Are Google earwigging?

BloodEagle · July 2019

boogieman said:

If the phone/Alexa/Siri whatever responds immediately when you say “hey Alexa” doesn’t that imply that the microphone is on all the time?

Precisely. Yes, they are doing it - not paranoia, hearsay or conjecture, it is absolute fact. As stated the major players always refuse to deny it is happening, but no one seems that bothered by it anyway, or maybe are so used to social media etc it doesnt seem at all weird. How much difference it makes when your entire life is already floating around in cyberspace is debatable.

mrleon83 · July 2019

Yes, they are listening, if you want to test this, for a day talk about something you have no interest in , for instance (if you don't have a dog) - dog food, talk about taking the dog to the vets etc - can almost guarantee you'll get dog related adverts .. .it's mental

ESBlonde · July 2019

Remember that you are the ultimate controller of your data. If it suits your convenience to allow others that privilage, then be ready for the consequences.

I have strict rules I apply to my online activities. I'm certain they are not foolproof, and it's likely quite a bit is known about the real me by big brother.

There is a lot on convenience to online shopping, price comparison and next day nome delivery. Giving your email address to a bricks n' morter store is still a no from me, guarantee be buggered.

BigMonka · July 2019

prowla said:

I have had ads for things I've been discussing, or strangely similar to lookups.

One way to test it is to do a search for (or mention) a medical condition and see what ads/spam you start getting.

I heard of a couple spending a week pretending that they had a pet cat whenever talking to each other (but only spoken, no online searching), and by the end of the week they were getting adverts for lots of cat-related stuff that they'd never had before

digitalscream · July 2019

darthed1981 said:

VimFuego said:

well, I for one welcome our new algorithm overlords.

If Terminator movies weren't all shit these days, then they would change the story to be about the AI taking control via steady manipulation of people, putting it's shills (or even terminators) into power, and essentially conquering the world a bit at a time with no need for "judgement day".

Actually far better to make that an original story than another terminator film, there are more bad ones than good ones now.

That's essentially only a slight tweak to Terminator 3's story

Kilgore · July 2019

If you keep repeating Dean flying V, Dean flying V. You get ads for trademark lawyers.

Matt_McG · July 2019

Has happened to me. I visited a friend a month or two back. His daughter brought out her new harmonica and played it for us. We chatted about it for a few minutes.

Next day, Harmonica ads.

People jump through amazing cognitive hoops to try to rationalise it away. The ads were directly correlated with a conversation.

Kittyfrisk · July 2019

I never had a FaceBook, Twitter account etc. as I view them as time wasting data suckers.
WhatsApp, this place & a couple of motorbike forums are as close as I get to so called Social Media, but its a trade off.

My phones all have location services off unless rarely needed for GPS navigating & all iPhone/Android apps have microphone access modified & limited.
All phone voice activated functions are disabled & there are no 'Digital Assistant' type device in the house, as I simply do not want or need the 'functionality'.

I'm aware of how this might read, but rampant paranoia has not yet set in & I don't have a franchise in a tinfoil hat company

Or, have a look here for some interesting stuff

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies
https://www.fastcompany.com/40567706/heres-how-to-see-the-data-that-tech-giants-have-about-you%20

* Also, if you are bothered, all browsers allow you to get rid of your browsing/search history, even 'for all time' as Chrome apocryphally states

Edit: https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/159547/microsoft-word-censorship#latest
Still think 'they' aren't listening

crunchman · July 2019

Just found this:

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/stop-google-android-listening/

Kittyfrisk · July 2019

^ I like the phrase ' ...constantly recording everything a device hears would result in enormous amounts of useless data.'
That is exactly what all FaceBook & similar data is

Sassafras · July 2019

When I got Alexa I played my guitar in the same room. The next day I got loads of adverts for drums.

darthed1981 · July 2019

digitalscream said:

darthed1981 said:

VimFuego said:

well, I for one welcome our new algorithm overlords.

If Terminator movies weren't all shit these days, then they would change the story to be about the AI taking control via steady manipulation of people, putting it's shills (or even terminators) into power, and essentially conquering the world a bit at a time with no need for "judgement day".

Actually far better to make that an original story than another terminator film, there are more bad ones than good ones now.

That's essentially only a slight tweak to Terminator 3's story

Certainly I remember thinking when I first watched that "that's bollocks, Skynet would be everywhere in software via the internet" and when that turned out to be the twist at the end, being quite impressed!

But I was thinking something a bit more topical, we have some relatively sinister forces manipulating us to certain ends currently, which can be traced back tediously to a mixture of well-funded pressure groups and Russia... would be a lot more fun if it went back to an AI, fed with all the knowledge harvested from google and social media.

roberty · July 2019

I've had follow requests on Instagram from businesses after keywords were used in WhatsApp. Was probably a coincidence but quite spooky given Facebook own both platforms

jonnyburgo · July 2019

I’m not saying yay or nay to the OPs question but years ago I was singing ballroom blitz in my head and then later the same day it was on the telly on an old TOTP. So yeah.

digitalscream · July 2019

Matt_McG said:

Has happened to me. I visited a friend a month or two back. His daughter brought out her new harmonica and played it for us. We chatted about it for a few minutes.

Next day, Harmonica ads.

People jump through amazing cognitive hoops to try to rationalise it away. The ads were directly correlated with a conversation.

Except...if you know how machine-learning systems work, there are far more likely explanations which seem complex to humans, but are counter-intuitively trivial for the kind of system that's at play here.

All these systems do is make links between data and subjects (ie people). So...

Subject A spends some time researching harmonicas, harmonica music etc.
Subject B visits subject A (your phone logging in to their wi-fi, for example, and using the same IP address - or simply logs GPS activity at the same place for a while)
Subject B might be interested in similar things to subject A.
Link subjects A and B.
Show subject B some harmonica ads that would be appropriate to subject A, and see if they click on them (as a link test).
Subject A doesn't click the ads, consider the link a failure. Don't show harmonica ads any more.

Add in the possibility that other subjects (C, D, E etc) might've visited and thought, "I might get a harmonica, looks cool..." and immediately logged searches for them, and there's an even stronger link that the model will try to explore.

This is not only trivial for these machine-learning models, it's precisely what they're designed to do.

crunchman · July 2019

digitalscream said:

Matt_McG said:

Has happened to me. I visited a friend a month or two back. His daughter brought out her new harmonica and played it for us. We chatted about it for a few minutes.

Next day, Harmonica ads.

People jump through amazing cognitive hoops to try to rationalise it away. The ads were directly correlated with a conversation.

Except...if you know how machine-learning systems work, there are far more likely explanations which seem complex to humans, but are counter-intuitively trivial for the kind of system that's at play here.

All these systems do is make links between data and subjects (ie people). So...

Subject A spends some time researching harmonicas, harmonica music etc.
Subject B visits subject A (your phone logging in to their wi-fi, for example, and using the same IP address - or simply logs GPS activity at the same place for a while)
Subject B might be interested in similar things to subject A.
Link subjects A and B.
Show subject B some harmonica ads that would be appropriate to subject A, and see if they click on them (as a link test).
Subject A doesn't click the ads, consider the link a failure. Don't show harmonica ads any more.

Add in the possibility that other subjects (C, D, E etc) might've visited and thought, "I might get a harmonica, looks cool..." and immediately logged searches for them, and there's an even stronger link that the model will try to explore.

This is not only trivial for these machine-learning models, it's precisely what they're designed to do.

Why does anyone leave GPS on by default? Even if you don't mind Big Brother knowing where you are, it eats battery.

I only enable it when I need the Satnav.

I know I can probably be tracked through other means but there is no point making it easier for them - especially when it eats battery.

darthed1981 · July 2019

crunchman said:

Why does anyone leave GPS on by default? Even if you don't mind Big Brother knowing where you are, it eats battery.

I only enable it when I need the Satnav.

I know I can probably be tracked through other means but there is no point making it easier for them - especially when it eats battery.

As you say, doesn't matter anyhow, other means.

Principally IP addresses, you log onto public wi-fi, or a friend's wifi, then you have published your location to the world.

Plus the whole point of this is they provide useful services in return for data, not for "free" as is the popular perception. Google maps is probably the finest navigation tool on the planet, but the quid pro quo is, they remember where you have been...

Snags · July 2019

darthed1981 said:

As you say, doesn't matter anyhow, other means.

Principally IP addresses, you log onto public wi-fi, or a friend's wifi, then you have published your location to the world.

Hrm. Hrrmmmmm. HRRRRMMMMMM!!

That's not strictly true, is it Ed (and I know you know this). Publicly accessible geographic information about a specific public IP address is often wildly inaccurate due to how blocks are registered, re-sold, sub-let and so on amongst ISPs. Generally speaking you're only really revealing the device's location to the ISP, with a small chance it might be broadly accurate on a general search if you then log into a service that logs the accessing public IP and bothers do such a search.

And of course if you fire up a VPN to somewhere else, then all bets are off (unless you can't trust your VPN provider).

It really pisses me off the lazy cop show tech stuff about "I've got his IP, I'm sending you the location now, it's the third bedroom down the corridor on the 7th floor when you get out of the elevators at the right-hand end of the building" because it's such total and utter bollocks.

crunchman · July 2019

darthed1981 said:

Google maps is probably the finest navigation tool on the planet, but the quid pro quo is, they remember where you have been...

Sort of.

I accidentally clicked on the Maps icon a couple of days ago. It was still showing the map of where I was 2 weeks ago, which was the last time I used the app for Satnav.

Depending on your WiFI settings, they will have some ability to track you without your GPS on.

darthed1981 · July 2019

Snags said:

darthed1981 said:

As you say, doesn't matter anyhow, other means.

Principally IP addresses, you log onto public wi-fi, or a friend's wifi, then you have published your location to the world.

Hrm. Hrrmmmmm. HRRRRMMMMMM!!

That's not strictly true, is it Ed (and I know you know this). Publicly accessible geographic information about a specific public IP address is often wildly inaccurate due to how blocks are registered, re-sold, sub-let and so on amongst ISPs. Generally speaking you're only really revealing the device's location to the ISP, with a small chance it might be broadly accurate on a general search if you then log into a service that logs the accessing public IP and bothers do such a search.

And of course if you fire up a VPN to somewhere else, then all bets are off (unless you can't trust your VPN provider).

It really pisses me off the lazy cop show tech stuff about "I've got his IP, I'm sending you the location now, it's the third bedroom down the corridor on the 7th floor when you get out of the elevators at the right-hand end of the building" because it's such total and utter bollocks.

Yes sorry @snags I meant more in the context of what Lee said about the algorithms co-locating you with person B.

So basically I didn't mean they have geolocated you from you ip, but by sharing a public IP, they have connected the two people at the same point in time (where person A might have been buying a blow up Mary Spender doll or whatever, and therefore for some reason thinks person B might want one as well).

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Are Google earwigging?

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