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Comment by Koshcheiushko | Hacker News Reader

I've one question: I've used android phone (realme, which is chinese). And i remember that whenever we used to discuss somethings among our friends, i started used to get ads realated to that on my laptop, phone within atmost a hour.

So, was realme transcribing all conversations and uploading it? Can someone answer?

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Wired wrote an article in 2017 [1] on whether it's possible/probable to do that. Technology has evolved a lot since then, so it's a lot more feasible, but the article describes how far metadata alone can go.

For example, let's say an ad network knows your and your friends' location, and knows you've met because you've been close together frequently, or are using the same wifi network. You talk about perfumes, then later one of them looks up perfumes on their phone. Google would usually have access to this much metadata, and will likely serve you perfume ads because of your friend who later looked it up.

This doesn't directly answer your question though. The answer would be - it's possible, but a lot is possible without that.

[1] https://archive.is/OyuUO

I don't know, but I suspect the battery drain would be substantial. I wonder if there is a different explanation: maybe one of your friends searched for information on the topic while you were on the same hotspot/in the same location and that (along with existing relationship graphs?) allowed them to target you? That's how I'd do it, I think.

There is a real possibility that either something you saw triggered the conversation and/or that you remember the ad because you spoke about it. It’s enough to linger on an ad for the platform to recognize your interest and serve you more ads like it.

It's technically possible but very unlikely. Running TTS continuously is a big battery drain and slows down the rest of the phone while you're using it. Google has a live TTS service for hearing impaired which I've run for a while to test it, and even with it practically built into the OS it's sucking up battery like you'd expect it to.

It's more likely that this is all due to external forces. Having your device on the same network, in close enough proximity to detect each other, for instance, combined with one of your friends having Googled the stuff you were talking about.

Or just basic data collection. There's the classic story about how supermarkets know you're pregnant before you do, just based on the groceries you buy (no, not pregnancy tests). Ad networks buy and collect a humongous amount of information about everyone and serve ultra specific targeted ads based on nothing more than pattern matching based on what the rest of humanity is doing.

It's impossible to rule out that the thing did run a 24/7 TTS service, but I think the depressing fact that ad networks don't need to listen to our conversations to know what we're talking about is more probable.

You don't need monitoring for that to work. Just something like "Hey, Google". The device knows a bunch of keywords and when it hears them it's bingo. As long as your laptop and phone are logged into the same local network with the same public IP they'll get the same ads.

And your phone most likely already listens all the time to catch an "Hey, Google" (or something similar).

I think it's metadata. Whenever you visit a website, there are many things that track you: 1. The website itself is sending your activities to ads platforms, with your hashed email address and phone number if you're signed in. It does not allow ads platform to reach you directly but email address hash is pretty pinpoint. Everyone hash the same way so it's easy for ads platform to track you across the internet. 2. The website loads trackers which monitor your activities across different websites.

That means if you search for something, not even clicking on it, it's possible for ads network to connect your search topic with your spouse.

No phone has ever been caught doing that. But TVs and phones have been caught collaborating. What brand is your TV?

Good read: https://www.amitracked.com/learn/is-my-phone-listening-to-me

Absolutely not a good read. Informative, but it tortures the language, as is usual for slop.

I think, sadly, I'm becoming immune to slop because I (till now) believed I'm good at reading through LLM junk and that read quite normally to me. How annoying. My apologies.

I think you hit the nail on the head! Oh, sorry...

But yeah, lots easier to skim slop with practice. Finally I noticed how much there is.

I agree with the conclusion, but the whole article is obviously AI slop.

I think the disappointing reality is that those ad networks have enough access to the content of your attention (and therefore what you talk to your friends about) that the technical cost and risk of surreptitious audio monitoring just isn't necessary.

People always dismiss this as FUD but it's been happening to me more than ever. I know in many cases it is more likely that firms are acquiring purchase histories and location data but that doesn't explain other incidents.

For example, last week I was complaining to my spouse about shoulder pain and how I was afraid I may need another surgery. YouTube has suddenly starting flooding my feed with videos about "shoulder exercises to avoid surgery." I hadn't searched any of those terms, purchased anything or visited an orthopedic, so I don't know what else could possibly explain it.

The alternative explanation is that your spouse searched up something related to your situation.

That’s the next possibility to eliminate.

I am positive I get ads based on the interests of other people the wifi where I live.

I asked and, as expected, they didn't search anything of the sort.

It could have been something as simple as lingering on some kind of content related to physical therapy on a social media feed before scrolling past it, or maybe your wife googled it and it got correlated via network?

I asked my husband and he didn't google anything relating to these terms.

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