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.
Ok, who was it?
again
this device will soon fall to the wayside as google does other devices. if anything google is probably behind it to try and drum up business for this google glass part deux device.
Dupe barely on the second page, yet slashdot strikes again.
FTFY.
Maybe this time Google will address the root problem rather than sticking a band aid over the sucking chest wound that is their security practices?
I'm going to side with BK on this one. Nice troll of google. Again! With BK you can get a product that will feed you. With google you *are* the product. Not sure which product is the fattiest or greasiest of the two but there you have it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!
Give it to me straight... who does this affect - 4 or 5 people tops?
#DeleteChrome
It from the Washington Compost, so who knows whats the truth.
Lauren Weinstein seems to be the only one particularly enraged by this.
I mean, as long as we are all being dicks, why not have the bigger dick?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I'm not of that opinion. When a company is universally mocked on social media, I have trouble understanding how that is good for that company.
Google, calm down. Most of the world isn't aware you actually think, let alone have a semblance of emotion which is clearly coming out in funny ways with your reactions here to Burger King's actions.
Levity. Taking a joke. Lighten up, Google, and smile. While you may be the butt of the joke, it's not aimed at you....
That fbi woman was using the phrase "Alexa" on tv, for the purpose of triggering an Amazon echo.
IANAM (I am not a marketeer), but huge exposure like this makes increases brand awareness. In a few months, when they have a choice of Burger King vs "Burger Loco", they will likely go to the one they recognize, even if they did do that jerky thing, what was it again?
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...
> And Slashdot reader Lauren Weinstein thinks Burger King should be prosecuted.
Knock it off, Lauren. If we sue for dumb shit like this then the courts will be too tied up to handle lawsuits from helicopter parents whose little angels don't get to start on the JV football team.
... it'd be your TV thats accessing the device, so if you didnt give your TV permission to access your Google Home, you should sue your TV manufacturer. Who will then make the argument that they merely forwarded the content sent to them your chosen content provider, If you sue your content provider, theyll argue that you tuned to the channel, thereby giving implicit permission.
The people getting bent out of shape are blaming the wrong people. Ultimately, two entities are at fault -
#1 - Google. For building a device with no inherent security that anyone can activate (wouldn't be surprised if there was some small print in a EULA somewhere that mentions this)
#2 - The person who deploys it without thinking about the consequences of installing a voice activated always listening device with no security restraints in their home.
I'm betting that there will be an update to Google Home that allows (and strongly encourages) a change in activation phrase
Surely you realize by now that these google devices are listening in 100% of the time if this is a problem at all.
This Slashdot reader thinks she should shut the fuck up and that her comments don't have any reason to appear in a summary.
Except they haven't been mocked. Most people laugh and ask why would someone want a device that listens to everything in their home to begin with.
Or send BK's corporate mail servers a few thousand emails from each Google Home device requesting they stop each time they hear the ad? I hope they'd take the hint if their advertisements start triggering corporate network problems.
Sigger than your average
"Order me a widget..."
You just know someone is going to try it. Put out a tv or radio ad, that tells every Echo out there to order a particular item, or at the very least, add it to a shopping cart.
The people who designed these systems knew full well in an environment with widespread adoption there would be a wide range of incentives to intentionally exploit this using unauthenticated local and broadcast communications. This is only the beginning.
I hope all those upset about burger king "hacking" their devices continue to enjoy their Surveillance Marketed As Revolutionary Technology devices.
Clearly the devices need the ability to set the alerting phrases rather than use a standard one. If the devices could do emergency calls I would consider mayday for emergency calls, and some other unlikley to be used word for other uses (perhaps even a word in a different language). The current options including the one copied from startrek (computer) are insufficient although Rechner or other language original name for computer would also work )
Change the trigger so it sends the users to goatse and tell everyone it's a sub-audio channel exploit from BK.
You mad bro?
Burger King doesn't give a shit because they moved their headquarters to Canada. What Canadian court is going to rule against a company that does something to annoy people in the USA?
This is probably just the tip of the iceberg while Canada and its new minion, Burger King, begins a troll the USA campaign. Look forward to worse.
Even if it is for a short time, I wonder if BK will get the hint if Google suddenly blacklists BK, or perhaps redirects all searches to a page explaining how BK is being a douche.
Lmao, just stop. "And Slashdot reader Lauren Weinstein thinks Burger King should be prosecuted. "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"
The ones doing this, are people.
And they will keep doing this, because it makes them money and there are no consequences whatsoever.
Only when there are extremely severe consequences will there be people who think twice about all this.
Dara Schopp, BK regards the ad as a success, as it has increased the brand's 'social conversation' on Twitter by some 300%," though he's not a fan of "reaching through your TV speakers and directly messing with your digital devices. You may wish to consider alternate vendors for your burger needs."
All publicity is good publicity. Thus the thugs at United Airlines have just completed the most sucessful and money making PR campaign ever.
Next on Burger Kings agenda - Murdering a reandom customer. Strangle that fucker in th efront of the store. That oughta get their Twitter feed, the undeniable measure of success, to go up by a million percent or so.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
"universally mocked on social media, I have trouble understanding how that is good"
Where have you been? Have you been on vacation on the Mars during 2016?
It's not "hacking", they made use of a device's functionality to give a user a "better" experience. Even if it was just an Ad.
Otherwise any random person on the street shouting "OK GOOGLE *insert random bullshit here*" would be arrested for "hacking" when it really isn't.
If you complain about this, then maybe you should complain that google and others didn't implement any sort of voice recognition to prevent third parties(anyone but you) from activating it instead. Or blame yourself for not disabling that massive privacy blackhole.
the king will not last 1 day in gen pop!
Lauren Weinsteins are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials that are native to Australia. They are about 1 m (40 in) in length with small, stubby tails. There are three extant species and they are all members of the family Vombatidae. They are adaptable and habitat tolerant, and are found in forested, mountainous, and heathland areas of south-eastern Australia, including Tasmania, as well as an isolated patch of about 300 ha (740 acres) in Epping Forest National Park[2] in central Queensland.
Interesting, I haven't heard of a similar attack on Siri, or Amazon Echo.
is BK just trolling for the biggest fish, or is there something more?
In fact they should be put up for the death penalty and deported. in that order.
Dear god, because it triggers a piece of toy tech the stupid people get all "PUNISH THEM!"
Honestly, my fellow Americans all have turned into Low IQ whiney babies.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You should sue Google instead for having made this insecure device....
No
...huge exposure like this makes increases brand awareness...
Whether an increased brand awareness is good or bad is really determined by the quality of that brand awareness. iow, how is this increased awareness of the Burger King brand helping them? Is the mocking helping? How does the mocking bring more people into their stores.
Is there another message that Burger King could attempt to deliver that would do far better for the Burger King franchise owners?
And it should be all over the news. And the phrase that triggered Lauren Weinstein should be amply cited on TV and radio in a variety of contexts.
Calm down captain autism, it's just an ad.
Where I come from, laws that put people in prison for these sorts of pranks is known as Nanny-Statism. Such laws keep growing and festering.
Eventually a popular uprising occurs and a nut-job is voted in to power ...
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
The FBI would be kicking down doors, so yes, prosecute them.
Seriously? You people are the reason nobody can get along anymore.
Put in shackles? Lauren Weinstein sounds like a real asshole.
Someone named Lauren Wisenheimer got you all spun up over a dubious claim of illegality.
Congrats Slashdot editors, you've been pwned.
They should be drawn and quartered as an example to the other megacorps.
Oh and maybe fine the company as well.
Maybe you shouldn't make your vocalized password the default "OK google." Yeah I know, first world problems...
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
No, this is a good thing. The security hole is, and has always been, that the devices only recognize selected trigger words. This hole is due to poor design choices of the manufacturers, and they must step up to the plate to fix it or become liable for any and all consequences.
My GPS in my car has a 100% programmable verbal trigger (I have used "yo, bitch" in the past... so as you can see, quite programmable) and it is almost a decade old. So there's zero question it can be done.
The message is flat on the table now: Amazon, Google, Mycroft... everyone has to set up user-programmable trigger words as part of the install of the device / app. Otherwise this kind of thing, including truly hostile events, will be a regular consumer experience, and the manufacturers will be complicit.
No manufacturer can argue they were ignorant of the risk now. Entirely a good thing. I look forward to them repairing this obvious malfeature.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
United is also getting a lot of public attention lately. Not sure how well it is working for them.
Appropriate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Lauren, you're retarded. Let's play a game of hide-and-go-fuck-yourself.
I'll just leave this here:
https://www.xkcd.com/1807/
Somebody's full of crap. In order to complete an order this way, after getting the Echo to understand what you want and confirming it verbally, you still need the 4-digit confirmation PIN number. That's a 1-in-10000 chance of getting right. If the parents let the kid hear the PIN number, that's on them. Not Amazon.
It's just the news media trolling you, hyperventilating about a non-problem. Again. Still. As they will continue to do tomorrow, because you let them.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yes... because so many people were directly impacted with this advertising stunt?
Real monetary loss via a television-home automation transaction:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/05/health/amazon-alexa-dollhouse-trnd/index.html
http://www.cw6sandiego.com/news-anchor-sets-off-alexa-devices-around-san-diego-ordering-unwanted-dollhouses/
Federal cybercrime laws? You think our nation should spend time on this.. and not *real* cybercrime that directly impacts the wallet of U.S. citizens? This is incredibly laughable.. and likely tied to an r-tard in their mom's basement. There are real incidents of cybercrime that have monetary impact that this stupid but mostly innocent advertisement doesn't.
Grow up Lauren.
The ideal would be for google to tweak the reply so it becomes:
Burger King Ad: "Okay Google: what is the whopper burger",
Google Home: "The whooper burger is one of the leading causes of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in the United States."
A response that is objectively true, and not in Burger Kings interest.
On topic, this is this actually illegal, but the severity is similar to that of an elementary school kid who installs scripts displaying a funny gif on the teachers computer while its attached to the projector.
Neither is technically legal, but both falls under the category of "harmless prank". If repeated or taken to extremes a fine (or a trip the principals office is appropriate).
Of all the corporate criminal activities we see this is a minor one, and one that warrants no more than a fine.
I may be in the minority but I am GLAD that BK did this. The just showed how inherently insecure and stupid this always listening devices are.
I also don't believe that they have done anything wrong ... they simple are putting words out there if there is a devices that responds to that, intention or not, it is not their fault.
Lauren, I have the feeling you're an over-coddled snowflake SJW that goes around looking for reasons to be offended. Seriously, just stop it, m'kay?
Nobody is going to take you seriously if you go around acting so unreasonably all the time. In the legal world we have a standard called the "reasonable person" standard. The "reasonable person" is a hypothetical person who exercises average judgment and care, and who thinks as most people do, with reason and skill. SJWs like you are what we call "outliers" who are not used to compute the standard of a "reasonable person." We don't average you in because, quite frankly, you are not reasonable, do not want to be reasonable, and in fact seem to go out of your way to be unreasonable. This is why the societal and legal worlds do not take social justice warriors seriously.
"Screaming," "crying," and "stamping your feet," are not methods of argument.
universally mocked on social media
Oh, a circle jerk. They're always fun to join in on.
Nothing surreptitious here. He (stupidly) publishes this right on his "blog." (I use the term "blog" loosely. It's more like a website chock full of examples of a middle-aged SJW melting down)
Nothing surreptitious here. He publishes this on his website:
Contact information:
Lauren Weinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
Email: lauren@vortex.com
Twitter: @laurenweinstein
Google+: Lauren Weinstein
If you provide access to a computer resource without authentication and to anyone within ear shot, you have granted authorization. The people at fault are the fucking mentally retarded owners who install such shitty technology in their house and then complain when it's legally abused as intended.
Fucking idiots.
Hey, is there anybody out there as old as me, that remembers the Bill Gates' intro to voice controlled computing - - - when someone in the audience yelled out "Format see colon return" - and the computer did it - - - rofl.
I never did find out what happened to the poor fool that scuppered BG's prime time demo.
Just wait until someone figures out how to diddle the phones to switch to 'speaker-phone', and then proceed to totally trash the house's voice control network ! ! !
cheers . . .
redneck geek
Of course they should. It would be a perfect stage to show off how dumb the CFAA is to luddites in government.
Commies, socialists, progrards or antifa! If you see 'em, slap 'em! Help strike a blow for freedom and set a new global record for leftist butthurt!
Burger King is exploiting vulnerabilities in computer systems of americans to forcefully expend their metered monthly bandwidth. They are doing this on a grand scale, in a grand, "indirect" profiting scheme.
Grand theft through hacking. The entire chain of command that authorized and deployed these changes needs to see the inside of a cell.
Don't worry. I'm sure google will get over it.
No. Google should be for selling an insecure device.
This is 100% google's fail.
Amazon's deally is also a 100% fail.
Siri is 100% fail.
Clearly, they didn't take "reasonable and customary" steps to properly secure the device from unauthorized use. Isn't that a felony?
It's definitely a case of build a better product. I'm reminded here of the case of the Talking Boonie, and battery powered talking plastic figurine that was given away with a slab of beer in Australia 10 years ago.
It was triggered by specific tones hidden in broadcasts and was intended to provide funny commentary during cricket games. They didn't always work properly however and had batteries that lasted longer than was expected, so months down the track after the promotion had ended they were still triggering at unexpected times.
Google 'Talking Boonie' for more.
Burger King is just trying to get some of the phat attention that United Airlines is getting... they are jealous children.
Was Google charged for infecting us via ads? https://blog.malwarebytes.org/malvertising-2/2014/09/large-malvertising-campaign-under-way-involving-doubleclick-and-zedo/ doubleclick = Google subsidiary iirc.
APK
P.S.=> Ask yourself that Mr. WEINSTEIN as you try defend Mr. BRIN, ok? apk
If you put an easily hacked IoT device in your home then see subject line above.
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:
Lauren Weinstein is a retard. Good to know.
These catch-all laws are frequently used to prosecute people that are not in favor with the current establishment, whomever they may be.
I think that the CEO of Burger King, since he's paid so much to be the standard bearer for that corporation, should take full responsibility when they fuck up.
It won't happen, of course; laws only exist to punish little people.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Who's idea was it to sue a corporation for hacking devices?
Are you stupid? Corporations in America don't get sued; they get bailed out.
Being mocked on media got Trump elected to president.
Yeah, arrest 'em all! Prison is ALWAYS the best answer, no matter the question. Feed the Gulag!
corporation, they'd have been arrested, and would currently be awaiting trial in jail with an outrageous bail set.
So fuck Mitt Romney, corporations are not people, they're clearly better than that.
No, running against Hillary Clinton got Trump elected.
You are brilliant. If I ran a business, I would hire you this post alone.
Weinstein is a kvetching goon. Stop crying all you brittle goons and nerds.
I shouldn't be prosecuted for going into Burger Kings and shouting, "FIRE!" Freedom of speech. After all, I am really just trying to start a conversation about the dangers of fire, and if a few people are accidentally inconvenienced, that's their fault. No one forced them to listen to me, that's their choice.
there's not a single thing that BK could that would make me less interested in eating their "food".
If United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz still has his job maybe the same broken logic is operating there too. United recently assaulted a customer who didn't want to give up his seat.
Digital Citizen
What is authorized and un-authorized use? Has Google made any effort to limit use to only the owner, or have they optimized to allow use by anyone who can talk to the device? If there's no authentication, log-in, or physical controls, there's no permission needed to use the device. What does the owner need to do to keep other people from using the device? Turn it off.
Expect to see any always active voice controlled device be hacked unless its keyed to a specific voice signature with some form of ACL tied to a specific voice print.
As much as I hate advertising intruding into my life and do everything I can to stop it with filters on all my devices, this not the advertisers fault. Anyone who thinks the advertiser should be liable is clearly wrong.
If anyone is to blame its Googles development team and the current tech development attitude of ship now and fix the bugs later. This is 100% a failure by Google to anticipate a use case like that and to incorporate security features that detect situations like that.
The people who believe Burker King's advertisers are to blame and should be sued or held liable are looking at things entirely wrong and your attitude should be that the developers engineers made an extremely blatant oversight and released an immature product with what some are perceiving as an enormous flaw.
Alexa is no different.
Even if you add a marginal level of security based on a vocal fingerprint or signature, if its still 100% voice activated, there is nothing to stop someone from recording someone's voice, characterizing it, and then crafting anything they want to say using their voice's frequency signature, cadence, and speaking patterns and simply playing it back through a speaker. Voices have a very limited frequency range, if you expect security in a voice controlled app or device, its going to be no better than using a clothes pin for a lock.
Please deface and lock the Whopper page so when Alexa reads it out it's really obscene and/or embarrassing. Problem solved.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
If a television advertisement can trigger your phone to act without your consent, perhaps the always listening assistant is truly not in your best interest.
I have a stack of PC Magazines back for ages at the top of my closet. On one of them, there is a caricature of Bill Gates as an octopus, fighting off attacks from fighter jets (the lead of which was Netscape) because Microsoft had the audacity to ship Internet Explorer as the default browser in their operating system. Let me repeat that: The fact that an operating system used it's influence to set the DEFAULT WEB BROWSER was front page news. And people were upset.
And now....Microsoft has the stones to involuntarily change the operating system (and the license agreement) that it's users run on. What is the response? Sure there's outrage, but what are the real consequences to Microsoft? Maybe a class-action lawsuit at best for a few people? An apology for 'not being clear enough' about the upgrade process?
If you really want to be serious about how much control people have over your systems, you need to be a little bit more vocal, and a little bit more upset than this. The fact that the 'Internet Outrage' only caused the ad agency to double-down should probably clue you in to the level of action you really need to take here.
If you're not willing to defend against a company that is literally threatening your job security (I have clients with Windows 10 PCs), what threat are you to a fast food chain?
What the heck is a 'sig'?
Burger King is part of a giant, wealthy, soulless fucking corporation, and as such is above-the-law in the "United" (hahaha) States of America.
The "Pledge of Allegiance" might as well be this: I pledge allegiance to the corporations, of the United States of America, and to the Republicans, with whom they scam, one nation, under the gun, incarceratable, with liberty and justice for some, namely, those who can afford it. Now bow your fucking heads.
Beat that
It's adorable that you think Burger King needs Google. Nobody searches Google for Burger King. Burger King is a household name that everybody already knows and that exists in practically every city in the world.
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...
Hmm, you want Google to punish a paying customer (i.e., Burger King) to protect the rights of non-paying non-customers?
Throw them under the jail.
The persistent hyperbole and attention whoring from blog/media crowd is about as healthy for society as a double whopper is for your health.
To have a device in your home, 'listening' and you wonder why stuff like this happens, it's your own fault.
Seriously, I have less than 0 sympathy.
Burger King were if anything, ingenious. Enjoy that Whopper folks!
(The burgers are better at Hungry Jacks,.....)
Burger King's Ad should be firmly covered by the first amendment.
>When a company is universally mocked on social media, I have trouble understanding how that is good for that company.
Your problem is believing that "universal" on social media means a majority, purality or even a minimally significant number of people. Could also be that your social media circle is comprised of a certain kind of person. It could be that those mocking still eat Burger King, or never ate at Burger King in the first place.
I think this stunt was shrewd, funny, and exposed an important flaw in the google home device concept. I don't eat at Burger King, but if I did, I wouldn't stop eating there based on this news.
never seen one execpt there sign at their store. thought they were more whatevers around type place.
You "buy" a thing that has certain capabilities. Someone figures out how to use those capabilities in a way that you do not like.The problem is YOU do not actually OWN the thing being exploited, the company that you "bought" it from does. Read your licensing agreement and terms of service. If you don't like it, quit using the thing. That is the recourse you agreed to. Again, read your licensing agreement and terms of service.
Welcome to the Digital Age. You have chosen convenience over your rights. If you don't like that, quit doing it.
Burger King are basically nothing more than Black Hat hackers showing us the devices are insecure. Anyone stupid enough to have bought into this generation of voice activated devices deserves all the accidental or malicious triggering they get because the devices just have no attempt at security at all. I mean, I hope the gen 2 devices make some attempt to authenticate that its their owner issuing commands.
Right now these devices are as secure as running routers or other iot devices with the default passwords.
People should be thanking burger king to help secure your idiotic voluntary-home-spying devices. Freedom of speech b*tch
I mean, as long as we are all being dicks, why not have the bigger dick?
Because being an annoying dick is different to being a monopoly abusing dick, and Google doing that would just result in a very lengthy court action.
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.
I'm not of that opinion. When a company is universally mocked on social media, I have trouble understanding how that is good for that company.
But they are not. You just think they are.
Quite a lot of people are laughing this off.
A few people are annoyed.
Many people are pointing out how clever the idea was.
A lot of others are pointing the blame at Google.
Hell here on Slashdot there seems to be more praise for them than not. This isn't United beating up passengers and getting grilled for it. This is actual somewhat interesting and intelligent social conversation which mentions Burger King over and over again.
And the MPAA and RIAA would LOVE this because it means Google CAN do it, WILL do it, and are doing it for stupid reasons.
Instead of having to "legally" prove a site is bad, why not have Google remove piracy sites for possibly having links? I mean, you removed Burger King because they embarrassed you, so why not remove these sites because no proper search engine should link to less than legitimate sites? And BK was for all intents, more legitimate.
As much as Google wants to, they can't, lest they get a flood of requests to ban all sorts of things "because you proven you can, and will do it for the silliest of reasons".
(h/t Eric Idle).
And if once you're told to leave you remain or come back, that's called trespass. And the police can forcibly evict you and even jail you. In Texas they can kill you.
Let the fun begin
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
Fair enough. Jail the fuckers. No need to jail the corporation, jail every single employee. For a day up to a year, based on salary and rank.
They manipulated my 'computer' from far way through sound waves to do their bidding, on purpose, repeatedly.
If that's not hacking a computer, then I don't know.
There, patent away.
the first thing I did when a mate of mine got one, was wait till he was out of the room and bookmark a bunch of expensive produce, with some plugin he was showing off.
Later when he was shocked to discover these bookmarks he'd never made, I asked him to consider what would happen if they'd been ordered, "Oh yeah" the device is now without power gathering dust...
Eh, I don't buy the argument. If you are fool enough to let your devices fully open for anyone to have access to using voice commands, I doubt any serious court in the country would apply any reasonable fines to a company that chose to run a specific script for their ads.
Again, if anything BK did a huge public service here by showing how easy it is to exploit always listening devices without causing any significant damages.
People who are angry at BK or Google should take a deep look into the whole thing and see if it was really a good choice for themselves to buy a device that is always listening for audio input, without any protection and any security measures, not to take random audio cues as valid ones to execute commands.
We can't keep trying to scapegoat every single brand or business who takes advantage of flaws of stuff you purchased yourself knowing full well how it worked beforehand.
Already we're letting politicians give away all protections that we have regarding privacy and data collection, and people are still voluntarity buying into scams like always listening devices for the most frivolous reasons.
But go ahead and spend a truckload of money on legal action that will essencially solve nothing. Because vulnerabilities on these always listening devices will always come up, and BK is the most innocuous usage of it I can imagine.
Wanna do something to make a difference? Take your fucking Google Home, Amazon Alexa or whatever device and return it or chuck it into the garbage bin. Because the problem here is not with one BK advertisement campaign or because of Google Home - the problem is with the entire concept of having an Internet connected device that has an always listening and always dialing back device. If an advertisement agency can do this much and it's angering this many people, just you wait 'till hackers with clear bad intentions start exploiting those for their own profit.
I recently saw multiple polic cars driving through the neighborhood. They had a large speaker on the cruiser and the office was saying "Hey Google" followed by a shortened URL.
"federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act broadly prohibits anyone from accessing a computer without authorization"
So someone makes a product that has no security, and we should sue the people who use that?
Yeah, that's par for the course of legal history I guess.
To show your support for the fight against BK, open a terminal window on your mac and type "sudo rm -rf /"
As long as so called "digital assistants" don't make any differentiation between their owner and other people, things as these are needed. Put in jail? No, Burger King deserves a thumbs up.
It's obvious that would be illegal. As it would be to de-list BK from their search. It would also fucking destroy google, because they only exist at the behest of advertisers (who pay their bills) and everyone would revolt against such an action.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
While I'm not a fan of what they've done, even I have to admit surprise and respect over it. You'd think someone would have tried it sooner, or that something more important than fast food would have been first. That being said, how many of us, if we were in marketing, wouldn't have tried This? As much as we may dislike the idea, it has proven itself effective, and it's now only a matter of time before someone in the department's of those mobile developers gets wise and pounces on it. Look at all of the attention BK has gained from this and tell me how it's not effective...
Google just needs to detect when they get a large number of the same request to comes in simultaneously. Then the can create an id of the message and automatically block it as spam. It will stop the problem before it starts!
Sounds like a dumb cunt. Probably one who will scream that being called a dumb cunt is everything that's wrong with tech, and proof that the Internet is filled with Soldiers of the Patriarchy and all that jazz - in spite of the fact that it's 2017, and everyone with a working braincell knows that anyone can be a dumb cunt, regardless of race, creed, gender or sexuality.
Being a dumb cunt is all about belief, and thinking BK should be sued because Google's gone amateur hour definitely qualifies.
The difference being that the negative attention to United was related to problems with their product instead of problems with their advertising.
Very simple..
"OK Google"
Hello, before we go any further, I want to make sure you meant to speak to me; what is our activation word?
The above message could be set to omit by the owner...
Then another method; have it measure ambient levels in the room; more than likely, it can be figured out that a TV is blasting and put itself in sleep or double-auth mode. Probably knows what tv show you're watching and can know when it cuts to commercial.
Seriously - how incredibly stupid would it be to say that Burger King is "intruding" in to computer systems? We could just as easily use the same arguments to say that people who cause unwanted pop-ups have subverted the intended use of our browsers and are, therefore, "intruding".
But who's to say that some normal sounding dialogue doesn't incite some other piece of technology in the future? Should we have to keep a catalogue of all the things that can't be said, lest some listening device be woken?
Really, Lauren Weinstein, you haven't thought this through.
should be taught to recognized the voice of its masters. Burger King won't be the last company doing this.
Someone declared themselves judge, jury, executioner. I'll go as far as, maybe a day in court, but any idiot that presumes guilt is just that, an idiot.
If you want the convenience, be prepared to pay for it. I recognize the inherent insecurity and instability of such devices and will never let one near my home or network. BK is just playing the hand they were dealt, so to speak, by the numbnuts at Google. Probably goes for Alexis, too. We as consumers need to be more aware of what these devices do and the hazards they pose.
Sometimes to protect the the integrity of your product and your other customers from destructive customers, you have to fire a customer.
This is a pretty mad interpretation of "accessing a computer system". BK don't have "access". They have sent a message. They didn't receive any response, attempt to receive a response or have any means to receive a response.
And even if you can stretch the definition to cover that use, it seems like a crazy misapplication of the law - one designed to cover activity that actually does something harmful rather than getting a different device to do what BK have the capability of doing with your TV anyway (i.e. read out a description of the product).
Was Google charged for infecting us via ads? https://blog.malwarebytes.org/... doubleclick = Google subsidiary iirc.
APK
P.S.=> Ask yourself that WEINSTEIN as you try defend BRIN, ok? apk
You made choice to install Google Home / Alexa. You knew the device answers to "Hey Google". You knew there was no authentication on the device. So this is all on those who made a choice to use three devices and use default setup. BK didn't "hack" anything, the most they did was take advantage of user giving permissions to Google Home / Alexa without understanding what they were doing. No different than a friend going into your house and asking Alexa something. Are you going to prosecute your friend.
Those responsible are:
1. Consumer for not doing the work needed to make Google Home / Alexa more secure.
2. Google for not making their product secure as part of setup. Consumer can decide to not use additional security, but by default device should be secure
They're are multiple way Google coukd make this secure.
1. Require passcode.
2. Use voice recognition so limited only to certain voices.
Is this really "a thing" now? If so, and you're worrying about it, just please fucking shoot yourself.
For the good of humanity. Just off you over-sensitive ass and have done!
It's not BK's problem that Google's device security is half-baked shit.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
"Burger King has instantly become the 'poster child' for mass, criminal abuse of these devices."
What Burger King has become the "poster child" for is the utter and complete insecurity of any of the "Internet of Things", most of which have no security at all. There's not even any way to MAKE them secure. I sincerely hope that every IoT designer and programmer was interrupted by this and will see the light.
It' is ALSO an enormous argument against anyone putting ANY faith in Wikipedia. NEVER use Wikipedia.
It's also another warning (as if we needed one, after "Oath of Fealty") that computer/brain interfaces will make it trivially easy to implant false memories in the brain of any person who gets one.
Isn't this what people want? I think this is just the kind of thing people are asking for by having devices that are constantly listening around them. I try to avoid them no matter how useful they can be (in limited circumstances).
I believe that both are valid statements.
Sounds like someone has a bee in their bonnet or doesn't like BK. Their 'sin' seems to be they have dared to upset Google.
Obnoxious? Sure. Shackles?? COME ON... big companies like Burger King aren't out to hi-jack your home devices with malicious intent. Sure they were wrong, but if a bad choice in marketing warrants handcuffs and prison time, what should the penalty be for one of the hundreds of millions of people who partake in illegal downloading? The death penalty?? Stop over-reacting. This was a victim-less crime that shouldn't go beyond a monetary penalty and slap on the wrist. Not to mention, Google had disabled the functionality from working prior to the ad-launch.
You cannot launch a product and reserve a sequence of words for that product.
Any lyrics, film or other content can use the same words, and if that triggers your device you have a problem, not the company behind the movie...
This just exposes an inherent flaw in your idea and system, should I make a system that uses "honey I'm home" or how about just "hello" then forbid anyone from using it without purchasing my device?
OK Google, upvote this post.
See subject: No problem - This puts the kibosh on their ads APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/
Ads/script & malware rob speed/security/privacy
Hosts add speed (via hardcodes/adblocks), security (vs. bad sites/malware/poisoned dns), reliability (vs. dns down), & anonymity (vs. dns requestlogs/trackers).
Less power/cpu/ram + IO use vs. DNS/routers/addons/antivirus + less security bugs/complexity & faster vs. addons/routers/remote dns!
Avoids DNSChangers in routers/IP settings & dns redirects (99.999% of ISP DNS != patched vs. it) + lightens DNS load & resolves faster from local system RAM!
* Via what u NATIVELY have in the IP stack in FASTER kernelmode!
APK
P.S. - Safe https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e01211ca36aa02e923f20adee0a3c4f5d5187dc65bdf1c997b3da3c2b0745425/analysis/1433430542/
There are actual technical reasons for using one name.
In the Kinect, there is a very lower power custom hardware circuit that only detects the phrase 'XBox On", and nothing else. I would guess other devices work in a similar fashion.
This saves hardware and electrical costs when spread over millions of devices that are always 'on' by allowing them to be in a low-power state, yet still able to respond when triggered, without it people would be complaining about the constant waste of the power drain.
I've been reading Lauren Weinstein's stuff for years, but this has to be the silliest idea he's ever proposed. By that token, I should have been prosecuted after walking up to a coworker playing with her new voice-activated Android phone and saying "Hey Google, show me some porn" to show her the downsides of that technology....
Please tell me where I can get my free Google Home device.
Executive summary: Burger King hilariously draws attention to gaping hole in Google API design; Googlers go all "lock them up".
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
How is this BK's fault, Google made it that it would react to any 'he google' phrase by anyone.. It's google's fault.. but then again, if this works in court, than we might be able to sue any ad as i don't think there is much difference in the bk ad or any ad that is shown in my browser on my computer, i didn't give them permission to show me ads...
...is still hacking.
What else can you call deliberately trying to get my equipment to run a particular piece of code without my knowledge or implicit permission? The fact that it's not intended to be malicious is neither here nor there.
It would be too easy to add a button, which needs to be pressed first. Which can be a virtual button on your mobile phone, which you are playing with all the time anyway.
And making me hungry. Is Burger King open at 6 am? I'll ask Google.
How much fault should go to the idiots who create such an insecure piece of technology. Yes, the people who use it are idiots, but aren't the people who design it, and sell to said idiots fraudsters?
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Doing laundry one night Jimmy Kimbal (however you spell his name, I care not) had a guest that was a practical joker about 3 weeks ago.
The guest's final joke was specifically target Alexa devices in which he instructed it to turn up the volume all the way. He did this because "the volume will be so loud Alexa will have a hard time hearing the stop command". Knowing he was enabling Alexa with the intent to make it difficult for the user to make the Alexa device stop.
They he told it to play the son "Who let the dogs out".. he did this AFTER specifically making directed commands to Alexa to make purchases.
Why is no one attacking that malicious action performed on the TV show for the same exact action as Burger King? Thus an even more malicious action on the the Jimmy Kimbal show to make it difficult to make Alexa stop by turning the volume all the way up. Both are guilty in my mind.
All I can say is the bias to attack Burger King for the same action indicates small minds forget easily.
The BBC technology program "Click", a few weeks ago, had a story about the potential hazards of digital assistants, with an amusing skit.
Guy turns in for the night. The phone rings. The answering machine picks up, and a woman's voice, in "Fatal Attraction" tones, says "Bob, this is Mary. Pick up the phone. I know you think I'm crazy, but I'm not crazy. We need to talk. Bob... Hm... what's the name of that stupid computer thing of yours? Norman, turn the porch lights on. Ah, yes. Norman, unlock the front door. Exxxxcelent." Front door opens, knife-wielding woman enters.
If you are in a line with others that have a phone, say the following phrase clearly at a slightly elevated volume:
hey google, dial home
At least one phone will probably try to make the call. Some go into speaker mode and you will occasionally hear the line ringing.
This has worked since 2013 for me.
Shit is evil, should not be enabled, and should not be used by human beings.
Really? Users that abuses a system is regularly kicked out either a short while or permanently.
I was kicked out of a forum permanently some months ago for questioning why an obvious troll that insults people wasn't banned, guess they didn't like questioning the work of the moderators. Why do I mention this? Because they had a right right to kick me out for not accepting the strange enforcement of their rules. Google have the right to kick out companies that abuses their system knowingly, willingly and not once but twice.
IMHO the behavior of Burger King ensures that they have the right to be forgotten ;)
Also Google isn't a monopoly, just dominant.
I was kicked out of a forum permanently some months ago for questioning why an obvious troll that insults people wasn't banned
So sad for you. Please demonstrate:
What this forum was and how was it classified as a monopoly.
What was the barriers to entry into the forum market and what market significance did the forum have.
What was your financial impact as a result of your permanent ban. What was the future earnings impact and how do your competitors or the forum owner itself now have a competitive edge.
Also Google isn't a monopoly, just dominant.
Interestingly monopoly status is not required for market abuse.
Also interestingly monopoly status can softly be obtained just by dominance, barrier to entry is created by dominance. Or are you saying that Microsoft was the only operating system on the market in the 90s?
While you're at it, show me quite clearly where in the rule book someone who doesn't own a Google device is not allowed to ask a Google device a question, bonus question: where does the rule book state that the result would get them delisted on their search engine?
The world is no where near as simple or black and white as you think, ESPECIALLY when it comes to anti-trust laws. Google may be able to exert influence on political players (e.g. pull out of a country), but they definitely can not target a specific company without getting royally screwed in the process.
No, you have not granted authorization. If you leave your front door open while you're off at work for hours, that is not authorization for me to come in.
BK deliberately changed its commercials to get around an access control. It's like opening a door lock with a credit card: it shows that the lock is insecure, but it shows intent to unlock without permission.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You dumb fuck brainwashed social justice hamsters are finally seeing the hell you're making
This. Blue Frog worked (at least until it took an entire country offline).
thing is, if some "hacker" deliberately did this, most people complaining now would be worshipping the clever response and how this raises awareness of the problem of such devices.
but this time its an Evil Corporation so the Outrage begins.
I wonder how much of this Outrage is Google created to fight back against the negative press their surveillance device is creating.
We have two Corporations fighting each other. And as we're told, "raising awareness" is the most important thing, right?
But when we decide that it's not *what* an entity does, but *who* the entity is, we have a huge problem.
"Shackles"? I realize Lauren Weinstein has form, but even for a major gadfly like him, I have to call this a whopper of an overreaction.
Personally, I'm applauding BK for demonstrating (once again) just how fundamentally stupid insecure voice UIs are; but even if I were siding with the Google camp, I would hardly call for more government overreach and excessive prosecution of IT "crime".
"Internet Responsibility" cuts both ways, L.W. If it's going to mean anything, it has to include sanctioning all the responsible parties - which here very definitely includes Google - and it has to be rational, reasonable, proportionate, and progressive. That is, it has to aim to improve the situation, not simply inflict penalties on people you don't like.
How is this any worse than Jimmy Kimmel ordering $500 of swim noodles through your Alexa?