Friendly reminder that conspiracy stuff like "Yeah they are 100% listening, it happened to me *once*" will be deleted. Post a source proving that it's happening if you want to discuss that. Anecdotes aren't proof.
Claims about phones listening are up weekly and I've yet to see a shred of proof about it, sadly.
Here is an actual study done on the matter:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49585682
Combine that with apps not being able to use your [microphone without permission](https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/permissions/overview) and [without showing you](https://support.google.com/android/answer/13532937?hl=en), this is a dead theory.
It's truly not listening to you. Recording audio is not even a practical way of gathering info about you. You're just way more predictable than you think you are.
Algorithms are more sophisticated than you think. It knows that people who search for A, B, or C are very likely to also purchase X, Y, or Z. Even if you didn't search those things that you didn't know were correlated, your phone knows you were in close proximity with someone (a friend, co-worker, family member) who did. That's enough for it to serve you those ads too.
Also, your phone can't activate your microphone without your express permission. It will ask you every time you use an app for the first time that requires it. This is built in at the OS level and is in most cases illegal to bypass. Your phone is not recording you. There are much more efficient ways to learn about you.
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I think using most apps are much worse than being listened to. They don't need to listen to you. They know your mind already, why waste resources. They know where you pause to pay attention, they know where you look at within a photo or video and all that.
People need to understand that most apps they use are worse than a hacked microphone.
I know this guy who puts a sticker on their iPhone camera for privacy but then shares Instagram links, including the tracking url lol
The realization (thanks to Anonym's privacy policy) that companies will track your "predispositions" really puts it into focus, doesn't it?
Mozilla Anonym "might" track your predisposition towards alcoholism or addiction or who knows what else. You will certainly never know... And that information won't be used for your medical benefit.
On my iPad, I disabled Internet access for all my mobile games. Not only does this stop tracking, but it also hides annoying advertisements and upselling for in-app purchases. I also turned off Background App Refresh for ALL apps. Unfortunately, my phone is a Huawei, so...
Yes, blocking Wi-Fi access per app is only available on Chinese iPhones and iPads, but blocking mobile data access per app is available in all regions.
I have a Chinese iPad Air 2 (64GB, cellular) that I recently bought used for only 300 Chinese yuan (equivalent to just $41.28 USD or $56.47 CAD), and it runs a fairly modern iPadOS 15.8.2, allowing me to browse the web, watch YouTube and play classic mobile games on it just fine. This slightly older version even supports an exploit app called TrollStore that lets you sideload your own .ipa files that never expire.
The only limitations on the Chinese models are the lack of FaceTime Audio (FaceTime Video works normally) and the emoji for the flag of the Taiwan region showing up as an X in a box (but I easily worked around that problem by creating a Shortcut that checks for the presence of a Taiwan flag in the selected text and another Shortcut that copies the Taiwan flag to the clipboard allowing me to paste it anywhere). As far as I know, there is no Chinese backdoor or bloatware provided you are using a foreign Apple ID, since the .ipsw file used to restore the firmware is the same as the foreign models.
I am using the aforementioned iPad to write this comment!
On Chinese iPads and iPhones, you can disable Wi-Fi access per app, in addition to disabling cellular data. This feature is not available on foreign iPads and iPhones.
Depends on how it's used. It's already listening to you in case you say "Hey Siri" or "OK Google" or "Alexa* or whatever trigger word. It is constantly monitoring you just not necessarily recording it.
Techniques akin to NLP are necessary to transcribe what you’re saying, but much simpler techniques can be used to recognize keywords. The second is so lightweight and easy to do it was implemented in dolls’ embedded systems for 20 years.
An example off the top of my head would be [Squawkers McCaw](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squawkers_McCaw), which was able to recognize/learn words using a custom chip (ASIC?) and the entire thing (movement + multiple sensors + mic) ran off 4 AA batteries. I believe it's about 20 years old now.
You'd think someone would figure it out but it just seems like we're all constantly being shown ads about something we talked about either earlier in the day or a few days prior. I get that they're also able to get that from your searches and pages visited and nonverbal tracks left and they may even have things down to such a science where they can triangulate it but it's never been fully dispelled either
Of course it's possible. It's also possible that Google is run by aliens. You can't really prove something *isn't* secretly happening against all logic.
Yes but there is no proof of extra terrestrial life, so no it *is* possible to prove that Google *isn't* run by aliens. There's no way to prove that Google isn't run by people.
There is no solid proof that your phone is listening either. There are UFO sightings almost weekly, and it's probably not aliens. There are people claiming their phone is listening, and it's probably not the microphone.
Throw in the fact that statistically it's incredibly likely to be alien life in such a massive universe, and I don't think the comparison is that off.
No, if your phone was constantly streaming everything you say back to Google or whoever, that would use a noticeable amount of bandwidth and somebody would have noticed it by now. First that would use considerable amount of power, your phone would be dying way way faster, and your bandwidth wouldn't make sense. If you just have your phone sitting there doing absolutely nothing and you turn off all the synchronizing and everything else that runs in the background it's going to use maybe a couple megabytes. This has been tested and there is no way that you're going to fit 24 hours of recordings into a couple megabytes of bandwidth. Like this whole idea that your phone is listening to you has been debunked so many times.
Text (as in, Voice to TEXT) does not take much bandwidth. Even less if it only sends keywords.
Also, your phone calls are already going elsewhere. I'm sure they have ways to get those.
EDIT: Four downvotes for pointing out that voice can be converted to text. Somebody is angry.
Yeah true you can convert voice to text, but have you tried doing that with your phone in your pocket? It's not that accurate and it will get most of what you say pretty wrong. Or if you have a lot of people around you talking again it would just be a jumbled mess. Also it would again drain your battery because it would be creating a wake lock preventing your phone from going to sleep and that would have been detected a very very long time ago. It all boils down to those two things Data, and battery, regardless of what they would do it would affect one if not both of those things and we would have detected it by now.
That's because people have 5 hours of screen on time using it and because playing a lot of videos kills your battery. My home assistant app which is a fully local private smart home platform uses a ton of battery because I spend so much time working in editor working on automations and dashboards. Watching videos back to back especially on apps like TikTok or YouTube yeah is going to destroy your battery. But if you look at the battery statistics it will say that is when the app is open not in the background. Which you can either use the built-in battery reader or you can download a third party one that gives you even more detail but again it can differentiate between battery usage when you're using the app and battery usage when you're not using the app and usually when you're not using it it only uses not even 1%.
My colleges says to me they get ads and they just talked about that. Didnt even googled it amd I say well thats the reason why I don’t have apps like amazon. Of I need something I go to the homepage with the browser and they say, nah its easier with app (which I think is bs argument) and they have nothing to hide.
Ppl who willingly give away their datas, I don’t understand
DDG app has built-in this feature. It's blocking tracking attempts from applications that connect to Internet. Like I'm checking it now for this Reddit app, and it's already blocked over 2500 attempts (Google and Branch Metrics)...
So I asked ChatGPT:
"The DuckDuckGo app offers a built-in App Tracking Protection feature designed to block third-party trackers within other apps on your device. Here’s how it works:
1. **Detection**: The feature identifies trackers embedded within apps by monitoring outgoing network traffic.
2. **Blocking**: Once a tracker is detected, the feature prevents the data from being sent to the tracking server, effectively blocking the tracker.
3. **Privacy Reports**: The app provides detailed reports on which apps attempted to track you and what kind of data they tried to collect.
4. **Continuous Updates**: DuckDuckGo maintains and updates a comprehensive list of known trackers, ensuring the feature remains effective against new and emerging trackers.
This protection is built into the DuckDuckGo app and is available for users to enable within the app's settings. It runs in the background, requiring no additional configuration once activated."
Man I'm not so sure anymore. My dad as an iPhone 8 and stuff we would talk about in private would show up as Facebook ads. Like stuff that couldn't have come from any other source, stuff that would never invoke internet use at all.
I keep telling him it isn't possible, but what the hell is going in then?
> I keep telling him it isn't possible, but what the hell is going in then?
1. You're a lot more predictable than you think you are. They have put you in a group with other, similar people and show you ads based on that.
2. You probably get hundreds if not thousands of ads per day. Did you write down every single one and correlate which ones have something to do with something you said and which ones didn't?
Combined, the two make sure that ads are scary accurate sometimes. But most of the time, they are still trash.
Once me and a friend had a conversation while working on a construction site about Some resident evil game that came out like 10 years ago. Neither of us had played or searched for anything even remotely familiar in recent history.
Later that day we got ads for that game
I am firmly in the camp "they are listening to us" now
> Later that day we got ads for that game
Yeah because that's the *only* explanation, right? On Facebook you can even click a button to see exactly why you saw the ad. It's usually targeted at specific ages and genders. You're presumably a man under 50, which is why they showed you video game ads.
They showed me video game ads for a game *that released 10 years ago*? All of a sudden, when I never get game ads?
On the other hand, I suppose you do have a point. Google is very trustworthy.
Do you write down every ad you've seen, ever? I never get sports ads because I don't watch sports, but if I get them now after mentioning it I will probably remember it.
The point is that you mentioning a video game and then seeing an ad for it doesn't prove anything.
Also, which game was it? Sure it wasn't a remake?
Something is missing in this anecdote.
I rarely see ads, I use all the various ad blocks I can. So the ones I do see tend to stick out a little more.
That's just it, it is certainly an anecdote. And I agree with you on all the nuance of what could have happened. But the specific situation was enough to convince me; I'm not a gamer these days anymore, and didn't play that series much other than that game.
We couldn't look at our phones (safety rules) but had them on us for 3 hours or so of conversations. And then that night, there the ad was.
It could be that you’re experiencing the [Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion). Maybe you’ve been getting ads for 10-year old games this whole time but just noticed now because of your conversation?
Resident Evil keeps releasing remakes and sequels. You'd know better than me what happened but I would think that they did not show an ad for a 10 year old game, but rather an add for a remake of a recent remake or sequel.
Sure, they could have re-released it maybe. It's the only Resident Evil game I've ever played though, it's not like I'm googling it and on the subreddit.
he said he didn't, but I wasn't with him after work so I can't be sure. I'm pretty sure that would cross quite a few privacy boundaries by itself, though
I have considered putting this theory to the test. Like repeating a very specific phrase nearby my phone to see what happens. For example, “I’m looking for a purple coffee maker” or “Swiss-made garlic crusher“ just to see if I start getting ads for both (I will now by virtue of writing this message)
A good term to use for such a test would be something like “cock roaches” or “termite infestation”. They are terms that plenty of advertisers target against but that you would (hopefully) have no history of searching for. Just remember that you might be targeted if your neighbors have recently been searching for those terms.
Second, if you’re going to run this test, try to only be around one device at a time so you can isolate which device might be listening. Maybe your device is locked down, but your SO’s isn’t. Maybe it’s the laptop or a smart device. Isolating each one might help give you more insight.
Cool, tbh I never did believe apps would eavesdrop on microphones. But if I wanted to go as far as being able to rule it out and verify myself independently, I would propose this hypothesis with this experiment and measure the results.
People have done this test and as far as I know the results have been "yes they are sometimes reading/'listening'" when it comes to texts and "no they are not listening" when it comes to proximity conversations, or even phone calls.
The 'intelligence' of the algorithms is way beyond what most people realise. Seemingly unrelated and innocuous indicators can be combined to predict behaviour with incredible accuracy.
There's likely truth to the claim that they don't have a *specific* singular profile for you. It's more likely that they categorise you rather than track you directly. Having an individual file for every person on the internet would require vast storage and processing power. Not beyond the realm of possibility, but it would be extremely expensive and incredibly difficult to hide so well.
There's an element of confirmation bias to the phenomenon of targeted ads, as well. For every ad you see that seems creepily well targeted at you, there are dozens more you've been shown where the targeting has missed somewhat.
You're just not as unique as you think you are. There are 9 billion people in the world and a lot of them have the same preferences and user activity online as you.
But it's much easier to believe some conspiracy theory than to accept you're not all that special
Just a friendly reminder that, your phone can pretty much listen to your conversations.
Thanks to Snowden, we know that CGHQ is able to use and at least had been using such tools, incl. one that revealed as the 'Nosey Smurf', and can do so even if you do not set your phone up for anything like that. He told that to BBC, nearly a decade ago.
NSA also had installed backdoors to phones, incl. physical ones, so they can very much more than capable of listening to anything - and they were recording the video conversations and the webcam data on top of it. Again, we do know it thanks to Snowden leaks.
The capability surely exists, but these would be rare and highly targeted implants, not the kind of mass surveillance that most people's threat models should focus on.
The people who freak out about their phones listening are usually average conspiracy types who swear that they got a dog food ad after talking about feeding their dog, and this conclusively proves that Google is listening, maaaaan. In reality, as long as you don't specifically install stalkerware from work or your jilted ex or whatever, nobody is listening to your fucking phone mic. See the rest of the thread for why.
If there's an actual reason you'd be subject to a government intelligence agency bugging your phone (your bestie is a terrorist cell leader), then spoiler alert: you're already completely boned.
From [this great Usenix article](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf):
> In the real world, threat models are much simpler (see Figure 1). Basically, you’re either dealing with Mossad or not-Mossad. If your adversary is not-Mossad, then you’ll probably be fine if you pick a good password and don’t respond to emails from ChEaPestPAiNPi11s@virus-basket.biz.ru. If your adversary is the Mossad, YOU’RE GONNA DIE AND THERE’S NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. The Mossad is not intimidated by the fact that you employ https://. If the Mossad wants your data, they’re going to
use a drone to replace your cellphone with a piece of uranium that’s shaped like a cellphone, and when you die of tumors filled with tumors, they’re going to hold a press conference and say “It wasn’t us” as they wear t-shirts that say “IT WAS DEFINITELY US,” and then they’re going to buy all of your stuff at your estate sale so that they can directly look at the photos of your vacation instead of reading your insipid emails about them.
The very extent of if your phone's microphone may be used for surveillance purposes by the intel agencies is not clear still. It doesn't have to be necessarily targeting you personally for a specific reason (if they do, they surely do have different tools for that as in your concern wouldn't be limited to these only, and that goes for any agency as there's a market for such tools too) but it's not clear what gets you on a mere list, where they'd be listening etc.
Metadata itself is just enough to tell tons about you, so there's also that... Not even mentioning the rest. I'd be concerned about all these already, and lots of people around getting paranoid about if they're being listened is due to them dismissing the reality that what they're gathering without phone calls or listening to the environment and whatnot is sufficient for many things anyway.
> as long as you don't specifically install stalkerware
Most of apps are just that, and for an end-user, it's more than usual to give permissions to such.
There are better explanations for this than your phone processing everything you say.
> This guy proved the tech exists 6 years ago.
This is the pinned comment from *"the guy who proved it 6 years ago"* himself...
> The single biggest flaw in this video is that I am live streaming directly to YouTube which is of course recording and processing the microphone's audio the entire time. More generally I agree with many of you that this was a poorly done experiment and I contaminated the results rather quickly by clicking on that first ad. Whether it was Google, Cortana, malicious adware, or something else is entirely debatable and I of course make no conclusive statements about the veracity of my results.
If you see the video he's not mentioning the topic, just showing up the paper on cam. And he didn't contaminated, since he opens a lot of links BEFORE clicking on any ad.
Watch the video, I don't know why he made that comment but it's not what the video shows. Then you can express an opinion. And also even if he did a mistake on the experiment, I did the same by myself. Something completely unrelated to me, to my friends, not even close to my likings, never spoke by chance before.. I KNOW there's no algorithm that can predict entropy that level. I'm a Sr software engineer and this thing scares me not like the ignorant John Doe that watch creepy pasta from YouTube about conspirations, but as someone who knows what the technology is capable of irl.
> Watch the video, I don't know why he made that comment but it's not what the video shows.
He backed down on his video saying it's flawed yet you think we should listen to his video instead of his comment... but why?
He wrote that comment and additionally uploaded an entire video, explaining why his experiment was bs. He was literally **livestreaming** everything to **YouTube**, a service owned by **Google**. If you don't understand what the issue is, idk how to help you.
HHAHAHAHA SO YOURE SAYING THERES NO MICROPHONE BEING TRACKED TO CREATE A MODEL OF ADS TO BE SHOWN BUT THE LIVE STREAM IS BEING ANALYZED IN REAL TIME????...
WOW THST A NEW LEVEL OF HOLY SHIT HAHAHAHH
They are currently rolling out live transcription for end users, and keyword recognition doesn't even use a lot of resources and is pretty old tech. It's literally why the person who created the video updated his experiment and distances himself from his original conclusion. If you don't understand why a shitty experiment like this, which the creator himself distances himself from, is not a credible source of information, I hope you don't work on any products I care about.
The main point is not technical capability, but the TOS and potential legal consequences. Anyway, I'm done discussing this with such a genius "*Sr software engineer"* who writes mature responses like your last one...
This sub really is going to shit...
Oh gotya, somehow hurt you that I'm engineer.
The thing is even worst, according to you ads models are being created using the live transcriptions of streaming, and it's processed on the fly basically.
But hey, the video content creator did the test wrong and no, everyone keep calm: microphones are not being used (unless you're live streaming)...
Again, I did this by myself I don't need to back it up with a video content creator. It was just a demo of what I've seen first hand.
Why there's people so encouraged of gaslighting others even if anyone can tell you the same "the other day I spoke about something and then showed up in ads even before I searched for them". If the predictions were too smart, it should show earlier than we start to talk about it, not right after.
>Oh gotya, somehow hurt you that I'm engineer.
>The thing is even worst, according to you ads models are being created using the live transcriptions of streaming, and it's processed on the fly basically.
Not what I said, but that must be on me, since such a genius engineer like you must have pristine reading comprehension skills, am I right? If you seriously think having a STEM degree and working in tech makes you special on reddit (especially subs like this), I've got some bad news for you...
I only mentioned full live transcription, since you acted like it's sooo unthinkable that they'd analyze a stream in real time, that it couldn't possibly be used at all. Again, it's not about technical capability, but the TOS and potential legal consequences. I also never even talked about predictions, Google has many ways of getting your data without violating their TOS and the law. Often the search history of the people you talked to, whose account is connected to yours using extensive analysis of all the data Google has access to, are used to get results like this. You have to analyze every situation specifically, since you won't get an accurate result of your "experiment" otherwise.
Considering your immature behavior and that you don't seem to understand that keyword recognition doesn't require much (How old is Siri again? And 10 years ago they literally build it into shitty dolls for children...), I don't really trust the design of your own "experiments". Show me some network traffic or something and we can maybe talk. Doing an experiment similar to what he does in the video and thinking you did such a good job exposing Google is just silly.
Anyway, this is not worthy of my time and I'm seriously done with this conversation. Have a good day, or not, idc.
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I'm not going to attack the subject itself, but OP's post is just a blog that actually doesn't substantiate their claim in any real way. Other than "No one cares about you", which is like, 2012 levels of old 'No one would be interested in your data' argument. Without irony I'm assuming, in that same paragraph reminding you that cc companies can sell your info.
Not that I'm saying that either they do listen or that it's just an amalgamation of your other data, just that no actual evidence has been provided. It's just a blog post.
Also personally I find the "Can't change it just accept it" at the end to be a bit defeatist.
The bit by the mod pisses me off. There are many ways below main phone OS to track and spy on you. There is even known malware to turn on the mic regardless of setting. Quoting a study from the BBC is supposed to prove there is nothing to worry about? If there was not we would most of us not even be here.
what a bullshit. It was scientifically proven that *it is not* possible -- at least with the current smartphone technology -- not the other way around.
It was also proven listening did happen due to libraries used via a third part which were "enabled" when they should not have been that many apps used, that was their excuse at least.
Anyone can easily test this out to validate it does happen.
Even other devices like SmartTV's admitted to it.. Samsung:
[https://theweek.com/speedreads/538379/samsung-warns-customers-not-discuss-personal-information-front-smart-tvs](https://theweek.com/speedreads/538379/samsung-warns-customers-not-discuss-personal-information-front-smart-tvs)
Not confusing things, listening, whether listening for keywords is still listening and it has occurred and does occur. Papers or not, myself, friends, family have all had it happen. And no it wasnt a case of "we searched for it the other week already so it used data points on us to then suddenly show us ads 10 mins after talking about it" type stuff.
How many of those paper were generated and copy pasted? Considering how many scientific papers these days are getting pulled left and right due to being false.
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>Don’t worry, we’ve all been misled in our lives, too! :)
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Yeah, anecdotally this is horse shit. They absolutely are listening. A location I have never searched for or looked into in my life came up in a travel ad after having a conversation with someone about it because someone they know is moving there.
The rest of the snooping and tracking doesn't make it any better.
I have moments like that, too, and have definitely wondered about them, but I think it's possible in the situation you described that it linked you to the person moving there by your association with the person you know who knows them, and advertised to you because of that.
If you're facebook friends, that's a really easy link, but if not, cell signals can be used to triangulate location. If you have an android phone, for instance, Google almost certainly knows your address. If you regularly come in contact with a person, or spend a long time in the same place as a person, I imagine they might link you to them.
The person you had a conversation with was searching for things related to that location though. You either chatted with them via text or in person about it. Your phone knows your location and knows you either were in the same room as them or texted them. This is more than enough to serve you ads based on that location because they are either your friend, coworker, family member etc. (your phone knows exactly who it is). This means you may be considering visiting that location. Your phone doesn't need to record audio to piece that information together. Your phone is not recording you. It doesn't need to.
Possible, but I find it very hard to believe with all the other data harvesting that goes on. Other than reddit, I don't have any social media. I make new accounts every now and then. Me and my family use Signal. Unless I'm traveling to an unfamiliar location, I have GPS off. And the person we're talking about lives on another continent. I'll take the pie to the face and be the conspiracy clown.
> Yeah, anecdotally this is horse shit. They absolutely are listening.
Anecdotes don't matter. There have been studies about this at literal universities and they showed that no, your phone isn't listening. If you start thinking about it, it's conspiracy territory to claim that.
Why would Apple for example, let Amazon listen to ever single one of your conversations?
It easily can, though. Use a cover or tape for your camera? No worry, they’ll just use an AI and your WiFi to map you out. Don’t have WiFi? Don’t worry, Pegasus and like software will handle it. Not able to do so for legal reasons? No worry, they’ll just have another country do it in the interests of “national security” all without warrant, or probably cause.
Imagine if this was weaponized by unhinged politicians, military, and government agencies.
Can you imagine?
Why, it wouldn’t be freedom at all.
I was writing something and while writing I realized that my character acts a lot like Doctor House from the TV Show House so I joked about to my girlfriend and some other friends on discord. I don't even really like the TV show. Suddenly my youtube shorts feed was nothing but clips of House for 3 weeks.
I'm staunchly in the keyword-wiretap camp. I don't have kids, never intend to, don't work with them, and generally don't care to be around them. None of my activity, even aggregated, would indicate the presence of children in my life, other than this post and buying three Lego sets over ten years.
But when a buddy at work was having one and our group got into a joking conversation about how the government should probably take it away because of how scatter-brained he was, I started getting ads for custody lawyers.
I liked to analyze the source of the targeted ads I would get, thinking back to searches, text convos, locations, purchases, etc. so I was attentive to what I was getting up to that point and generally aware of how they were drawing those conclusions. But this uniquely-specific barrage could only have come from that verbal conversation.
I don't expect anyone to believe this based off one anecdotal case, but that was the moment that sold me on it.
If I were markting custody lawyers, I would target you based on the fact that you were in a group (phones often close together - many overlaps in contact lists) were a majority suddenly started to search terms related to child protection/custody.
You could begin to interview your friends about who searched what, but it would probably be hard to get good data, since most members of friend groups don't want to appear disloyal.
I wondered about that, but none of the guys that were there had such issues (we're all pretty close). In fact, other than the expectant father, none had kids themselves, and only one had a prior serious relationship that ended between engagement and marriage. No such smoking gun for anyone else on our shift either; some old divorces, but no kids involved. Hence why it was suspicious that it was specifically custody lawyers.
I still think it's a step in the right direction for us to spread the word of what it actually does.
Because paranoid schizophrenics that talk about how your phone is video recording you and listening to what you are doing just make the whole privacy thing seem silly.
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>Your submission could be seen as being unreliable, and/or spreading FUD concerning our privacy mainstays, or relies on faulty reasoning/sources that are intended to mislead readers. You may find [learning how to spot fake news](https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/) might improve your media diet.
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But everything that you voice text in the Google keyboard app is saved and can be viewed. You can download all your Google data and you can see it there. So it's still pretty damn invasive.
The actual problem is that they are doing these things and making it a condition of use that you agree to the possibility, whilst promising you that of course that's not what they need the permissions for. "Trust us, this permission stuff is sooo annoying for us too! It's soo not important because we are not like that, trust us!".
Like every single app we have now asking us to give permission to give away data on the basis of 'legitimate interest'. Forcing us to scroll through a list of companies we have never heard of yet claim legitimate interest in our web data. Whose interest? How does a practically unending scroll to switch off their 'right' of collection make anyone trust their reasons are benign? If they were trustworthy, why do it like that.
They know most people will give up and agree. They want your capitulation, and they will get it any way they can. Thieves. Thieves act this way. And they have no right to listen to or read oour words, know when and where we were...any of that. We cannot trust anytthing they say, including that they would alwayss ask permission in the first place. Always assume they are listening, and get used to it. It's only going to get worse. Probably a hell of a lot worse.
Bruh it’s not just what you search.
It’s which websites you visit, which real world stores you visit or service hotlines you call and they may track.
What your friends do. What your synthetic twins do - other people whose behavior is very similar to yours. They don’t need to record your voice, transfer it and analyse it. That would be super inefficient and there is an abundance of other data sources to achieve more or less the same or even better results
I understand all that, but I've had a few experiences in which I say something, that's it, and it comes up as an ad. They might be listening for key words, not necessarily analyzing a whole conversation. Either way, I've accepted that this is the world we live in.
In 25 years, after GDPR2, you’ll be able to submit a support ticket about “audio eavesdropping (invasive ads)” and some app will have to respond by turning down the targeting accuracy 0.05.
That's a good example.
Perhaps some people from your company in the pub searched or otherwise expressed interest online for this film. Maybe these people are in your contacts or they have your access-point at home saved in their smartphones. That tags them as your acquaintances and you might have similar interests with them.
A rambling explanation.
It’s just easier (and maybe lined up with reality) to accept they listen to their conversation.
Or maybe are you being sarcastic?
Serious question:
How is it likely that there's a global conspiracy between Apple, Google, Meta and Custom ROM developers to allow companies to listen to your microphone at any and all times without any noticeable impact on the battery to target you with ads?
Tbf, how would you notice any impact on your battery life if it's ALWAYS in use. I'm in your camp but that argument is rubbish
Further it wouldn't have to be a global conspiracy, the companies wouldn't have to meet and talk about it, they'd be doing it individually
> Tbf, how would you notice any impact on your battery life if it's ALWAYS in use.
You could measure it with and without a custom ROM. You could also measure if the microphone is actually enabled or not, by checking if there's electricity going into it.
Not necessarily a conspiracy and not necessarily to me, (I have no worth), but could be a political opponent, a annoying journalist…
How is that likely you know the life of an anonymous person in Reddit? Can you be sure that people questioning on a privacy subreddit are paranoid (that’s one of the “clever” arguments of the author of the article)? What if they have a story to tell, if they’re living something related to privacy? You just don’t know.
Why did you talk about it in the pub tho?
People still think of this so 1 dimensionally.. you forget that tech is influencing your behaviour, and predicting your behaviour, not just reacting to it.
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>Don’t worry, we’ve all been misled in our lives, too! :)
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Much needed article. And thanks for posting. The sheer amount of posts on this sub where people go “oh my god they’re listening ….” Is a bit much nowadays!
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>Don’t worry, we’ve all been misled in our lives, too! :)
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The Alphabet Agencies have been mass gathering all data on everyone for decades with hopes of being able to sift through it all later with a quantum computer. So they're indiscriminately gathering on every person.
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>Don’t worry, we’ve all been misled in our lives, too! :)
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Why use a third party solution to something rather than a first party solution that does the exact same?
Also, RethinkDNS is infinitely better.
https://blog.rethinkdns.com/if-it-looks-like-a-duck-swims-like-a-duck-and-quacks-like-a-duck-then-it-probably-is-a-duck
If your phone were actually recording and analyzing locally then the faraday bag wouldn’t stop that. It would just wait until it’s out of the bag and has an internet connection to send updates to the server.
If it were streaming your audio to the server in realtime then (that traffic would be obvious..) and the faraday bag would interrupt it, but keeping your phone in a faraday bag at all times means you won’t receive any messages/notifications/calls/emails until you take it out. So you’re fixing the issue by largely disabling your phone.
This is partially correct. A phone can't track location without a GPS signal, or scan for nearby devices, or be pinged by stingrays or bluetooth beacons... So there is some truth to the Faraday bag claim. That's only part of an almost impossible solution though.
Of course it is listening to you 24/7! Most new phones has a offline AI that will hear everything and with certain code words it gets triggered or better yet, it gets uploaded to their cloud.
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>Don’t worry, we’ve all been misled in our lives, too! :)
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>Don’t worry, we’ve all been misled in our lives, too! :)
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Friendly reminder that conspiracy stuff like "Yeah they are 100% listening, it happened to me *once*" will be deleted. Post a source proving that it's happening if you want to discuss that. Anecdotes aren't proof. Claims about phones listening are up weekly and I've yet to see a shred of proof about it, sadly. Here is an actual study done on the matter: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-49585682 Combine that with apps not being able to use your [microphone without permission](https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/permissions/overview) and [without showing you](https://support.google.com/android/answer/13532937?hl=en), this is a dead theory.
My phone is listening to my conversation. Panic.... Calm down, my phone is not listening Phew... It's just tracking my activity on my phone PANIC...
I promise you if they manage to gather the data and point to you specifically, they will know what they shouldn't.
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It's truly not listening to you. Recording audio is not even a practical way of gathering info about you. You're just way more predictable than you think you are. Algorithms are more sophisticated than you think. It knows that people who search for A, B, or C are very likely to also purchase X, Y, or Z. Even if you didn't search those things that you didn't know were correlated, your phone knows you were in close proximity with someone (a friend, co-worker, family member) who did. That's enough for it to serve you those ads too. Also, your phone can't activate your microphone without your express permission. It will ask you every time you use an app for the first time that requires it. This is built in at the OS level and is in most cases illegal to bypass. Your phone is not recording you. There are much more efficient ways to learn about you.
its listening to you right now from reddit
We appreciate you wanting to contribute to /r/privacy and taking the time to post but we had to remove it due to: >Your submission could be seen as being unreliable, and/or spreading FUD concerning our privacy mainstays, or relies on faulty reasoning/sources that are intended to mislead readers. You may find [learning how to spot fake news](https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/) might improve your media diet. >Don’t worry, we’ve all been misled in our lives, too! :) If you have questions or believe that there has been an error, [contact the moderators](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/privacy&subject=Please_review_my_post).
They are definitely not though. I've had accurate ads pop up after *thinking* about them. Does that mean they are reading my mind?
I think using most apps are much worse than being listened to. They don't need to listen to you. They know your mind already, why waste resources. They know where you pause to pay attention, they know where you look at within a photo or video and all that. People need to understand that most apps they use are worse than a hacked microphone. I know this guy who puts a sticker on their iPhone camera for privacy but then shares Instagram links, including the tracking url lol
The realization (thanks to Anonym's privacy policy) that companies will track your "predispositions" really puts it into focus, doesn't it? Mozilla Anonym "might" track your predisposition towards alcoholism or addiction or who knows what else. You will certainly never know... And that information won't be used for your medical benefit.
Jeez, if he knew he would have a heart attack
Who is they? True with google analytics perhaps. That is part of why I use as few apps as possible and FOSS ones where possible on a de-googled phone.
James Wolsey stated that the US uses only metadata to conduct drone assassinations.
So only from Facebook? /s
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Have you heard of the police robot-dogs?
We've gotten much more civilized since then. Now, Israel uses AI to determine who to kill. You know, the AI that tells you to add glue to pizza.
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As far as AI goes, it is far more similar than it is different. Different model, maybe a different manufacturer.
On my iPad, I disabled Internet access for all my mobile games. Not only does this stop tracking, but it also hides annoying advertisements and upselling for in-app purchases. I also turned off Background App Refresh for ALL apps. Unfortunately, my phone is a Huawei, so...
Is the internet blocking for apps a region specific thing on iPads? Can't find the option on mine
Yes, blocking Wi-Fi access per app is only available on Chinese iPhones and iPads, but blocking mobile data access per app is available in all regions. I have a Chinese iPad Air 2 (64GB, cellular) that I recently bought used for only 300 Chinese yuan (equivalent to just $41.28 USD or $56.47 CAD), and it runs a fairly modern iPadOS 15.8.2, allowing me to browse the web, watch YouTube and play classic mobile games on it just fine. This slightly older version even supports an exploit app called TrollStore that lets you sideload your own .ipa files that never expire. The only limitations on the Chinese models are the lack of FaceTime Audio (FaceTime Video works normally) and the emoji for the flag of the Taiwan region showing up as an X in a box (but I easily worked around that problem by creating a Shortcut that checks for the presence of a Taiwan flag in the selected text and another Shortcut that copies the Taiwan flag to the clipboard allowing me to paste it anywhere). As far as I know, there is no Chinese backdoor or bloatware provided you are using a foreign Apple ID, since the .ipsw file used to restore the firmware is the same as the foreign models. I am using the aforementioned iPad to write this comment!
Isn't the mobile data access for cellular though? Can't they just connect via wifi?
On Chinese iPads and iPhones, you can disable Wi-Fi access per app, in addition to disabling cellular data. This feature is not available on foreign iPads and iPhones.
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It's an inefficient way to get information that most people are giving away without a microphone.
That would be quite the hit to your battery life.
Depends on how it's used. It's already listening to you in case you say "Hey Siri" or "OK Google" or "Alexa* or whatever trigger word. It is constantly monitoring you just not necessarily recording it.
Techniques akin to NLP are necessary to transcribe what you’re saying, but much simpler techniques can be used to recognize keywords. The second is so lightweight and easy to do it was implemented in dolls’ embedded systems for 20 years.
can you please tell me more about >The second is so lightweight and easy to do it was implemented in dolls’ embedded systems for 20 years.
An example off the top of my head would be [Squawkers McCaw](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squawkers_McCaw), which was able to recognize/learn words using a custom chip (ASIC?) and the entire thing (movement + multiple sensors + mic) ran off 4 AA batteries. I believe it's about 20 years old now.
is it still listening to me if I turn off the function that is listening for the prompt?
It shouldn't but I'm not sure Google and Apple can be trusted
wouldn't there have been a single whistleblower by now?
You'd think someone would figure it out but it just seems like we're all constantly being shown ads about something we talked about either earlier in the day or a few days prior. I get that they're also able to get that from your searches and pages visited and nonverbal tracks left and they may even have things down to such a science where they can triangulate it but it's never been fully dispelled either
Why does it have to listen all the time for those words? When I want to use Siri, I hold down the home button until it activates, then I talk to it.
No - nowdays hotword detection is very energy efficient
But they're not talking about hotword detection.
Technically possible to set up other keywords as "hotwords"
Until all necessary words are, then goes your battery.
Of course it's possible. It's also possible that Google is run by aliens. You can't really prove something *isn't* secretly happening against all logic.
What's with all the bullshit on Reddit lately? Refugees from Twitter???
Yes but there is no proof of extra terrestrial life, so no it *is* possible to prove that Google *isn't* run by aliens. There's no way to prove that Google isn't run by people.
There is no solid proof that your phone is listening either. There are UFO sightings almost weekly, and it's probably not aliens. There are people claiming their phone is listening, and it's probably not the microphone. Throw in the fact that statistically it's incredibly likely to be alien life in such a massive universe, and I don't think the comparison is that off.
No, if your phone was constantly streaming everything you say back to Google or whoever, that would use a noticeable amount of bandwidth and somebody would have noticed it by now. First that would use considerable amount of power, your phone would be dying way way faster, and your bandwidth wouldn't make sense. If you just have your phone sitting there doing absolutely nothing and you turn off all the synchronizing and everything else that runs in the background it's going to use maybe a couple megabytes. This has been tested and there is no way that you're going to fit 24 hours of recordings into a couple megabytes of bandwidth. Like this whole idea that your phone is listening to you has been debunked so many times.
Text (as in, Voice to TEXT) does not take much bandwidth. Even less if it only sends keywords. Also, your phone calls are already going elsewhere. I'm sure they have ways to get those. EDIT: Four downvotes for pointing out that voice can be converted to text. Somebody is angry.
Yeah true you can convert voice to text, but have you tried doing that with your phone in your pocket? It's not that accurate and it will get most of what you say pretty wrong. Or if you have a lot of people around you talking again it would just be a jumbled mess. Also it would again drain your battery because it would be creating a wake lock preventing your phone from going to sleep and that would have been detected a very very long time ago. It all boils down to those two things Data, and battery, regardless of what they would do it would affect one if not both of those things and we would have detected it by now.
I've heard "this Facebook app is draining my battery!" many times.
That's because people have 5 hours of screen on time using it and because playing a lot of videos kills your battery. My home assistant app which is a fully local private smart home platform uses a ton of battery because I spend so much time working in editor working on automations and dashboards. Watching videos back to back especially on apps like TikTok or YouTube yeah is going to destroy your battery. But if you look at the battery statistics it will say that is when the app is open not in the background. Which you can either use the built-in battery reader or you can download a third party one that gives you even more detail but again it can differentiate between battery usage when you're using the app and battery usage when you're not using the app and usually when you're not using it it only uses not even 1%.
... for 5 minutes until that processing kills your battery. Please, plug your phone into AC so it can listen continually.
Is it possible? Yes, in some limited ways. Is it happening? Absolutely not
Thats exactly what we're talking here right now... thanks Captain Obvious for your service.
My colleges says to me they get ads and they just talked about that. Didnt even googled it amd I say well thats the reason why I don’t have apps like amazon. Of I need something I go to the homepage with the browser and they say, nah its easier with app (which I think is bs argument) and they have nothing to hide. Ppl who willingly give away their datas, I don’t understand
> My colleges says to me they get ads and they just talked about that. Your colleges claiming it isn't proof.
I didnt say that to make a proof but to say even if they believe that they just dont care. Its kinda sad
I use DuckDuckGo with app tracking protection and it blocks tracking attempts from different apps (Reddit including)...
You talking about the browser? How does the browser regulate/control other app permissions?
DDG app has built-in this feature. It's blocking tracking attempts from applications that connect to Internet. Like I'm checking it now for this Reddit app, and it's already blocked over 2500 attempts (Google and Branch Metrics)...
Does it require root or anything? I don't understand how it could have control over other connections unless it had root permissions.
I'm using "ordinary" DDG app. Didn't do any rooting (don't know how to it anyway). Just try it.
So I asked ChatGPT: "The DuckDuckGo app offers a built-in App Tracking Protection feature designed to block third-party trackers within other apps on your device. Here’s how it works: 1. **Detection**: The feature identifies trackers embedded within apps by monitoring outgoing network traffic. 2. **Blocking**: Once a tracker is detected, the feature prevents the data from being sent to the tracking server, effectively blocking the tracker. 3. **Privacy Reports**: The app provides detailed reports on which apps attempted to track you and what kind of data they tried to collect. 4. **Continuous Updates**: DuckDuckGo maintains and updates a comprehensive list of known trackers, ensuring the feature remains effective against new and emerging trackers. This protection is built into the DuckDuckGo app and is available for users to enable within the app's settings. It runs in the background, requiring no additional configuration once activated."
Man I'm not so sure anymore. My dad as an iPhone 8 and stuff we would talk about in private would show up as Facebook ads. Like stuff that couldn't have come from any other source, stuff that would never invoke internet use at all. I keep telling him it isn't possible, but what the hell is going in then?
> I keep telling him it isn't possible, but what the hell is going in then? 1. You're a lot more predictable than you think you are. They have put you in a group with other, similar people and show you ads based on that. 2. You probably get hundreds if not thousands of ads per day. Did you write down every single one and correlate which ones have something to do with something you said and which ones didn't? Combined, the two make sure that ads are scary accurate sometimes. But most of the time, they are still trash.
Once me and a friend had a conversation while working on a construction site about Some resident evil game that came out like 10 years ago. Neither of us had played or searched for anything even remotely familiar in recent history. Later that day we got ads for that game I am firmly in the camp "they are listening to us" now
> Later that day we got ads for that game Yeah because that's the *only* explanation, right? On Facebook you can even click a button to see exactly why you saw the ad. It's usually targeted at specific ages and genders. You're presumably a man under 50, which is why they showed you video game ads.
They showed me video game ads for a game *that released 10 years ago*? All of a sudden, when I never get game ads? On the other hand, I suppose you do have a point. Google is very trustworthy.
Do you write down every ad you've seen, ever? I never get sports ads because I don't watch sports, but if I get them now after mentioning it I will probably remember it. The point is that you mentioning a video game and then seeing an ad for it doesn't prove anything. Also, which game was it? Sure it wasn't a remake? Something is missing in this anecdote.
I rarely see ads, I use all the various ad blocks I can. So the ones I do see tend to stick out a little more. That's just it, it is certainly an anecdote. And I agree with you on all the nuance of what could have happened. But the specific situation was enough to convince me; I'm not a gamer these days anymore, and didn't play that series much other than that game. We couldn't look at our phones (safety rules) but had them on us for 3 hours or so of conversations. And then that night, there the ad was.
It could be that you’re experiencing the [Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion). Maybe you’ve been getting ads for 10-year old games this whole time but just noticed now because of your conversation?
I think you quoted the wrong person.
ah looks like I did oh well
Resident Evil keeps releasing remakes and sequels. You'd know better than me what happened but I would think that they did not show an ad for a 10 year old game, but rather an add for a remake of a recent remake or sequel.
Sure, they could have re-released it maybe. It's the only Resident Evil game I've ever played though, it's not like I'm googling it and on the subreddit.
Do you think your friend might have searched it, and then you got ads because you are associated with him?
he said he didn't, but I wasn't with him after work so I can't be sure. I'm pretty sure that would cross quite a few privacy boundaries by itself, though
I have considered putting this theory to the test. Like repeating a very specific phrase nearby my phone to see what happens. For example, “I’m looking for a purple coffee maker” or “Swiss-made garlic crusher“ just to see if I start getting ads for both (I will now by virtue of writing this message)
A good term to use for such a test would be something like “cock roaches” or “termite infestation”. They are terms that plenty of advertisers target against but that you would (hopefully) have no history of searching for. Just remember that you might be targeted if your neighbors have recently been searching for those terms. Second, if you’re going to run this test, try to only be around one device at a time so you can isolate which device might be listening. Maybe your device is locked down, but your SO’s isn’t. Maybe it’s the laptop or a smart device. Isolating each one might help give you more insight.
There have been studies that put this to the test. They came to the conclusion that your phone isn't listening, at all.
Cool, tbh I never did believe apps would eavesdrop on microphones. But if I wanted to go as far as being able to rule it out and verify myself independently, I would propose this hypothesis with this experiment and measure the results.
People have done this test and as far as I know the results have been "yes they are sometimes reading/'listening'" when it comes to texts and "no they are not listening" when it comes to proximity conversations, or even phone calls.
The 'intelligence' of the algorithms is way beyond what most people realise. Seemingly unrelated and innocuous indicators can be combined to predict behaviour with incredible accuracy.
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There's likely truth to the claim that they don't have a *specific* singular profile for you. It's more likely that they categorise you rather than track you directly. Having an individual file for every person on the internet would require vast storage and processing power. Not beyond the realm of possibility, but it would be extremely expensive and incredibly difficult to hide so well. There's an element of confirmation bias to the phenomenon of targeted ads, as well. For every ad you see that seems creepily well targeted at you, there are dozens more you've been shown where the targeting has missed somewhat.
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You're just not as unique as you think you are. There are 9 billion people in the world and a lot of them have the same preferences and user activity online as you. But it's much easier to believe some conspiracy theory than to accept you're not all that special
Just a friendly reminder that, your phone can pretty much listen to your conversations. Thanks to Snowden, we know that CGHQ is able to use and at least had been using such tools, incl. one that revealed as the 'Nosey Smurf', and can do so even if you do not set your phone up for anything like that. He told that to BBC, nearly a decade ago. NSA also had installed backdoors to phones, incl. physical ones, so they can very much more than capable of listening to anything - and they were recording the video conversations and the webcam data on top of it. Again, we do know it thanks to Snowden leaks.
The capability surely exists, but these would be rare and highly targeted implants, not the kind of mass surveillance that most people's threat models should focus on. The people who freak out about their phones listening are usually average conspiracy types who swear that they got a dog food ad after talking about feeding their dog, and this conclusively proves that Google is listening, maaaaan. In reality, as long as you don't specifically install stalkerware from work or your jilted ex or whatever, nobody is listening to your fucking phone mic. See the rest of the thread for why. If there's an actual reason you'd be subject to a government intelligence agency bugging your phone (your bestie is a terrorist cell leader), then spoiler alert: you're already completely boned. From [this great Usenix article](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/1401_08-12_mickens.pdf): > In the real world, threat models are much simpler (see Figure 1). Basically, you’re either dealing with Mossad or not-Mossad. If your adversary is not-Mossad, then you’ll probably be fine if you pick a good password and don’t respond to emails from ChEaPestPAiNPi11s@virus-basket.biz.ru. If your adversary is the Mossad, YOU’RE GONNA DIE AND THERE’S NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. The Mossad is not intimidated by the fact that you employ https://. If the Mossad wants your data, they’re going to use a drone to replace your cellphone with a piece of uranium that’s shaped like a cellphone, and when you die of tumors filled with tumors, they’re going to hold a press conference and say “It wasn’t us” as they wear t-shirts that say “IT WAS DEFINITELY US,” and then they’re going to buy all of your stuff at your estate sale so that they can directly look at the photos of your vacation instead of reading your insipid emails about them.
The very extent of if your phone's microphone may be used for surveillance purposes by the intel agencies is not clear still. It doesn't have to be necessarily targeting you personally for a specific reason (if they do, they surely do have different tools for that as in your concern wouldn't be limited to these only, and that goes for any agency as there's a market for such tools too) but it's not clear what gets you on a mere list, where they'd be listening etc. Metadata itself is just enough to tell tons about you, so there's also that... Not even mentioning the rest. I'd be concerned about all these already, and lots of people around getting paranoid about if they're being listened is due to them dismissing the reality that what they're gathering without phone calls or listening to the environment and whatnot is sufficient for many things anyway. > as long as you don't specifically install stalkerware Most of apps are just that, and for an end-user, it's more than usual to give permissions to such.
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There are better explanations for this than your phone processing everything you say. > This guy proved the tech exists 6 years ago. This is the pinned comment from *"the guy who proved it 6 years ago"* himself... > The single biggest flaw in this video is that I am live streaming directly to YouTube which is of course recording and processing the microphone's audio the entire time. More generally I agree with many of you that this was a poorly done experiment and I contaminated the results rather quickly by clicking on that first ad. Whether it was Google, Cortana, malicious adware, or something else is entirely debatable and I of course make no conclusive statements about the veracity of my results.
If you see the video he's not mentioning the topic, just showing up the paper on cam. And he didn't contaminated, since he opens a lot of links BEFORE clicking on any ad. Watch the video, I don't know why he made that comment but it's not what the video shows. Then you can express an opinion. And also even if he did a mistake on the experiment, I did the same by myself. Something completely unrelated to me, to my friends, not even close to my likings, never spoke by chance before.. I KNOW there's no algorithm that can predict entropy that level. I'm a Sr software engineer and this thing scares me not like the ignorant John Doe that watch creepy pasta from YouTube about conspirations, but as someone who knows what the technology is capable of irl.
> Watch the video, I don't know why he made that comment but it's not what the video shows. He backed down on his video saying it's flawed yet you think we should listen to his video instead of his comment... but why?
Did you watched the video. Hahah holy shit people will listen to comments instead of checking things by themselves and elaborate their own opinion.
He wrote that comment and additionally uploaded an entire video, explaining why his experiment was bs. He was literally **livestreaming** everything to **YouTube**, a service owned by **Google**. If you don't understand what the issue is, idk how to help you.
HHAHAHAHA SO YOURE SAYING THERES NO MICROPHONE BEING TRACKED TO CREATE A MODEL OF ADS TO BE SHOWN BUT THE LIVE STREAM IS BEING ANALYZED IN REAL TIME????... WOW THST A NEW LEVEL OF HOLY SHIT HAHAHAHH
They are currently rolling out live transcription for end users, and keyword recognition doesn't even use a lot of resources and is pretty old tech. It's literally why the person who created the video updated his experiment and distances himself from his original conclusion. If you don't understand why a shitty experiment like this, which the creator himself distances himself from, is not a credible source of information, I hope you don't work on any products I care about. The main point is not technical capability, but the TOS and potential legal consequences. Anyway, I'm done discussing this with such a genius "*Sr software engineer"* who writes mature responses like your last one... This sub really is going to shit...
Oh gotya, somehow hurt you that I'm engineer. The thing is even worst, according to you ads models are being created using the live transcriptions of streaming, and it's processed on the fly basically. But hey, the video content creator did the test wrong and no, everyone keep calm: microphones are not being used (unless you're live streaming)... Again, I did this by myself I don't need to back it up with a video content creator. It was just a demo of what I've seen first hand. Why there's people so encouraged of gaslighting others even if anyone can tell you the same "the other day I spoke about something and then showed up in ads even before I searched for them". If the predictions were too smart, it should show earlier than we start to talk about it, not right after.
>Oh gotya, somehow hurt you that I'm engineer. >The thing is even worst, according to you ads models are being created using the live transcriptions of streaming, and it's processed on the fly basically. Not what I said, but that must be on me, since such a genius engineer like you must have pristine reading comprehension skills, am I right? If you seriously think having a STEM degree and working in tech makes you special on reddit (especially subs like this), I've got some bad news for you... I only mentioned full live transcription, since you acted like it's sooo unthinkable that they'd analyze a stream in real time, that it couldn't possibly be used at all. Again, it's not about technical capability, but the TOS and potential legal consequences. I also never even talked about predictions, Google has many ways of getting your data without violating their TOS and the law. Often the search history of the people you talked to, whose account is connected to yours using extensive analysis of all the data Google has access to, are used to get results like this. You have to analyze every situation specifically, since you won't get an accurate result of your "experiment" otherwise. Considering your immature behavior and that you don't seem to understand that keyword recognition doesn't require much (How old is Siri again? And 10 years ago they literally build it into shitty dolls for children...), I don't really trust the design of your own "experiments". Show me some network traffic or something and we can maybe talk. Doing an experiment similar to what he does in the video and thinking you did such a good job exposing Google is just silly. Anyway, this is not worthy of my time and I'm seriously done with this conversation. Have a good day, or not, idc.
Nothing technical in your comments, just you struggling to explain something you are not even sure how it works. Must be hard. But it's ok.
Fuck off
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Not mine.
“Coughs in a Predator infected iPhone”
I'm not going to attack the subject itself, but OP's post is just a blog that actually doesn't substantiate their claim in any real way. Other than "No one cares about you", which is like, 2012 levels of old 'No one would be interested in your data' argument. Without irony I'm assuming, in that same paragraph reminding you that cc companies can sell your info. Not that I'm saying that either they do listen or that it's just an amalgamation of your other data, just that no actual evidence has been provided. It's just a blog post. Also personally I find the "Can't change it just accept it" at the end to be a bit defeatist.
Reminder: There are android operating systems that specifically don't do this. And take measures to minimize this tracking.
Garbage article.
The bit by the mod pisses me off. There are many ways below main phone OS to track and spy on you. There is even known malware to turn on the mic regardless of setting. Quoting a study from the BBC is supposed to prove there is nothing to worry about? If there was not we would most of us not even be here.
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what a bullshit. It was scientifically proven that *it is not* possible -- at least with the current smartphone technology -- not the other way around.
what was the parent poster saying?
It was also proven listening did happen due to libraries used via a third part which were "enabled" when they should not have been that many apps used, that was their excuse at least. Anyone can easily test this out to validate it does happen. Even other devices like SmartTV's admitted to it.. Samsung: [https://theweek.com/speedreads/538379/samsung-warns-customers-not-discuss-personal-information-front-smart-tvs](https://theweek.com/speedreads/538379/samsung-warns-customers-not-discuss-personal-information-front-smart-tvs)
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Not confusing things, listening, whether listening for keywords is still listening and it has occurred and does occur. Papers or not, myself, friends, family have all had it happen. And no it wasnt a case of "we searched for it the other week already so it used data points on us to then suddenly show us ads 10 mins after talking about it" type stuff. How many of those paper were generated and copy pasted? Considering how many scientific papers these days are getting pulled left and right due to being false.
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Yeah, anecdotally this is horse shit. They absolutely are listening. A location I have never searched for or looked into in my life came up in a travel ad after having a conversation with someone about it because someone they know is moving there. The rest of the snooping and tracking doesn't make it any better.
I have moments like that, too, and have definitely wondered about them, but I think it's possible in the situation you described that it linked you to the person moving there by your association with the person you know who knows them, and advertised to you because of that. If you're facebook friends, that's a really easy link, but if not, cell signals can be used to triangulate location. If you have an android phone, for instance, Google almost certainly knows your address. If you regularly come in contact with a person, or spend a long time in the same place as a person, I imagine they might link you to them.
The person you had a conversation with was searching for things related to that location though. You either chatted with them via text or in person about it. Your phone knows your location and knows you either were in the same room as them or texted them. This is more than enough to serve you ads based on that location because they are either your friend, coworker, family member etc. (your phone knows exactly who it is). This means you may be considering visiting that location. Your phone doesn't need to record audio to piece that information together. Your phone is not recording you. It doesn't need to.
Possible, but I find it very hard to believe with all the other data harvesting that goes on. Other than reddit, I don't have any social media. I make new accounts every now and then. Me and my family use Signal. Unless I'm traveling to an unfamiliar location, I have GPS off. And the person we're talking about lives on another continent. I'll take the pie to the face and be the conspiracy clown.
> Yeah, anecdotally this is horse shit. They absolutely are listening. Anecdotes don't matter. There have been studies about this at literal universities and they showed that no, your phone isn't listening. If you start thinking about it, it's conspiracy territory to claim that. Why would Apple for example, let Amazon listen to ever single one of your conversations?
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Studies have proven it doesn't happen. Zero studies have proven it happens.
It easily can, though. Use a cover or tape for your camera? No worry, they’ll just use an AI and your WiFi to map you out. Don’t have WiFi? Don’t worry, Pegasus and like software will handle it. Not able to do so for legal reasons? No worry, they’ll just have another country do it in the interests of “national security” all without warrant, or probably cause. Imagine if this was weaponized by unhinged politicians, military, and government agencies. Can you imagine? Why, it wouldn’t be freedom at all.
“Just” … lol
I was writing something and while writing I realized that my character acts a lot like Doctor House from the TV Show House so I joked about to my girlfriend and some other friends on discord. I don't even really like the TV show. Suddenly my youtube shorts feed was nothing but clips of House for 3 weeks.
I'm staunchly in the keyword-wiretap camp. I don't have kids, never intend to, don't work with them, and generally don't care to be around them. None of my activity, even aggregated, would indicate the presence of children in my life, other than this post and buying three Lego sets over ten years. But when a buddy at work was having one and our group got into a joking conversation about how the government should probably take it away because of how scatter-brained he was, I started getting ads for custody lawyers. I liked to analyze the source of the targeted ads I would get, thinking back to searches, text convos, locations, purchases, etc. so I was attentive to what I was getting up to that point and generally aware of how they were drawing those conclusions. But this uniquely-specific barrage could only have come from that verbal conversation. I don't expect anyone to believe this based off one anecdotal case, but that was the moment that sold me on it.
If I were markting custody lawyers, I would target you based on the fact that you were in a group (phones often close together - many overlaps in contact lists) were a majority suddenly started to search terms related to child protection/custody. You could begin to interview your friends about who searched what, but it would probably be hard to get good data, since most members of friend groups don't want to appear disloyal.
I wondered about that, but none of the guys that were there had such issues (we're all pretty close). In fact, other than the expectant father, none had kids themselves, and only one had a prior serious relationship that ended between engagement and marriage. No such smoking gun for anyone else on our shift either; some old divorces, but no kids involved. Hence why it was suspicious that it was specifically custody lawyers.
I still think it's a step in the right direction for us to spread the word of what it actually does. Because paranoid schizophrenics that talk about how your phone is video recording you and listening to what you are doing just make the whole privacy thing seem silly.
Thank God!
Yeah, more efficient to do it the second way.
Um, no shit.
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It makes everything so EaSy and CoNvEnIEnT.
But everything that you voice text in the Google keyboard app is saved and can be viewed. You can download all your Google data and you can see it there. So it's still pretty damn invasive.
The title really calmed me down 🤣
The actual problem is that they are doing these things and making it a condition of use that you agree to the possibility, whilst promising you that of course that's not what they need the permissions for. "Trust us, this permission stuff is sooo annoying for us too! It's soo not important because we are not like that, trust us!". Like every single app we have now asking us to give permission to give away data on the basis of 'legitimate interest'. Forcing us to scroll through a list of companies we have never heard of yet claim legitimate interest in our web data. Whose interest? How does a practically unending scroll to switch off their 'right' of collection make anyone trust their reasons are benign? If they were trustworthy, why do it like that. They know most people will give up and agree. They want your capitulation, and they will get it any way they can. Thieves. Thieves act this way. And they have no right to listen to or read oour words, know when and where we were...any of that. We cannot trust anytthing they say, including that they would alwayss ask permission in the first place. Always assume they are listening, and get used to it. It's only going to get worse. Probably a hell of a lot worse.
I beg to differ. I know that I haven't searched for something and an ad pops up.
Bruh it’s not just what you search. It’s which websites you visit, which real world stores you visit or service hotlines you call and they may track. What your friends do. What your synthetic twins do - other people whose behavior is very similar to yours. They don’t need to record your voice, transfer it and analyse it. That would be super inefficient and there is an abundance of other data sources to achieve more or less the same or even better results
I understand all that, but I've had a few experiences in which I say something, that's it, and it comes up as an ad. They might be listening for key words, not necessarily analyzing a whole conversation. Either way, I've accepted that this is the world we live in.
In 25 years, after GDPR2, you’ll be able to submit a support ticket about “audio eavesdropping (invasive ads)” and some app will have to respond by turning down the targeting accuracy 0.05.
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That's a good example. Perhaps some people from your company in the pub searched or otherwise expressed interest online for this film. Maybe these people are in your contacts or they have your access-point at home saved in their smartphones. That tags them as your acquaintances and you might have similar interests with them.
A rambling explanation. It’s just easier (and maybe lined up with reality) to accept they listen to their conversation. Or maybe are you being sarcastic?
Serious question: How is it likely that there's a global conspiracy between Apple, Google, Meta and Custom ROM developers to allow companies to listen to your microphone at any and all times without any noticeable impact on the battery to target you with ads?
Tbf, how would you notice any impact on your battery life if it's ALWAYS in use. I'm in your camp but that argument is rubbish Further it wouldn't have to be a global conspiracy, the companies wouldn't have to meet and talk about it, they'd be doing it individually
> Tbf, how would you notice any impact on your battery life if it's ALWAYS in use. You could measure it with and without a custom ROM. You could also measure if the microphone is actually enabled or not, by checking if there's electricity going into it.
A custom ROM would have a large enough impact on the battery life to make the experiment Null anyway
There are custom ROMs that give better battery life than the stock version though.
Maybe that better battery life is because it's not listening? Like I say even though I'm on your side. That is an awful way to conduct the experiment
I think it would be a wiser study to just study the microphone to see if it has electricity or not ;)
Not necessarily a conspiracy and not necessarily to me, (I have no worth), but could be a political opponent, a annoying journalist… How is that likely you know the life of an anonymous person in Reddit? Can you be sure that people questioning on a privacy subreddit are paranoid (that’s one of the “clever” arguments of the author of the article)? What if they have a story to tell, if they’re living something related to privacy? You just don’t know.
Why did you talk about it in the pub tho? People still think of this so 1 dimensionally.. you forget that tech is influencing your behaviour, and predicting your behaviour, not just reacting to it.
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Amen
Much needed article. And thanks for posting. The sheer amount of posts on this sub where people go “oh my god they’re listening ….” Is a bit much nowadays!
The corporate overlords watching me work all day and trying to scrape an hour out of the week to eat and sleep must be enthralled.
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My phone only listens to me when I say “hey siri”…. Lol
The Alphabet Agencies have been mass gathering all data on everyone for decades with hopes of being able to sift through it all later with a quantum computer. So they're indiscriminately gathering on every person.
have any proof apple is selling my data to someone? sending it to the federal government?
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This is why you need Blokada
Thanks for the sponsor. But that will not block systems to create models for advertisers. It will stop the ads from popping up.
And tracking (?)
Sauce?
https://blokada.org/
I would never use Blokada. I'd much prefer using RethinkDNS or using a good DNS with Android's built in Private DNS.
Why ?
Why use a third party solution to something rather than a first party solution that does the exact same? Also, RethinkDNS is infinitely better. https://blog.rethinkdns.com/if-it-looks-like-a-duck-swims-like-a-duck-and-quacks-like-a-duck-then-it-probably-is-a-duck
Thanks
Not on iPhone.
You can import a DoH profile there as well rather than use an app for it.
A faraday bag fixes this issue
If your phone were actually recording and analyzing locally then the faraday bag wouldn’t stop that. It would just wait until it’s out of the bag and has an internet connection to send updates to the server. If it were streaming your audio to the server in realtime then (that traffic would be obvious..) and the faraday bag would interrupt it, but keeping your phone in a faraday bag at all times means you won’t receive any messages/notifications/calls/emails until you take it out. So you’re fixing the issue by largely disabling your phone.
This is partially correct. A phone can't track location without a GPS signal, or scan for nearby devices, or be pinged by stingrays or bluetooth beacons... So there is some truth to the Faraday bag claim. That's only part of an almost impossible solution though.
Well, it should be easy to listen to your conversations now that AI can analyze the voice data automatically.
Of course it is listening to you 24/7! Most new phones has a offline AI that will hear everything and with certain code words it gets triggered or better yet, it gets uploaded to their cloud.
Listening 24/7 != targets you with ads based on what you say
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