Big Brother is Listening

[mooreted]

Samsung’s new voice recognition technology can hear what you are saying and transmit your words to unknown third parties. According to their privacy policy:

“Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.”

https://reddingcomputer.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/big-brother-is-listening/

[grahammechanical]

There is a BBC web site article about it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31296188

It is obvious when we think about it. What people may not expect is the need for a connection to a server somewhere. It is like when someone uses a mobile phone and they talk loudly. And a lot of people do. And the rest of us can hear their side of the conversation even when we do not want to. Talk to a machine that has voice recognition and it will hear everything said.

[mooreted]

Boy, I hate when people do that. Makes me want to walk over and join the conversation. I mean, they kind of already invited me in.

People need to start thinking hard about privacy. I can imagine a pretty dark future if someone doesn't put the breaks on.

[tgalati4]

I would like a phone app that shows random conversations captured by Samsung TV's. I would pay for that.

[mooreted]

Lol, that would be pretty cool.

[buzzingrobot]

The internet is a network.

This Samsung thing works just like Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana: The response to the query is generated at Samsung/Apple/Microsoft server farms, not on the phone, remote, or other device. The query itself must be sent to those servers and the response sent back to the machine. This directly parallels how a query to any search engine works, or how a browser loads a web page, etc.

Pushing a button on a Samsung remote is required to trigger this activity.

[Matthew_Harrop]

We unplugged the Kinect because we were worried about that.

Looks like I'll be getting the 1989 Sony Trinitron out of storage. 13 inch ftw!

[tubezninja]

I'm wondering why this story is blowing up right now, and with Samsung TVs. As already mentioned, Cortana, Siri and even Google Now (OK Google) have modes where they are constantly listening and waiting to be activated by a specific keyword. So this is nothing new.

That isn't to say we shouldn't be concerned... I'm saying people should've been concerned sooner, and not just over their TVs. My smartphone is always with me, and I talk to it a lot more than I do my TV.

[Erik1984]

What I dislike is that other people around the Samsung user, who did not necessarily agree to the terms, are also recorded.

[justananomaly]

My son broke our Samsung TV about a year ago and I went with another brand at that time. I am glad that I did now. I love Samsung displays don't get me wrong, but there needs to be some FCC changes made here.

[buzzingrobot]

People want to use voice commands. That works by sending the command someplace and returning an answer.

My phone is not 'listening' to me all the time. It has a voice-actuated microphone (been around for decades). It's programmed to respond to a specific trigger in a specific manner.

Makes little sense that people are being paranoid about something like this when they're constantly beaming there most private communications on the public airwaves.

[pfeiffep]

Now Samsung is also invasive (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31424596)

[mooreted]

Yep, it just goes on and on. Hmm, I don't know how we started spamming you, we sure didn't mean to.

[tgalati4]

As machines get smarter (and people get, well, you know, less smart) these things will happen.

[pfeiffep]

I prefer to think of it as a different kind of smart; but maybe that's the problem - as a society we 'trust' technology and these new inovations just a bit too much!

[buzzingrobot]

I prefer to think of it as a different kind of smart; but maybe that's the problem - as a society we 'trust' technology and these new inovations just a bit too much!

People are typically ignorant of the way technology and the internet works. We are naive if we imagine the data collection capabilities inherent in the way the net works will not be leveraged for profit.

[PondPuppy]

The voice command thing is quite odd -- some people, and make that most of the ones I work with, absolutely despise it. We carry company-provided cells and periodically someone will accidentally turn on voice activation. (These are semi-industrial phones, and have a button combination which activates the voice feature.)

Phone: "Please say a command!"
Human: "[dirty word]"
Phone: "I could not understand that command. Please say a command!"
Human: "[bad dirty word]"
Phone: "I could not understand that command. Please say a command!"
Human, grappling with phone: "[very, very bad dirty word]"

And so forth.

Other people apparently find voice activation quite handy. They're just people I don't know, I guess. (Yes, I understand that people with certain disabilities could find it essential to use voice commands to control their devices.)

From a security standpoint, my concern would be that if a microphone is controlled by software, then in some subset of applications that software will have vulnerabilities. And so, when hacked, a voice-activation can become an always-on voice monitoring system. Of course.

[mooreted]

I am one of those that doesn't want to talk to a computer or a phone bot the same way I don't want to talk to my hammer.

[tgalati4]

And how do you know that the picture that you are viewing on your SmartTV is not modified in some subtle way? The Voice control picks up the word "Pepsi" and every time a "Coke" commercial comes up it gets substituted for a "Pepsi" commercial. Now we have the cyber battle-of-the-commercials.

You have probably seen the disclaimer before a movie: "This movie has been modified to fit your TV."

Now we will see: "This movie has been modified to fit your personal conversation habits."

[davidvandoren]

We all should demand all phones to be equipped with a mechanical old fashion microphone on and off switch.
A camera lid would be nice too.
So, every phone has at least two buttons, one for turning the phone on/off and one for the mic.

[buzzingrobot]

We all should demand all phones to be equipped with a mechanical old fashion microphone on and off switch.
A camera lid would be nice too.
So, every phone has at least two buttons, one for turning the phone on/off and one for the mic.

The Samsung remote apparently has a switch to turn the mike on and people are still chattering.

[Linuxratty]

I am one of those that doesn't want to talk to a computer or a phone bot the same way I don't want to talk to my hammer.

Same here. I think a lot of the problem is the powers that be did not explain very well what they meant in their small print.

[col48]

Slightly off piste (but this is the Cafe)

The Voice Recognition Software commonly used as a front end by corporate entities shouid be programmed to act on the command

"Connect me to a Human Being", or equivalently(?) "I demand to speak to your supervisor" or even "You have failed the Turing test"

It must be in the European Human Rights Convention and the US Constitution, surely?
Oops, they've been around too long and ne

[Thank you for calling. This conversation has been terminated. Your call is important to us.]

[benrob0329]

Someone should make a voice recognition program that just grabs the info it needs off the web, not send your every word out to the world. **HINT HINT**

[kurt18947]

Samsung TVs in the bedroom. Nothing to be concerned about there. Undocumented micro web cam next?

[buzzingrobot]

>>" These record what is said when a button on a remote control is pressed." -- from the BBC report.

>>" Voice recognition, which allows the user to control the TV using voice commands, is a Samsung Smart TV feature, which can be activated or deactivated by the user. The TV owner can also disconnect the TV from the Wi-Fi network." -- Samsung

Perhaps prospective buyers should be required to pass a reading comprehension test.

[Gustaf_Alhll]

>>" These record what is said when a button on a remote control is pressed." -- from the BBC report.

>>" Voice recognition, which allows the user to control the TV using voice commands, is a Samsung Smart TV feature, which can be activated or deactivated by the user. The TV owner can also disconnect the TV from the Wi-Fi network." -- Samsung

Perhaps prospective buyers should be required to pass a reading comprehension test.

But that doesn't change the fact that they ARE listening, and that's what we should concerned about.
...I honestly can't see the point of having a "Smart TV" in the first place, since a TV is meant to be watched. Nothing else.

[buzzingrobot]

But that doesn't change the fact that they ARE listening, and that's what we should concerned about.

That's the way voice activation works. It's been around for years. There's a mic that "listens". When the trigger word/phrase is "heard" the activation occurs.

If people are concerned that Samsung is "listening" to them after they push the button on the remote to enable voice activation, they can either never push that button, or push it, speak a command, and push the button again to disable voice activation. Voice command is on or off at the option of the user.


...I honestly can't see the point of having a "Smart TV" in the first place, since a TV is meant to be watched. Nothing else.

I can see accessibility benefits to controlling TV's and other appliances by voice.

Whether TV's are only for watching or, as vendors clearly would like, for more than watching, is something the market will determine. We used to think phones were just for talking, too.