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Comment by refulgentis | Hacker News Reader

Context: Furbys were the toy for a year or two, and were actively marketed as learning from speech, had an active mic, and did adjust their speech based on what they heard, "learning" to speak English from Furbish. [^1]

It's not so different from the fundamental fear of Alexa/Assistant/microphones that's fairly well diffused now.

Except the Furby actively claimed to learn how to speak based on your speech, and had a built-in feedback loop to make it appear as such.

In retrospect it looks like it more was "shift mix towards English based on how much you've heard" than "add words you heard to your speech patterns"

[^1]: https://www.listenandlearn.org/blog/no-you-cant-teach-your-f...

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Of course some people really wanted to teach it to say new things, and figured out how to swap out the audio files (among other modifications): https://github.com/Jeija/bluefluff

Fun fact: If you mess up and need to reset the furby, the procedure is to turn it upside down and hold down the tongue while pulling the tail for ten seconds.

Instructions unclear. Toddler still not speaking clearly, but appears upset.

Repeat until it works, or discard and produce another.

> What I have achieved so far

> • Understand large parts of Furby's BLE communication protocol

> • Open a secret debug menu in Furby's LCD eyes

Then I looked at the project logo again and it spooked me out

Note that this works for Furby Connect, original Furby had IrDA only.

Many voice assistants do record your voice and send those recordings elsewhere:

e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html%3FnodeI...

Absolutely.

Is there a portion of my comment that indicated otherwise? I can still edit it for clarity (I thought that wasn't allowed after a reply occurred)

I'm not arguing with you, just adding to the conversation. While the Furby was feared to be recording, but actually wasn't, voice assistants can be a real concern in that they actually do.

One of these fears is rational and based on things people know are in fact taking place. The other one is isn't, so drawing the parallel seems iffy. Maybe it's a little closer to the fear your phone is listening to you and that's how you get eerily targeted ads when browsing the web.

What makes the two fears fundamentally different?

One is the fear of the possible consequences of something you know - with a voice assistant, you know you are being recorded and the recordings are sent somewhere. 'Is furby spying on me' is a vague suspicion but it's not (for most people with the fear) based on any known facts about the furby.

I don't think you read my comment fully, the Furby thing was real, based on known facts, that were trumpeted by the manufacturer.

The idea the Furby was "[not] real" persisting after reading the comment, is probably why it seemed like I was saying the voice assistants don't record voice.

I read the comment and explained why I don't think it's the fear of the same thing. Maybe you didn't read my comment fully!

A Furby didn't have the capacity to meaningfully spy on you. You could be afraid that it actually does but it didn't. A voice assistant is already, in a sense, actually spying on you and you know that - the manufacturer tells you upfront. These aren't the same kind of fear.

The Furby manufacturer told you upfront: - it listened all the time - it learned to speak, word by word, via your speech

The first comment, 10 comments up, was specifically written to provide that context: the Furby manufacturer was up front about spying.

Working with you, and steel-manning your contributions:

- You're trying to explain a distinction you see between local data processing and remote data processing. i.e. a microphone in a room recording you isn't spying, but a microphone with a data connection is "in a sense, actually spying" on you "meaningfully".

- example: "the Furby didn't relay audio data anywhere other than the Furby, and I'd like to point out the voice assistant does - your comment intends to highlight the Furby listened, but it only listened locally. Mentioning voice assistants and using them in an analogy may give a reader the understanding voice assistants process data locally, like Furbys"

Unknowns are inconsistent with assurance. It’s rational to reject unknowns if you prefer assurance.

If you’re the NSA and you need your security assured, you’ll absolutely balk at having novel machines with recording equipment and unknown possibilities placed around your office.

Unknowns translate to unknown consequences. For a risk-averse agent, I don’t see a meaningful difference between the unknown consequences of technology you understand and unknown consequences of technology you don’t. Sometimes understanding a technology means the unknown consequences can be bounded more precisely, and you might be okay with those bounds once you have them, but that’s not always true.

The Furby came out in 1998. Less than 50% of US homes even owned a computer at the time, let alone had Internet access (and that was usually dialup if they did). Cellular networks were largely voice-only and quite expensive. In short: even if Furbies had some way to record data (which they didn't), there would have been no practical way for them to exfiltrate it.

> there would have been no practical way for them to exfiltrate it.

Pick it up and carry it? It's not like analog tape recorders are permitted in these places either. All outside recording devices are banned. See the link in the now top-comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39107224

Practicality has never been an issue for spies. Look at the lengths the Soviets went to for surveillance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

the craziest thing about this is:

> The Thing was designed by Soviet Russian inventor Leon Theremin,[7] best known for his invention of the theremin, an electronic musical instrument.

Huh. Makes sense actually, both are induction-at-distance audio devices.

On the other hand,

Ooh, looks like this Furby has learned the English words "new", "nuclear", "facility" and "Ohio"!

That confirms what I remember from that time - kids were convinced you could teach it to say things, but I never saw any of them succeed. I think a big toy company would be somewhat averse to having their flagship product spew racial slurs.

Slippery marketing plays a big part in this, so I can't blame kids for thinking that. I remember the commercials for these toys and there was an implication that dialogue was possible (specifically remember a commercial where kids are introducing themselves to a Furby and the Furby responds in kind).

To look at another example of how dishonest marketing tends to be aimed at kids, Kevin McCallister had a Talkboy in Home Alone 2 that, for purposes of the film, had absolutely insane fidelity when it came to recording a playback. As someone who actually owns one (I collect and repair old electronic toys and computers as a hobby), I can tell you that the film and marketing definitely oversold the devices capabilities. The playback in particular is really quite awful, and this assessment comes from a fully restored device.

Another interesting point in your comment reminds me of a parrot my grandma had when I was young. Not a visit to Grandma's would go by without little me trying to secretly teach it cuss words while nobody else was in the room. What a time!

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