Smartphone listening?

Signore Fancy Pants

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119257940#Comment_119257940

Thats only applicable to people/private organisations that are law abiding. State and non-state actors, and nefarious entities care not for legislation.

In reality, we are not not really protected. Mass data collection, storage and analysis is ongoing 24/7/365 and is being sent to different places. The most benign example being email address sharing.

Can we do anything about it? No. So no point worrying about it. Just don't fool yourself.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119258200#Comment_119258200

Yes and the FBI more or less forces them to hand over access to those backdoors.

Russian intelligence use typewriters and paper and pencil for communication because its harder to intercept.

Suckit

https://www.privacytools.io/

...

Suckit

Tik Tok is taking it to a different level.

This is from the other day:

https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/security/tiktok-privacy-faceprints/

"The Chinese tech giant is taking surveillance capitalism to a new level. It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for Zuckerberg"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/25/how-tiktok-is-turning-a-generation-of-video-addicts-into-a-data-goldmine

c.p.w.g.w

I have had a number of incidences were me and my OH would discuss something, I'd start getting adverts pertaining to what we discussed...and if I have googled it that would one thing...but the majority of the time I haven't googled anything and still get the ads

Ubbquittious

Interesting article about what apple/google phones send home even if you don't log into anything

https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf

AndrewJRenko

Interesting examples

https://twitter.com/jontafkasi/status/1541694024477810688?s=21&t=ydZ50oOTEbgeXCZBUwuevw

huddledDuke12

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119258309#Comment_119258309

Basically, as the cliche goes "if you aren't paying for the product, you are the product".

You will also get warnings before using apps where they request various levels of access to your device to function ranging from accessing your contacts to your browsing history and even your devices microphone.

When you sign up to these apps using social media or your prefered email account, this enables the relevant third parties to gather data on how the app is being used as well.

With all of that in mind, you need to be smart about your use of these apps especially, when they ask for access to your microphone as anything it picks up can be transcribed via speech recognition and harvested for data mining culminating in adverts pertaining to topical conversations.

As creepy as it is, terms and conditions need to be read in depth if you are at all dubious about using these apps. A documentary was released back in 2013 in relation to this matter alone. See the synopsis below:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terms_and_Conditions_May_Apply

The Social Dilemma documentary mentioned in an earlier post covers how apps can be made to be addictive.

Ekerot

God, the amount of weird porn I've seen over the years...****.

And to think I aspired to be a politician

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058251941/smartphone-listening

No **** lol. Everyone's known about this for a very long time. It's not a conspiracy theory. It's really happening.

riclad

Unless you have phone on, not in airplane mode you are giving location data to cell towers , nothing to do with satellites, most people use chrome browser, Google sells user data to 1000s of ad networks, google owns chrome , also almost anyone can buy data from ad networks , use brave browser for more privacy. It uses the chrome browser engine. Most apps you use sell user data to ad networks. There's few laws on user privacy re tvs, it's well known modern TV company's sell data to advertisers, when you use apps on the TV, streaming apps, if tv has a Web connection. It's publicly known, its not a back door, TV streaming apps sell data to advertisers, eg what TV shows you watch, ads you watch etc if you are concerned don't connect TV to the Web, no need to have location on ever unless you are using a mapping driving app, unless you are using a messaging app, or something like Facebook messenger, social media, your phone is not connected to your pals phone ever, the content on your friends phone does not randomly jump into your phone, it's not like catching the measles. Company's want to sell user data, it's easy money, nothing to do with terrorism. Most apps are free, they show ads or invite you to sign up for discounts on goods. Like store cards that give you points , they do this to be able to acess all the items you buy. It's well known that att other American telecom company's give the nsa acess to user data. If you use any apps social media tik Tok someone has acess to all that data

Most people don't care at all they just want to watch a funny video or talk to friends on insta meta messaging apps Brave browser does not sell your data to advertisers

last time I checked its in the app store

murpho999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119259831#Comment_119259831

The amount of anecdotes like above I have heard just don't ring true to me .

I have tested this certain times with people and we'd start talking random stuff and nobody received any advertising whatsoever.

Whilst I agree that privacy is an issue with today's technology I think a lot of these claims about ads are just paranoia, fictitious or just stemming from the person's activities (not always Google).

mookishboy

Its all about the meta data. Thats pretty much it. location of device, sites searched, products bought or searched for etc. then proximity to other devices. all is just meta data. shared by pretty much all devices, aggregated and served up

riclad

Unless you use certain apps theres no data shared by phones if you are in house with someone , most people use chrome, Google takes data from search, browsing data, YouTube and uses it to show you ads, most Web digital ad revenue is sold by Google or Facebook , if you don't like it use firefox or brave browser, and limit use of social media

Tik Tok is now recording voice audio data for some reason for anyone who posts videos, its the no 1 video app for time watched per day

Cookie_Monster

The really annoying thing is even with all this targeted advertising its still crap.

If you search for something / research it and then buy it the ads still pop up a week later. I DONT NEED TO SEE ADS FOR THIS BIKE IVE ALREADY BOUGHT YOU DUMB ADVERTISING!

Muahahaha

I remember Amazon admitted a few years back that their Alexa devices are always listening in the room, not just when you speak to them. Would imagine Google Home is the same. The article said the feature can be turned off but no doubt it is buried somewhere on their website that is not easy to find. It also said that you can request a recording of everything it has recorded, Ive been meaning to do it myself just out of interest. Would love to hear from anyone who has requested it, Id say it is freakish the amount of recordings they have on you. Also I would imagine its only a matter of time before we see criminals convicted off the back of a smartspeaker that was in a room recording them.

I think another thing people will be surprised by is just the sheer amount of data points they have on us. That Austrian student lawyer who took on Facebook over privacy got his own data out of them and just a few years use of Facebook amounted to something like 3,000 pages when it was all printed out for him. Most of us just click 'Accept all cookies' but if you ever go in to 'Manage cookies' the agreement to accept all cookies is basically you agreeing for them to share your data with hundreds and sometimes thousands of companies. And thats just off clicking Accept all on a single website, we've all clicked thousands of them. So its not inconceivable that we have given permission to over a million companies/entities to track everything we do and share it amongst themselves. Permission for them to sell that data on, the works. Its pretty freakish and we have really slept walked into this.

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119256102#Comment_119256102

Yep. People think their phones are listening to their conversations. The reality is scarier. The fact is that these companies know so much about you that they can predict what you're going to say. The head of cambridge analytica once said that with 25 points of data he could predict how someone was going to vote with greater accuracy than their spouse could.

And it's every bit of data. They know you like vanilla ice creams, well that makes you slightly more likely to do some things than a person who likes chocolate ice creams. That fact by itself can't predict anything, but when you add it into the hundred other things that your phone knows about you, you get a very detailed profile. Someone mentioned that their friend traveled to Turkey for a hair transplant and they started getting ads for hair transplants. Were they friends with that person on social media? Was there a lot of interaction between them on social media? Did the friend post about the hair transplant? Are there photo's of both of them were one can see hair loss? Or was it just as simple as them liking a post on facebook where their friend said they had a hair transplant?

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119258200#Comment_119258200

There's rules about that. I remember a big issue with Nuance (They're a voice recognition company that makes the software that's used by the likes of samsung) keeping data on people. There's strict rules, especially in the EU about what they can and cant store.

In reality they don't need most of that info. They have enough on us already, just from tracking cookies.

No, your smartphone is not listening to you.

Pretty sure The Good Information Project debunked it.

daheff

Absolutely 100% this I happening to me too.

Had a call with an excolleauge. He started talking about a new system they were using and if I had ever used it before. I said no & conversation moved on. Next day I started seeing ads for this system.

It's an FP&A system called Anaplan. Not something I'd be searching on my private phone.

slystallone

Why isn't duckduckgo as good as it was?

riclad

Switch off data and location when you are not using the browser or web apps .Go to settings Battery battery saver mode on, you can still make phone calls and send txts.use firefox browser instead of chrome .i don,t think your phone is listening to you location is only needed for apps like google maps

if you are going to turkey for operation you probably found the clinic on facebook ,social media or using google search

I never see ads. Must be the adblocker

And spam is not related to my searches..

Strumms

It’s all being enabled by governments who are all only too delightedly to cow-tow to the need and wants of businesses.

Andrea B.

The ads and locations not always correct either.

"25 horny women looking for men within 5km."

All forestry around here!!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119933973#Comment_119933973

I once got an email like that .5km from where I live. It named town

I connected a VPN with California ip and the women were then 5km from California

Capt'n Midnight

Meta got fined €265 million yesterday for leaking 533 million customers data. 20 hours income. 50c per user. And you can be sure they will challenge it and stall.

With downsides like that for getting caught there's no incentive to be honest.

StupidLikeAFox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119933973#Comment_119933973

🎶 If you go down to the woods today you might get a big surprise 🎶

if you are paranoid about privacy I suggest using Tails OS, run from USB key, make sure you have good bridged access to Tor networks, a decent VPN and use protonmail for your email. Use all encryption tools to share files. Then you can relax, sit back, enjoy your web viewing. And I didn’t mention sock puppeting to you heart’s content 😁

Them if you want to help protect your computer data being breached by hacking use Qubes OS where all your data are put into little containers isolated from each other, so if one is breached the rest should be ok. Like locking all your rooms at night in case a burglar gains entry to one room he’ll find it difficult getting access to the next.

xxxxxxl

You should be more worried about people live listening to voice searches. No Idea how long the mic stays open...