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Comment by greggman2 | Hacker News Reader

I hate not having privacy but I don't understand singling Google out here. Siri is listening (both on phones and on Apple' homepod), Alexa is listening, Cortana is listening, ...

I actually am less worried about those (since I turn them off) than I do about Netflix/Amazon knowing every movie I watch. Amazon knowing every product I order. My Credit Card and Bank company knowing every business I transact with. My Mac and PC spying on what I do with them (i think that's more Windows than Mac). My PC/iPhone/Android/Rift knowing every app I run. My ISP knowing all the websites I visit or DNS lookups I make etc... I could go on and on but I don't see how Google sticks out here.

It's a much bigger problem.

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I don't see anything in the parent comment that says this is a Google-only issue.

Also, the Netflix and Amazon examples don't seem to be in the same category, to me. Every time you interact with Netflix and Amazon, you are doing so deliberately. You are choosing exactly what to give them. You can easily pick another service.

Always-on listening devices, on the other hand, are taking data that you did not choose to give them, and other people's data as well. That's the point in the headline of this article. I would never need to tell guests "If you order something from Amazon, they'll know you ordered it," but apparently I might need to tell them to watch their mouths in my house. There's a big difference.

> Every time you interact with ... Amazon, you are doing so deliberately.

Don't forget that Echo devices are Amazon's always-on listening devices.

Yes, sure, but that wasn't what the comment I was replying to was talking about... This is about the difference between always-on listeners, including Echo, and stores where you buy things.

Echo's listen for their wake word, which is done on device and offline. It detects the wake word, and then connects to the internet. It is not actively transmitting in the background.

If you have proof of echo devices not doing this, you need to yield a source. Wireshark logs, anything.

> If you have proof of echo devices not doing this, you need to yield a source. Wireshark logs, anything.

I suspect most of these comments are from people who don't own, haver never used, let alone sniffed traffic from those devices.

They conveniently ignore all the networks (including my own) which will throw a fit if these devices start sending unusual traffic.

I'll worry the day they embed a cellular modem.

Amazon is the only one of the GAFAMs that it's not practical to boycott : boycotting Amazon Web Services breaks a large part of the Web.

Does AWS perform end user tracking?

We don't know for sure.

May I say that I love your use of GAFAM. I always thought FAANG was silly and Netflix was not like the others and was included just to make a good acronym

I agree with the company choices, but the spelling of the acronym worries me that it will be read or intended by some as "gay fam". Particularly since the usage as a generic insult makes semantic sense for disparaging a group of closely related companies...

(I guess it's not the only slur it has to avoid with that letter combination though.)

FAANG for top pay, GAFAM for global dominance?

If I'm not mistaken FAANG is more about the Silicon Valley (and the people that might be interested in living/working there). Meanwhile GAFAM is more from the point of view of the users, also Netflix#, as a non-US online presence is pretty new, and let's face it, is only about a specific kind of entertainment - one might then add Valve/Steam as well !

It does bother me when politicians say GAFA and leave out Microsoft (but not Apple??)

#Netflix did play an important part in adding DRM to the Web specifications...

Trying to boycott any service that uses reCAPTCHA is pretty impractical, as well. Lots of stuff also uses the Google hosted AJAX libraries.

Right. I tend to forget about it because for the most part you only get reCAPTCHaed when creating a new account...

I think we need to be looking at this from the side of biometrics. There are already privacy laws in some states which protect that kind of information about individuals. It's scary to know that if you collect a lot of what may seem like harmless information about an individual in one place, and analyze it through an algorithm or AI, then you're able to accurately predict a lot of extremely intimate details about a person. Just look at the classic example of Target predicting a teen's pregnancy before she even knew it herself, just by observing her buying habits[1].

Imagine if AI advanced to the point where a human brain could be simulated in a computer. If you collected enough data on a person, you could create a virtual clone with their exact same beliefs, opinions, intelligence, etc. Just imagine how easy it would be to exploit someone if you could simulate how they'd respond to anything with perfect accuracy. You could literally enslave people.

And while that's currently scifi, the amount of money companies like Google and Facebook are pumping into AI research means we could land somewhere pretty close to that eventually. If we're still not protecting peoples' data by then, we're all fucked.

[1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...

Just look at the classic example of Target predicting a teen's pregnancy before she even knew it herself

Might wanna read that again, it’s a story of clever and spooky observation but not that clever.

y, I agree it's not just Google.

I think allowing any company or government having an open mic/'smart' speaker, essentially bugging your own home/business is just a bad idea.

"I actually am less worried about those (since I turn them off)" - are you sure they are off, had to ask.

I'm not as worried about Netflix/Amazon knowing every movie I watch, product I order or am interested in.

I'm more worried about private conversations and communications being monitored as it applies to freedom of ideas, diverse political movements, freedom to vote and even freedom of religion.

Nest/Google Home devices have a hardware mute button. They are off when they are off.

yeah, I believe the hardware mute button does mute the mic.

That was more of a joke, are you sure they are off?

I'm sure someone has or is testing that the hardware mute button works.

I'm not against Nest/Google. I was always sporting Google T-Shirts and hats back in the day, telling everyone to use it and recommending their products.

I'm just not sure on this product.

> Nest/Google Home devices have a hardware mute button. They are off when they are off.

Can you cite where Google says that the mute switch is a hardware kill switch for the mics? I've only read where they say that it doesn't listen but never that it physically disables the mics which means it's done in software and the device could be "muted" and still able to listen.

Unless the mute switch is a physical disconnect for the microphones then it's no different than the Alexa's mute button.

And don't forget Google's Nest Secure contains/ed undisclosed microphones and not physical mute button and Google wanted you to trust that it is/was disabled.

Google it you lazy fuck, yes they repeatedly say it's a hardware disconnect

Abusing HN like this will eventually get your main account banned as well, so please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

What terms do I use to find these magical results?

If I google "Google Nest Home Mute Hardware disconnect" for example, none of the results on the first page state it is a hardware disconnect.

The support.google.com links all use vague language that never explicitly says there's a hardware disconnect. Just that the mute switch causes the microphones to be disabled.

Interestingly the last result on first page is this: https://store.google.com/magazine/google_nest_privacy#ada2d2...

And it's claims are known to be false.

> Your device will only send audio to Google if we detect that you or someone in your home is interacting with your Assistant

So I'm genuinely curious where all this information about the mute switch being a physical disconnect for the mics exists.

There's a world of difference between a company or government doing that.

I'm not clear on this - Is Siri or Google listening for anything other than Hey Siri or OK Google?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21282405

Officially, no, but it's not uncommon for it to misinterpret another word as the wakeword and then capture and send off 30 seconds or more of audio that was never intended for it.

It can't selectively listen. It processes all audio input for those key words. Once it hears the keyword, it then sends a recording of what you say next to a server.

This is not accurate. At least on the Google home the "wake word" is baked into the hardware and no audio gets through that piece of hardware until the wake word is detected.

Obviously there can be defects, but Google is not getting 100% of the audio from your home.

I highly doubt the 'wake word' is embedded in devices on a hardware level rather than software. That sounds like a terrible idea on multiple levels.

You are using 'Google' in a vague way which may be why you are confused about what my comment meant. The Google device gets 100% of audio it hears, because it can't magically hear a 'wake word' without listening to all audio. It only sends audio to a Google server after the wake word.

Aren’t “OK Google, hey Siri, hey Alexa” all processed/recognized locally? Otherwise, it would be a horrible idea to send EVERYTHING off to the internet for processing. Not even concerning privacy issues, it would just be unworkable that way.

(This is at least true for the iPhone, Hey Siri is recognized locally before anything is sent off to the net)

Re reading your comment, I guess you mean: the sound processing goes through the local microphone no matter what, even if the audio is only forwarded on if they lead with certain keywords, right? In other words, just like how every other voice activated system has to work. The privacy implications are that the equipment could be compromised to actually put the recording in longer term storage, like a bug or something.

There’s a ton of accidental triggers. Digging through my Alexa history was eye opening. I got the idea to go looking from this article: https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/amazon-alexa-made-an-acc...

Yes, that's exactly what I meant.

regarding Siri, I think the general assumption is that the phone is triggered by hearing 'Siri' to start recording. I doubt very much that people think their phone is always recording everything and that they are therefore ok with being recorded when not using siri.

Here is a very interesting paper describing the on-device deep neural network that waits for "hey siri" to be uttered (2017):

https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/10/01/hey-siri.html

>Siri is listening (both on phones and on Apple' homepod), Alexa is listening, Cortana is listening, ...

I've disabled Siri and Cortana to the best of my ability (and I don't own any Amazon devices with a microphone). Of course I can't actually be sure that that means that they're really not listening, but it's absurd to imply that just because one owns a smart phone they must give up all hope of privacy.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that smartphone ownership means you give up all hope of privacy.

You are trusting that your efforts to disable Siri and Cortana have actually resulted in them being disabled, and that Apple and Microsoft aren't doing nefarious things to keep them enabled anyway. If you trust that, I don't think it's a stretch to trust that Apple and MS would avoid doing nefarious things with a HomePod or [whatever MS's analogous device might be]. You seem to not want to have anything around that can record you without your express permission, so sure, I get why you don't have a HomePod.

I had an Amazon Echo for a while, but decided I didn't trust Amazon, and exchanged it for a Google Home. I have an Android phone with Google Assistant enabled, and I don't see the privacy implications as materially different between the two.

"singling Google out here" because TFA is about Google.

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