Slashdot Mirror
Should Burger King Be Prosecuted For Their Google Home-Triggering Ads? (washingtonpost.com)
Slashdot reader Lauren Weinstein thinks Burger King should be prosecuted for
successfully running an alternate version of its advertisement to trigger Google Home devices again Wednesday:
Someone -- or more likely a bunch of someones -- at Burger King and their advertising agency need to be arrested, tried, and spend some time in shackles and prison cells. They've likely been violating state and federal cybercrime laws with their obnoxious ad campaign... For example, the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act broadly prohibits anyone from accessing a computer without authorization... Burger King has instantly become the 'poster child' for mass, criminal abuse of these devices... It was a direct and voluntary violation of law.
Lauren seriously needs to get a grip on reality if he thinks that jail time and shackles are appropriate punishments for a burger ad that triggers Google's spy equipment. There are real injustices in the world that are worthy of indignation, but Lauren's hyperbolic outrage over trivial first-world-problems (for those dumb enough to buy a Google Big Brother microphone to put in their homes and listen to their every conversation) is just plain silly.
You're missing the point. If Burger King legitimizes triggering digital assistants, then everybody can do it.Every ad is going to tell your devices to take you somewhere. The reputable giant global corporations will just do harmless things like send you a coupon or take you to their website. But imagine being on the wrong side of the internet, and suddenly an add pops up which commands "OK Google, show me some biracial gay midget porn!". Which is now on your official search history, easily viewable by the government, your ISP, credit card bureaus and your family.
Let's face it. From a marketing perspective, this is a huge success for BK. A relatively small number people were *actually* negatively affected, and I'd bet very few regular BK customers will actually STOP going there as a result. But for a single commercial, a huge number of people are now talking about BK and Whoppers. Even better, some people shift blame to Google for the insecurity of those voice interfaces. It's highly unlikely and negative legal consequences will come from this either.
Whichever sociopathic marketing asshole came up with this ploy is probably getting a big raise this year.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Or why not remove Burger King from their search engine? A milder version would be pushing up a warning page when searching for Burger King or any of their trademarks...
If Burger King legitimizes triggering digital assistants, then everybody can do it
Everyone CAN do it. Laws don't stop criminals, so claiming that BK opened some pandoras box is just plain ignorant. The box was opened when Google (and Amazon and presumably many other wannabes) created these products without even the rudiments of a secure design. These products are defective by design, and its just lucky that it was brought to light in an innocuous way instead of some criminal or other making off with millions by way of a less harmless approach.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
Kevin Mitnick spent 5 years in jail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and Aaron Swartz was prosecuted/persecuted to the point that he committed suicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Meanwhile, Sony pulls off their rootkit exploit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and now Burger King with "OK, Google", and nobody goes to prison. The takeaway lesson for cybercriminals... don't do anything as an individual; instead, incorporate as a multinational, and have the corporation do the dirty work, without risk of anyone going to jail.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Google will demostrate it is serious about security
Snerk. Sorry, but voice interfaces are a MASSIVE security hole (think tape recorder). There's really no way to completely secure the damn things. You could prevent this attack, but there's lots more where that came from.
As long as Google thinks people want them (and, from the fact that people buy the things, I have to say it looks that way), Google will keep making them. The only way to clean up the mess is to point out the flaws to the point that people don't WANT an always-on voice command system. And the only way that happens is if people find it more annoying than helpful.
So kudos to Burger King for forcibly pointing out that there's a big problem in a way that DOESN'T drain customer's bank accounts.
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
It would be funny, but then you're just playing BK's marketing game. There would be headlines AGAIN about Google doing that, which is just giving them more publicity. How many marketing campaigns end up with several Slashdot headlines (along with plenty of other big-name media outlets)?
The worst thing that could have happened to BK is that this story was ignored. They way they figure it, the longer they can keep this in the news, the more successful their marketing campaign is. The faux anger will dissipate in fairly short order, but we're still all thinking about BK's Whoppers in the meantime.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Next time it will be someone doing a 911 call or other DoS action.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Or why not remove Burger King from their search engine?
Because it's legally an incredibly stupid thing to do for a company that states over and over again they are not abusing a monopoly position.
Shocked, ok. but how did they "abuse the trust"? What trust du you have (or do you need) to buy a plain sweater withthe only difference from other china produced mass market ware is a certain word?
And for the return to obscurity.. That's what's happening to all mass market fashon brands. They start with an exclusive price tag and everyone wants a genuine "Foobar" shirt. Then profits are increased by becomming more and more "available" (both in number of stores and price) until everyone will buy them. And when the early adopters give the first pieces to welfare, the brand folds.
bickerdyke