or whether you really need the salary you requested…unless they are.
And yes, finding out some of that would absolutely make the news, but those are harder to find out, and could go for decades undiscovered.
Yeah, but that malware flappy bird clone does need to ask for the microphone permission, and the clueless user does need to click agree, that yes they want Free Flappy Bird 100% Legit Pro to have access to their microphone. Yes it happens. But that’s not what people mean they say that you should use a flip phone and get the battery out when you are not using it otherwise it’s listening to you. No it’s not listening to you unless you explicitly gave an app permission to listen to you.
No it’s not listening to you unless you explicitly gave an app permission to listen to you.
Is worth highlighting. Good point.
Anecdotal, but I was on a Boy Scout trip as a chaperone where us parents were talking to each other in person about where we’d take our first break en route to the campsite. We decided on a Burger King at one of the towns along the route (it being a small town, the only one there). My phone was in my pocket at the time, powered on but black screen idle.
I got back into my car and pulled up Google Maps. As I typed in the words Burger King, it auto completed with the one we were just talking about that was half a state away in that town. It didn’t pull up the closest one to me, which I would have expected it to do.
Freaked me out.
That one could be attributed to shitty programming. Still.
Then explain to me why nobody has ever proven the phone thing. But they have proven the TV thing and other forms of tracking. Every one is in on the phone industry so they keep it hush. I mean it wouldn’t even be that hard to do. Airplane mode and WiFi. Or fake cell tower and faraday box.
