Slashdot Mirror
Google to Use PC Microphones to Listen In?
seriv writes "The Register reports that Google plans to use PC microphones to collect statistics on a user's environment. Peter Norvig, who directs research at Google, told Technology Review that this software would start to show up in Google software 'sooner rather than later'. The software collects short sound clips and removes background noise. Google then targets its ads based on the statistics collected. With the current level of online privacy, this new level of invasion would seem to have frightening possibilities."
this sounds like bullshit to me.
This article has recently been linked from Slashdot. Please keep an eye on the page history for errors or vandalism.
NOBODY is stupid enough to propose such a thing. I think it’s a better guess that the tech in question is to be used to run ad-supported VOIP or similar.
I don’t know who those Faultline people are, but either they or El Reg (and now Slashdot) have been trolled. HAND
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
If you're worried about your privacy, then stop using Google software. Set up your /etc/hosts file to resolve their various domains and hostnames to localhost. Disconnect your microphone.
If neither Google nor the various levels of government care about your privacy, then do what you have to on your own to guarantee your personal life remains personal.
If anybody believes this story I've got some oceanside property in Nevada I'd like to sell them.
Seconded.
While I don't think there is "evil" in the intentions of the engineer who thought this "clever" thing up, or the marketing guy who figured the data would be useful, or the corporates who realised it could boost the shareholder value, lets not forget that the government can obtain the data if they so desire as well.
As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
First off, this is the Register.. take it with a grain of salt.
Second, does anyone actually believe that - if this was true - you'd be forced to use it to use Google software? Google might track every statistic imaginable, but no one is forced to use anything they provide.
Flash already has the ability to do this. Thankfully, you can control whether or not a site has access to your camera and microphone (denied by default).
This guy's the limit!
Something tells me that you'll need to install software (willingly, meaning probably NOT the google toolbar that comes preinstalled on half the computers out there now) for it to function. Not to mention actually have a mic attached, which I'd wager many systems don't (one of my laptops has one integrated, that's it out of quite a few systems). Don't get me wrong - I think it's a very scary prospect and very much against "don't be evil" (by the way, where the FUCK on any of Google's pages does it actually say that? I've looked fairly hard and not found it, nor 'do no evil'), but I think they've got all the best intentions. That, plus the FUD slashdot summary managed to leave out the part where the PC encodes all the data in some sort of one-way crypto string before sending it off, meaning that they only thing they'd get is that it sounds like you're watching Big Brother in the other room, not actually sending off any conversations that are happening.
Having said that, they'll need to really bend over incredibly far backwards to get me to even consider installing such a thing. Like, they pay all of my online shopping bills, no exceptions. Even with all the best security and intentions, the fact is that if they start getting subpoenaed for data, and don't fight it to the very end, someone has information on me who I don't want to have it. And if that makes me a terrorist, so be it.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
"Lighten up" is the asshole's excuse for being an asshole.
Okay, let's see. Excepting exploits, browsers (are supposed to) run in a sandbox - they don't have access to hardware.
I wouldn't have even added "are supposed to" even in quotes, but well there's always ActiveX... but still, I'm using Firefox on a Mac so I'm not particularly worried - doubly so since I don't believe this is real to begin with.
#DeleteChrome
How do we know there is not software that does this already? We've had web cams and microphones for 6-7 years now. First, what APIs exist in browsers that would allow this? Second what's the minimum software needed to do this? Lastly, could it be done without installing anything extra at all... from a webpage?
Certainly, most users are quite happy to use Google. Google offers a bunch of free but useful stuff: programs, tools, image databases, etc.
The users are happy.
The users depend on Google and are happy.
The users install the microphone link to Google.
The users are happy.
And Google controls.
Second, does anyone actually believe that - if this was true - you'd be forced to use it to use Google software? Google might track every statistic imaginable, but no one is forced to use anything they provide. ...yet.
Who doesn't use Google?
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Dude, the Google software IS the NSA microphone-tapping software!
Permission? As in "clicking yes to a thousand page EULA nobody reads without losing the rest of his sanity"?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Nah. Those of us who are into binary start our counting at 0 like God ordained. The secret #0 user is this anonymous coward guy. 1,048,575 is where it is at.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
That's not the point. Who is MAKING you use google? About the only people "made to do something with google" are admins who have to setup their site for google - and that's not exactly using google, ether. If no one is making you, and there ARE others (many, many, many others) use something else. This isn't the case of ISPs, there is a search engine for every 8 pages on the internet. Use one.
Great Intellect...
Google might track every statistic imaginable, but no one is forced to use anything they provide.
No one is "forced" to use electricity from the grid nor water from their taps either. We could just use oil lamps and dig our own wells. Yeah right, in theory.
The "no one is forced" argument is completely without merit in practice, it's merely a blinkered debating stance.
>lets not forget that the government can obtain the data
What data?
Each 5-second chunk is represented by a 4-byte number. Google says the transformation is irreversible. If it were reversible, Google would have found a way to encode audio at 4*8/5==6.4 bits per second.
This is for detecting whether you've got a particular broadcast going. The privacy implications are that maybe you don't want this government knowing that you listen to NPR, and that there might be a stealth "upgrade" later from Google or from somebody malicious that would improve the resolution.
Better than The Register, here's a Technology Review article about Google's microphone sampling.
Every single thing I've ever installed from Google that reports back to Google is either off by default, or asks me whether I want to let it report before letting it.
I can't imagine this'd be any different. But let's panic anyway!
WTF happened to "Don't Be Evil", Google?
It's non free software, right? Why are you surprised? The non free extortion has always been, "Do as I say or your computer will not do what you want."
A note to self: make sure the Google toolbar is uninstalled on every family computer ASAP.
The difference between this and other spyware that does this is that Google told you up front and you can remove it later if you change your mind. Chances are that Macromedia Flash or something already has your microphone turned on. Turning it off is going to be like trying to turn off the Vista start up noise if it's not already. When you use non free software, you hand control of your computer to someone else. It's never a good idea but some companies are less trustworthy than others. Google is the least of your problems.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Given that it's Clippy, wouldn't it be more like:
I see you're having some sort of seizure. Would you like me to call 911?
After all, the stupid little bugger could never figure out what the hell the user was trying to do. How's he gonna tell one spasm from another?
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
What data? Each 5-second chunk is represented by a 4-byte number. Google says the transformation is irreversible.
If it's not free software, you have no way of knowing. This is true of all non free software you put on your computer.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Easy:
rsTerrorists = db.query("select * from ip_voice_sample_log where match = 'al-jazeera'");
DOHS = new GovernmentAgentcyServer("DOHS");
ISPCollection = new ISPCollection("ALL");
foreach ( rsTerrorists as terrorist )
{
DOHS.getTerroristData ( ISPCollection.lookup(terrorist.ipaddress, terrorist.timestamp ) );
}
Under USA PATRIOT Act, nobody would even know.
The people doing these things think they are smart. What they are counting on is that people won't be able to tell them apart from more honest companies like Google, which bothered to tell you up front. A bad mouth here, a bad mouth there and tons of advert money and distribution channel extortion and all will be well, they think. It's called "screwing the pooch." Free software is going to make them feel really stupid soon enough.
People avoid damaged goods. Do you want this kind of thing running at your place of work? I don't, and that's where the transition has started. It's if non free is going to be replaced it's when you are going to get around to it yourself.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I'm not sure I want targetted ads for whatever I happen to be talking about with me and my friends, popping up in the sidebar of my next google search. Not all the time, anyway.
I'm not going to perform any terrorist activities, nor am I gonna encourage any terrorist activities. Just the opposite. But just talking about them can get snippets of my conversation put into a database, where later on, because I mentioned the words "terrorist" "bomb" "access" "motivation" "religion" and "plan" too much in a particular conversation, I go on a hot list to be placed under a microscope. It doesn't matter if I have nothing to hide. I did not reach out and say "Hey Government Entity, Look at ME!!! I need something from you, so you can pay attention to me now." I don't need governmental resourses and time spent on investigating me when they should be off investigating someone who is REALLY doing something wrong.
This one goes in the BAD file.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
I take issue with a few of the things you've said. Let me start at the beginning.
Actually, this is one of the only real ways to do serious amounts of survelliance. In Orwell's day, a 1984 dystopia would've been impossible; the technological resources required to watch everyone at the same time would've been impossible.
Having recently (3 days ago) read 1984, the details are still fresh on my mind. Orwell's "Telescreens" are, indeed, always-on surveilance devices, but were not constantly monitored. He makes mention early in the book that you never know when the ministry spies were "plugged in" to your telescreen, but you always had to act like you were being watched, just in case. That makes it less like data mining (which is notoriously easy to circumvent) and more like a panopticon instead, which is useful more for its control value than for finding deviants.
As for surveilance via computer, bear in mind that it's exceedingly easier to monitor someone's activity by watching, not a webcam, but rather their keystrokes, screenshots, and network traffic. Google's new development is not a step toward anything in particular. In fact, knowing Google's track record, the whole project will be a non-trivial-to-activate, opt-in, experimental, Google Labs component with a very explicit and unambiguous warning about the potential privacy implications. It will be lapped up by hundreds of thousands of early adopters excited to see the future of targetted ads, upon which some Symantec-like company will denounce the whole mess as spyware, and claim that only We can protect you.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
It's just a matter of defining "evil" appropriatly.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
What are you talking about? I don't have a webcam and I'm not planning to ever get one. I do have a microphone but I can always plug it off or mute it from the sound controls. The article has nothing to do with 1984.
Improve at backgammon rapidly through addictive quickfire position quizzes: www.bgtrain.com
See how silly it sounds to suggest that all closed source software is evil spyware?
I said it could be. If you have something you'd like to keep to yourself, you need to convince yourself that none of it is spyware. The easiest way to do that is to use nothing but free software. Some companies, like M$ have proved themselves less than trustworthy, but non free software all has the potential to betray and none of it has respect for the user.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.