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Facebook Says It's Not Secretly Recording You (fb.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In 2014 Facebook introduced a feature which can use your phone's microphone to identify songs you're listening to -- but "we don't record your conversations," they're reminding users. A mass communication professor at the University of South Florida tried discussing specific topics near her phone, then discovered Facebook appeared to be showing ads related to what she'd said. Though she wasn't convinced there was a link, the Independent newspaper reported that "The claim chimes with anecdotal reports online that the site appears to show ads for things that people have mentioned in passing."
An official statement Thursday reiterated that "Facebook does not use your phone's microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed." But another news site sees these concerns as a reminder of all the permissions users routinely grant to their apps. "Go into your phone's application settings and you'll see a whole list of what an app like Facebook has access to: your camera, your location, your contacts, and, yes, your microphone too. How about this for a warning? By downloading Facebook you give the app 'permission to record audio at any time without your confirmation.' Tom's Guide security editor Paul Wagenseil says Facebook can...listen to your conversations...but it would be illegal to do so."
Meanwhile, the FBI "can neither confirm nor deny" that it's ever tapped an Amazon Echo device.
An official statement Thursday reiterated that "Facebook does not use your phone's microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed." But another news site sees these concerns as a reminder of all the permissions users routinely grant to their apps. "Go into your phone's application settings and you'll see a whole list of what an app like Facebook has access to: your camera, your location, your contacts, and, yes, your microphone too. How about this for a warning? By downloading Facebook you give the app 'permission to record audio at any time without your confirmation.' Tom's Guide security editor Paul Wagenseil says Facebook can...listen to your conversations...but it would be illegal to do so."
Meanwhile, the FBI "can neither confirm nor deny" that it's ever tapped an Amazon Echo device.
"Can neither confirm nor deny" doesn't sound good.
What's better than a geo-tracking device every citizen carries that also allows access to phone conversations, texts, and emails?
An audio feed of everything that happens inside the citizen's house, that's what.
Orwell was prescient, but he didn't foresee that his surveillance state would be sold to "consumers" as the latest shiny toy.
if they managed to activate my mic trouch my noscript extenstion and without me installing the app, logging in, and their websites being filtered by my proxy.....
But...that's exactly what they'd say if they were secretly recording me, though.
I mean, do you really think they'd come right out and say, "Yeah, we're secretly recording you"?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I mean, come on, it's hardly a secret.
"Facebook is not recording you, it would be illegal to do so, so therefore they are not doing it!"
How little self-respect you must have if you believe any such claim as this after the existence of mass surveillance has been revealed.
All of these little stories, which are posted here almost every day, are meant to nibble away at your outrage and underhandedly restore your trust in the government by soothsaying.
There is nothing mitigating the mass surveillance conspiracy. There are no checks or balances. As a society we looked at the evidence and did not act on it. There is no oversight.
That means it's going ahead and expanding.
There can be no freedom for people who are under total surveillance. It's life imprisonment. It's a hard and fast limit on your potential. Are you really content to have your own humanity and that of your children progressively reduced until there is nothing left? Most people are. If you're not, and you don't change your pattern of action radically, there will be no hope left for you or anyone else.
Man, facebook is working really hard at becoming the most evil company. Microsoft, your title is in danger!
Ok, that comment was unnecessarily long.
As an OPSEC manager, I am putting together a warning brief for all personnel in our organization about that app.
Facebook should modify the app to remove the ask on mic permissions, or the brief goes out.
apart from privacy aspect, there is a property ownership aspect to facebok's use of information about users.
facebook ( and google and other so called social media) are primarily ad sellers.
they sell ads with help of content created by users for users(themselves and others), which is different from say tv or newspapers which create/buy content to sell ads.
shouldn't users have a right to monetize the content that is being used by facebook etc? shouldn't they have a cut from ad revenue same way tv program makers or reporters for newspapers?
and shouldn't users have right not to sell money making content, which is their property, without receiving payment?
while how courts will view the privacy concerns of users are uncertain, i think law will come on the side of users on the ownership of their property in the end.
few years down the road, facebook and google or their successors probably will end up with very thin margins.
Those of us of a certain age remember that phrase well.
But if you've explicitly granted permission for Facebook to record audio from your device, at any time, without notification -- in what sense would it be "illegal" for them to do so?
...or at least as much as an iron grip as Apple allows me.
But I tell ya what -- Facetwat is not on my phone. (yes, Facetwat is my derisive mashup of Facebook and Twitter.) And no, Twitter isn't on my phone. Neither is Tinder, or Snapchat or whatnot. You wanna reach me? Email me. Text me. iMessage me. Or fucking call me.
I honestly think Facetwat is a front for the NSA / FBI. Call be paranoid, call me whack-job, but Facetwat just seems too goddamned convenient.
And for the curious, this post was indeed lubricated liberally by hard carnauba wax and something Scottish and unpronounceable. *
*spent the afternoon waxing the english shitbox, and the early evening with a fine puertorican cigar and something scottish and unpronouncable. And end to a good day, devoid of Facetwat. How peaceful it is!
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Who here installs such an app and simply takes the default permissions? Well, probably not anyone that reads Slashdot. And the other Facebook users? they don't care.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
"every night, while you were sleeping"
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
They probably use some text to speech algorithm first, and then feed their massive insane AI with the data that uses it to determine things like if the person is a victim/perpetrator to ring a phone somewhere with cryptic words, or the brand of toothpaste the person use or usually both.
What the professor mentioned also has happened to me the last year or so. Discussing something with a friend, my wife or someone else and seing a very related advertisement next time I log onto Facebook, google something, check the news etc. And before you ask, no I didn't google the topic during the discussion. It is a very awkward feeling.
Just because a certain employee of a certain company keeps asking you to use his underage prostitutes as carriers for the drugs he keeps buying from you, doesn't mean that you have to be so paranoid as to think that he is using his company's app's ability to listen to the sounds you make (in order to cut you out as a middle man in this cocaine transaction). It simply doesn't follow. It may be true. But you don't have to be so cynical as to believe that it is true.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Facebook says it's not using your microphone to inform ads or to change your News feed. It says nothing whatsoever about recording you. This is the classic non-denial denial.
Like they said. They're not *secretly* doing it.
It's all in the EULA
"...By downloading Facebook you give the app 'permission to record audio at any time without your confirmation.' Tom's Guide security editor Paul Wagenseil says Facebook can...listen to your conversations...but it would be illegal to do so."
OK, first of all, this statement seems to contradict itself. IANAL, but if you give permission, chances are it's legal in many circumstances.
That said, what the hell does legality have to do with mega-corps today? Do you honestly think you have a chance in hell against them in court? Do you think they already know your chance when they skirt or blatantly ignore the law?
Facebook knows the power and control they wield, even over lawmakers. Death and taxes? Yeah, seems the too-big-to-fail social media master will avoid both of those.
It's one of my favorite and most useful apps. But just recently it has asked for access to my microphone to update. There is no conceivable reason it should need that, so I have blocked said update and will continue to do so. If it stops working eventually, then so be it. You have to draw the line somewhere.
If we told you, it wouldn't be a secret.
I can't believe anyone trusts Facebook.
#MakeHappy
Not sponsored, just a crazy fan.
In the 60's spy spoof films starring James Coburn, one of the bad guy organizations was the ubiquitous Phone Company, and they could monitor everything near the old land lines that they owned and leased to every household, and were everywhere in public in the form of payphones. Ma Bell took on a Futurerama Mom like persona.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I don't use childish, n00b garbage like Facebook but you could easily block the permissions that you don't want on your computer, phone, tablet, whatever.
That's just what the product is, isn't it?
Post about Windows 10 and it is endless streams of "oh my god the evilz!"
Yea, yea, the privacy train has left, you have to be a virtual luddite to have even the hope of privacy in 2016..
Those people clinging to Windows 7 out of the delusion that they are secure and "private" are just kidding themselves.
Microsoft is late to this game and is only doing stuff that others have done for some time.
---
Note: That doesn't make what Microsoft does "right", it just makes it the same as everyone else.
...why I do not currently have it installed on my mobile device.
I found their mobile app to be so intrusive, I uninstalled it after a day of trying it out. The cherry on the cake was that of course, you can't even turn the freaking thing off, which is what I had first tried to do unsuccessfully. Only by going online and searching for this did the bleak reality of it become apparent.
You might call me naive, but I had never come across an app that you can't turn off. The only way to stop it is to deinstall it altogether and wipe the cached data. I guess it must have been determined to be a good feature in order to 'maximize shareholder value' ? Because obviously it's not the sort of thing that can just happen by accident.
So given this heavy-handed approach I wouldn't call it far-fetched in the least that they would decide to parse audio in order to squeeze in contextual advertising.
Meantime, this really brings back on the table the greater issue which is: why are people falling for this free service when they are giving so much more value with all of their personal data than what it would cost as a subscription service of say.... $3 a month or less. I hope that a credible open-source alternative does surface that can perform most of the same functions without the 'walled garden' and incredibly pushy approach they are increasingly taking, not to say anything of their arbitrary algorithmic censorship and heavy-handed monetizing initiatives.
They say that they are not recording you, but they do NOT deny that they are not LISTENING to YOU, which has been proven again last week. :(
Deception. It's the lifestyle of the politician, marketer, and actor.
"we don't record your conversations" but we'll identify every word and a few phrases, we just won't keep the full audio around. Streaming + real-time processing != recording.
"Facebook does not use your phone's microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed." We don't sell you to ads, we sell ads to you. The advertisers tells us what they want and we give them you. We don't give them our database and let them pick. These targeted ads aren't displayed in your News Feed, but they may or may not be added between or around News Feed elements. Also we can use data we've analyzed from the microphone in relations to ads, we just won't use the microphone's raw data.
Oh, and all of that only applies to "you" meaning the current user. If we hear some other user from your phone, then we'll record those "other" conversations.
In other words "read the EULA", there's nothing "secret" about the recording.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Why is it even legal to push a 1503 pages document on normal people as binding agreements?
so it's obviously not a secret. thus it's not secretly recording us if we know aight? just uh... lemme see what you're doing there. some mighty fishy search history there, huh?
Cowboy Neal wants to record all of you!!
At least they aren't piping in ads into our dreams...
...Yet.
All that is required is one National Security Letter (NSL) and lying about the ability and completely immunity to liability is addressed. In fact, if an NSL is issued, they would be required by law to lie about such capability.
Don't forget Zynga.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
Or, if you are on Android 6, just revoke all the permissions.
You can, but I wouldn't say 'easily'. Unless you've got Android 6, you need to root your phone and install XPrivacy in order to block individual permissions for an app, and that's not something most people would do.
Whatever, Skynet.
After all, big companies never, ever lie - witness e.g. Microsoft.
Could being the key word. The thing is why would anyone do that? And how many people do you think 'they' have just listening to eveyone's conversation, reading everyone's tweets, browsing your facebook and so on and so on? From what some people say you'd think the NSA et al employ half the population to listen to the other half.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
nah, they just store the lot...
and then when somebody powerful wants to fuck you over for whatever reason, they'll look through what they have stored on you and find something to hammer you with
Surely an easy way to figure this out would be to create a logging app.
Don't even post it on the play store. Sideload only.
Have it generate a random name and file signature before install so it cannot be fingerprinted by their app.
Now just play the waiting game.
Why the hell is the parent comment modded off-topic?! Whoever is responsible for that incorrect moderation should never mod again.
That comment does a perfect job of highlighting how intrusive and insidious IoT monitoring is. Even what we see to be the most minor and irrelevant activities will be tracked without our knowledge. And it won't just be one or two things being tracked. It will be everything!
Somebody should mod the parent up. It's the most insightful comment of them all, despite some mods being too fucking stupid to realize it.
Everything else aside, Facebook has invested a lot of effort into developing a very sophisticated platform that lets you share your cat pics with surprising ease and speed. How do you think you are paying Facebook for this service?
It now sends you a reassuring message telling you it's not recording you when it hears you talking to your friends about the Facebook recording feature.
I am now officially a curmudgeon, as I cannot understand why anyone would willingly have something like an Echo in their home.
Hey, cats: stop belling yourself.
Facebook profiles, Google tracks, CIA coordinates with a vast network of cunts-out-for-a-paycheck.
FBI are 17% moles.
All of this shit dies. Jesus is coming.
The damn wording on the permissions is set by Google, not by Facebook. They're ominous sounding because they cite the most extreme cases that the devices *could* be used for, so that people don't come crying later when things are used in ways that weren't expected. Lastly, the giant list of permissions set by the FB apps really don't go out of line with everything the apps do. Want to be able to take pictures and videos from the app? There's your camera permission (and by extension, I believe, the microphone permission for video). Want it to update your contacts with your FB list? There's the access to your contact list. Want Messenger to handle SMS? There's the SMS permission... Every permission it requests can be justified by a legitimate function within the application.
the easy way to get it secure is deleting the facebook app and the whatsapp app also.
About 1.5 weeks ago this same thing happened to me. Talked about a Fossil watch with a couple people. I haven't searched anything about watches. The next day I get 2 fossil watch ads on facebook. I did a little digging and now I keep seeing several of these stories pop up.
Weird
"Microsoft has been so stupid lately that there has been talk that Satan won't renew Microsoft's contract. The problem? Stupidity is not evil enough."
Oh, the naivete of people who think that clicking on a little picture somewhere that changes from "ON" to "OFF" actually does what it says it does.
Proverbs 21:19
Or possibly reverse causality: the topic of Fossil watches came up because the company was running a web campaign and buying a lot of ads.
The actual statement from Facebook continued on beyond the single sentence quoted in the summary: "We only access your microphone if you have given our app permission and if you are actively using a specific feature that requires audio. This might include recording a video or using an optional feature we introduced two years ago to include music or other audio in your status updates."
Your phones are all capable of always listening, this isn't something unique to Facebook.
Google has far more interest in targeting ads to you, why is this study (and discussion) focused just on Facebook?
App Ops. Easy.
You just don't know what you're talking about.
Or maybe you just didn't notice, but in its early days the facebook app did bad things to a bunch of people's contacts. I can't remember if it just deleted all the ones that didn't have a facebook account from your phone (which is how I remember it) or something more evil, but it's been garbage since always and while I commend you for removing it quickly, it's always appalled me that people were willing to install a facebook app on their phones at all when their phones already included web browsers and fb works just fine that way. I imagine they imagined that notifications would be worth it, but they aren't.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When you find someone's phone unattended, utter some phrase over and over that will cause embarrassing ads to appear. Incontinence stuff, or whatever. Shame them by asking why they get these weird ads . . .
Root + Exposed framework + CameraLess = cool control over cameras / convert smartphone to dumphone. I guess there is a similar app for the microphone as well
We would never record your conversations. We paraphrase ALL conversations for your security. And index keywords. And cross-reference to friends and family. And...
Ok, that comment was unnecessarily long.
As an OPSEC manager, I am putting together a warning brief for all personnel in our organization about that app.
Facebook should modify the app to remove the ask on mic permissions, or the brief goes out.
listen to you? all the devices have cameras these days.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
You can, but I wouldn't say 'easily'. Unless you've got Android 6, you need to root your phone and install XPrivacy in order to block individual permissions for an app, and that's not something most people would do.
I suppose somebody has to point out that any permission that can be blocked via software can be quietly reinstated by other software..
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
nah, they just store the lot... and then when somebody powerful wants to fuck you over for whatever reason, they'll look through what they have stored on you and find something to hammer you with
there is a whole building full of disks recording every bad thing ever said about Future Emperor Trump.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
How? The software on my Android devices don't update or download anything unless I tell them to.
And even if I were stupid enough to leave some kind of autoupdater on, how would this piece of software gain superuser permissions in order to make changes? Magic?
Which is easily remedied with a lens cap or just a piece of tape.