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Samsung Warns Customers To Think Twice About What They Say Near Smart TVs (theantimedia.org)
In a troubling new development in the domestic consumer surveillance debate, an investigation into Samsung Smart TVs has revealed that user voice commands are recorded, stored, and transmitted to a third party. The company even warns customers not to discuss personal or sensitive information within earshot of the device.
The new Samsung controversy stems from the discovery of a single haunting statement in the company's "privacy policy," which states: "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."
The new Samsung controversy stems from the discovery of a single haunting statement in the company's "privacy policy," which states: "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."
"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."
Okie doke, I'll do something to ensure that this never happens... I'll never purchase a Samsung TV.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
A big screen that tells me what I should think and listens to everything I say... I'm sure I've read about this somewhere....
Well, that's the rub, isn't it? The TV is not supposed to be a recording device.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Once again, I note the biggest error of the book 1984: It failed to anticipate the role the private sector would come to play in loss of privacy.
Well yes, but in the past voice command processing has been implemented locally. When I used to say "Open Word" to my IPAQ back in 2003, nobody at Microsoft got sent an audio clip. I grant you voice commands were highly limited, and you had to know some syntax to get anything more advanced done than launching an application. OOTH you did not need to worry your device was spying on you.
I think this is kinda of an insane position for Samsung to take. They need to find away to address the privacy concerns or make it possible for people to 'securely' disable the feature, like maybe be able to unplug the pickup mike!
Consider TVs are things people put in their living rooms and in their bed rooms. These are our most private places. I want to be able to have a conversation in my own homes without outsiders listening or even potentially listening in, I bet if you ask most customers they'd say the same thing! I even suspect if you made it a conditional like, you can either have voice activation on your TV or know we are not listening to you, suddenly voice activation would not be considered a feature.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
This is a problem with ALL technology nowadays.
Business is under the delusion that more information collected about their customers is better - regardless of their privacy.
Thanks Big Data!
I am becoming a Luddite. Consumer technology has jumped the shark.
It's no longer about making my life better but about collecting information for business to sell us more shit.
It's all about selling. It's not some conspiracy - it's just ape brains wanting to make more money. That is all.
Amazon, Netflix, Walmart, Google, Yahoo! Microsoft, Bank of America, Chase Morgan, etc .... just want more revenue and we're just a commodity to be exploited.
It's just numbers. We're just numbers. And when we buy Samsung's and anyone else's crap, we're feeding it.
Cut the cable as much as you can. Save money and stop buying their shit. Buy basic cars without the crap. Stop buying Android and Apple products. Stop buying.
Everyone who asks for your identity tell them that you don't give that out.
Freeze your credit. It stops identity thieves (it's telling that stealing credit info is stealing an identity.) and it slows down buying crap.
Our society want us in debt. Cars, housing, education medical ... one way or another, you'll be in debt sometime.
Yeah, and 1984 was supposed to be a cautionary tale for the public, not an instruction manual for the psychopaths running things.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
Physical switch on the mic you can turn off or on. Perhaps with a nice indicator light.
Once again, I note the biggest error of the book 1984: It failed to anticipate the role the private sector would come to play in loss of privacy.
Not really. What has actually happened is that the most powerful actors in the private sector have merged with and taken over the state.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
From Samsung's privacy policy:
In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Samsung will collect your interactive voice commands only when you make a specific search request to the Smart TV by clicking the activation button either on the remote control or on your screen and speaking into the microphone on the remote control.
Emphasis mine. Check the source, people, not the clickbait blogs.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
Two things:
First Orwell was an optimist
Secondly, the specific concern alluded to in TFS is why one of the most important things the tech community today could accomplish is to achieve a solid voice-input capability that runs entirely locally (and is not user specific or require particular training out of the box or out of the compiler.)
Alexa, Amazon's commercial voice savant, sends very word you speak "to the cloud" which is, of course a "third party" (and potentially, a 4th, 5th... Nth party.)
Mycroft, the "open" voice savant, holding so much promise because it doesn't use Amazon's excreble model of "you must provide anticipated result phrases for everything you want to do, and set up and maintain (and probably buy) a secure server", wraps that promise in... you guessed it. Sends everything you say to "the cloud."
Both suffer from "if the net is down, I become a deaf idiot" syndrome as a side effect of the cloudy thinking that went into their design.
The day I get a real "can listen and produce cleartext locally" application (or device) is the day my home (and car, and boat) gain significant automation.
I know this issue doesn't concern a lot of people, particularly young people. The net is "always there" and privacy "WTF is privacy?"... but I think that's a function of them being young and not really understanding either the depths that some people will sink to, or the relative fragility of the network. After they've been stepped on enough, and lost their connections enough, I suspect they'll modify their stances somewhat.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
well, that's not at all the message of the book, though, is it?
It's not a book about loss of privacy, it's a book about the evils of State suppression of free will, and government intrusion into privacy is a component of that suppression.
It's very much like saying "the biggest error of the book 1984: it failed to anticipate the role that slang would come into play in the loss of colorful language". While it might be tangentially true, it's not important enough to the message of the book for the author to address, so calling it the "biggest error" is not in any short measure hyperbole.
He gazed up at the enormous Logo. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the large screen. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished.
He had won the victory over himself. He loved Samsung.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What is needed are mandatory privacy related (non)compliance labels or central clearinghouse where consumers can quickly check the creep factor of products they are about to purchase.
The problem is rarely people don't care about these issues. Nobody wants conversations conducted in their private homes uploaded to the Internet.
The problem is exclusively lack of visibility. Consumers simply have no idea or no options. If companies can no longer get away with hiding bullshit under the radar it shall either pressure them to change behavior or create a market for new entrants to fill demand.
This is really no different than energy efficiency labeling. Without it nobody knows and inefficient hardware costs the manufacturer nothing. With it and widespread consumer recognition efficiency becomes a selling point that costs the manufacturer market share.
The problem with this is the purchase.
Buying a "Smart TV" whether you plan to connect it or not provides sales data to the retailer and manufacturer that people indeed want T.Vs with these functions.
Its positive reinforcement by those protesting the cause - Like everyone that buys a Windows P.C. only to wipe windows and install an alternate OS. HP and Microsoft have just received your $$
. .
A router running at normal speed down and limited to about 256 bps up would go a long way toward taming it.
Except that in our brave new world, "smart" devices don't necessarily need you to give them an Internet connection before they can phone home. Some already have built-in wireless and arrangements with mobile data networks. Given sufficient market penetration, mesh-style networking also becomes a possibility. Unless we're all planning on living inside Faraday cages, we need more powerful solutions to this creeping invasion of privacy than merely controlling our standalone Internet connection(s).
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You have no idea when it records; "it records only when recognising voice" is an assertion that goes beyond what you know. Anytime nonfree (user-subjugating, proprietary) software is in control of a computer, that computer is not really under the user's control and we can't tell what it will do or when. That's the power of the proprietor at work.
Trackers (aka cell phones or mobile phones), most people's laptop computers, and now some TVs, all have microphones in them under the control of proprietary software. There's simply no way to tell when the mic is active, where the data is going, or to get consent that the recording only goes where the user wants it to go. Privacy policies change, software updates happen (and sometimes without user control or vetting), and software behavior doesn't always conform to stated policies (not that the user would have any chance to know what proprietary software is doing anyhow). The same applies to cameras, GPS units, tracker/cell phone towers, and more.
Ultimately regardless of whether the policy matches how the software works, when the device is under the control of nonfree software that device is a threat to a user's privacy and users are not in control of the device.
Digital Citizen
The world is more like the movie Brazil. Trying to be like 1984 but failing due to incompetence.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
sweet naive assumption that if you don't give it internet, it won't call home.
Perhaps it could use other wifi networks?
Perhaps it could reach net relayed via your neighbour's TV?
Perhaps in the absence of your wifi it can use a completely different (invigilation) frequencies and standard?
Perhaps it takes in bits of protein from moisture and airborne bacteria on the frame
Perhaps a small insect becomes trapped in the heat bent
Perhaps a gecko loses its tail as a crack in the plastic closes tightly
Perhaps the hinged button compartment closes slowly, trapping the whole gecko
Perhaps a mouse decides to build a nest by crawling into a rear opening, never seen again
Perhaps the kitten is missing
Perhaps Chester and his chair has been mostly absorbed.
We hear his piteous cries for help
They are gathered in the Control Room where hand gesture snapshots and voice command packets converge. There are speakers everywhere emitting sharp mechanical, animal and human sounds. Small blurry photos taken from thousands of TV cameras float on a giant screen. Some people are standing in front of their TVs trying to find the actual controls (hidden in a hinged compartment) and their faces and giant eyeballs fill the frames.
The people who work in this room exist in a brief timeless moment that continues forever, in which countless desperate people are trying to control their TVs with gestures and voice commands without success. Properly executed transactions are logged by the cloud but repeated failures, especially if the algorithm detects angry or anxious voices, are routed here. The Corporation decided that to improve customer experience, real people would staff rooms like these and try to make sense of the commands as a last resort, issuing instructions back to the TVs as best they can.
More than half of the images and sounds are not people trying to operate their TVs however. There is a cacophony of domestic arguments, screaming puppies and wailing children, laughter, someone banging on pots and pans. The employees' eyes dart back and forth, their ears straining to detect some coherent voice command directed at the TV. There! A drunken voice murmurs "off dammit". Fingers tap on a console and OFF command is sent. Sigh of relief, perhaps we'll meet our quota this shift. Then a low growl rising to a scream and a woman's voice: "You never cared about me! Just leave me alone and get a fucking job!" Fingers tap again and a command is sent that will distract them by playing a loud Samsung demo loop showing happy young people leading an active lifestyle. That is good medicine and maybe it will help, but it helps meet quota. Small child facing camera in tears repeating something indistinct. Is that 'two' and 'tree'? Tap command set channel 23, hope it's OK for children.
Everyone in the room is quietly thinking... what were they thinking. Once upon a time people learned how to control their own TVs and once they learned they taught others, even small children. Now everyone is faced with the task of training machines for voice and you can see how much wasted energy and anguish results from it. They pity the elderly who were given these sets to make their lives easier... and everyone all gathered on the first quiet excited day and everything worked perfectly. Then the kids left and a fan was turned on in the room blowing air into the microphone, and from then on those in the Control Room see an old man alone in a room, in tears, shouting some command obscured by the wind. Two technicians gather for this one, debating what to do. It is decided they will make the TV cycle through channels slowly until they see his expression change. But it never does, perhaps he is tormented by something else.
Then the shift is over, and the next set of employees enters the Control Room. We are now approaching the late hour of peak alcohol, when children are gone, voices are slurred and TVs are sometimes knocked over. It will be a long night.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
That's the key. It's easy to record an audio clip, and figure out which of a dozen keywords it comes closest to matching.
Something the ipaq did 12 years ago.
It's much, much harder to record an audio clip and try to find a match in a library of 20,000 words.
If only we had proessessors several orders of magnitude more powerful than a 2003 ipaq. With thousands of time more RAM, and multiple cores...
oh wait.
But for the time being, transmitting the audio to a beefy server is the best we've got.
Just how beefy are these servers? I don't need it to service millions or thousands or even 10s of users at once. Just me. I bet my desktop has enough beef to match it. And I bet that my smartphone, several orders of magnitude stronger than an 2003 ipaq, could be a pretty remarkable personal assistant just with its local resources.