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PSA: Microsoft Is Using Cortana To Read Your Private Skype Conversations (betanews.com)
BrianFagioli shares a report from BetaNews: With Cortana's in-context assistance, it's easier to keep your conversations going by having Cortana suggest useful information based on your chat, like restaurant options or movie reviews. And if you're in a time crunch? Cortana also suggests smart replies, allowing you to respond to any message quickly and easily -- without typing a thing," says The Skype Team. The team further says, "Cortana can also help you organize your day -- no need to leave your conversations. Cortana can detect when you're talking about scheduling events or things you have to do and will recommend setting up a reminder, which you will receive on all your devices that have Cortana enabled. So, whether you're talking about weekend plans or an important work appointment, nothing will slip through the cracks."
So, here's the deal, folks. In order for this magical "in-context" technology to work, Cortana is constantly reading your private conversations. If you use Skype on mobile to discuss private matters with your friends or family, Cortana is constantly analyzing what you type. Talking about secret business plans with a colleague? Yup, Microsoft's assistant is reading those too. Don't misunderstand -- I am not saying Microsoft has malicious intent by adding Cortana to Skype; the company could have good intentions. With that said, there is the potential for abuse. Microsoft could use Cortana's analysis to spy on you for things like advertising or worse, and that stinks. Is it really worth the risk to have smart replies and suggested calendar entries? I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have my Skype conversations read by Microsoft.
So, here's the deal, folks. In order for this magical "in-context" technology to work, Cortana is constantly reading your private conversations. If you use Skype on mobile to discuss private matters with your friends or family, Cortana is constantly analyzing what you type. Talking about secret business plans with a colleague? Yup, Microsoft's assistant is reading those too. Don't misunderstand -- I am not saying Microsoft has malicious intent by adding Cortana to Skype; the company could have good intentions. With that said, there is the potential for abuse. Microsoft could use Cortana's analysis to spy on you for things like advertising or worse, and that stinks. Is it really worth the risk to have smart replies and suggested calendar entries? I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have my Skype conversations read by Microsoft.
We all should know what LOVEINT is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And it's not only NSA agents who use the tools of their job to check on all kinds of people they know. Cops to the same, to check if any new girlfriend has prior convictions or only arrests, etc. Data exists, so it will be used.
Are the employees of (in alphabetical order) Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, etc.who have access to Cortana, Siri, GMail, Bixbx,etc. databases doing the same? Are there even any safeguards against it?
Don't use skype, it's terrible anyway.
That evil spell checker is scanning all the documents I type, and it's even scanning things outside my word processor!
What about the virus checker looking at all my binaries and the firewall looking at all my packets....
Looking at you keyboard buffer.... holding onto every press.... every dark secret....
Certain users are constantly surprised that their complete abdication of personal liability in their wild rush to consume as much technology as possible in order to remain 'relevant' has led them to engage in something spectacularly stupid.
This isn't news. This is olds.
Don't misunderstand -- I am not saying Microsoft has malicious intent by adding Cortana to Skype; the company could have good intentions.
Intentions don't matter once a National Security Letter trundles in. Then only ability matters.
And that's even before Microsoft gets hacked.
ive been itching to press that trigger to make skype go away completely, i just dont use it anymore since its kinda bloat and just bad, but this adds one more coffin nail to the skype thingie
buhbye skype it was fun while it lasted, ill stick to discord
and i wont get an amazon alexa or any other brand of smart speaker/mic thing, they are just corporate/government spy bots
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Where did I hear that before... Oh yeah, something along the lines of "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
#DeleteFacebook
None of the current crop of assistants (Cortana, Siri, Alexa, OkGoole!, or even just speech engines like Houndify and Dragon Dictate) does run locally except for extremely simple processing (like google detecting locally the "Ok, Google !" stanza, and only starts streaming the audio to the mothership afterwards).
The text commands and audio are transmitted to the company's cloud, and all further processing (full speech recognition when input is audio, then extracting the meaning/intention from the text, taking a decision, and suggesting actions) is entirely done there.
Means that for any kind of assistant to work, their company needs necessarily to have received all of your data (voice stream, chat log, etc.)
And due to the way these thing work (Deep Neural Nets need a big amount of data to train - basically replicating in silico the popular saying that you need to have been doing 10'000 hours of anything to be good at it) they NEED to be centralized on the cloud.
It's not possible to have the learning done locally on your smartphone : not only it lacks processing power (for the backpropagation in the neural net) but it also lacks the big masses of data to train on.
So it would NOT be possible to have your very own local copy of Cortana
(or at least not in learning mode. Maybe GPU acceleration could at least make possible to simply apply an already trained neural net depending on how big cortana is).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Ever since Snowden I pretty much assume every mouse click, keyboard press, sound, image and video on anything with a power button is potentially being watched.
This is just yet another sign of skype's future obsolescence. Skype has been one of those must-have tools for more than a decade - always worked, everyone had it, easy to use, did what it did well, solved a key problem better than anyone had previously done. But recently, it has really gone downhill on all fronts. For the first time in years, I have started having problems connecting with people, supposedly because one or the other isn't on the "correct" version of skype. Microsoft is trying to force people to update to the newest version, supposedly to get enhanced features, but those features in general suck and support for non-core platforms, such as Linux, has gone from bad to miserable. The latest version of skype is much more difficult to visualize and navigate (I hate those new icons), makes you think in order to do things that should be trivial (e.g., talk with someone and send chat messages to them at the same time) and adds a bunch of noisy features to the application that distract from its core abilities (why is it always asking me to send people video messages or add emojis to everything?). If both myself, computer programmer, and my mother, definitely not computer programmer, are confused about how to use skype, there is a serious problem.
In a vain and desperate attempt to change skype into some sort of mini-facebook or instagram or whatever, Microsoft has committed the cardinal error of making it harder for people to do the things that they installed the application for in the first place. Gobbling up your private data in order to monetize that information can only hasten it's decline...
Anyone who was paying attention at the time would have noticed that shortly after Microsoft acquired Skype, they made a fundamental change to the way the application operates.
In the original, pre-Microsoft world, when you made a connection to a counter-party for a Skype Call, the client would first check a dynamic, central registry to see if the counter-party could be identified and if they were on line. If these checks were positive, then your client would be given the connection handle [i.e. IP address] to establish a link with the counter-party, before the link to the central servers were dropped. This was a very efficient, effective use of a central directory model, which avoided overloading the central servers with traffic, and which guaranteed the best possible connection quality.
The key Microsoft change was to switch the clients such that all traffic is now run through central Microsoft Servers. Obviously, this is so that Microsoft can, if required, record your Skype conversations [you're not a terrorist, are you?] and pass them along to authorities who ask for them.
What Microsoft have done here is even smarter than that. They still want to better understand your conversations - likely, this time around, for advertising and marketing purposes - but by federating some of this activity to Cortana, they open the door for pushing some of the compute resources required down to your PC. As our machines become more powerful, the need for tools like Siri and Cortana to push audio clips to a cloud service for interpretation will be gradually reduced [OK, unlikely that we'll ever need to completely abandon cloud support]. But the key thing here is that Microsoft - who get to benefit from understanding what you're talking about by selling advertisements to third parties with greater claims of relevance - are opening up the door to using your hardware and electricity to do their hard work for them.
I wonder if they got the idea from this crypto-currency miners that were using browser-injected malware to perform the mining for them?
So let me get this straight, the machine has to parse your conversations in order to be able to suggest choices on the web or calendar events? What a surprise, OH THE HORROR!!
"...I am not saying Microsoft has malicious intent by adding Cortana to Skype; the company could have good intentions."
I realize it was the person posting TFA who said this, not Microsoft itself. Nevertheless, this magnificent remark deserves to to take its place as another star in the firmament of "what could possibly go wrong" comments.
I propose that it be placed just below "Your cheque's in the mail" and "I'll just put the tip in", and immediately above "I won't let go in your mouth" and "We're from the government; we're here to help".
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Microsoft has already been reading your Skype messages for years. It was pretty much the first thing they did when they bought Skype.
Before the buy-out, Skype made a direct connection between the two parties. One of the first things MS did was to route all connections through their own servers. I remember reading an article (sorry, I couldn't dig it out) explaining how someone had created a web page on their server with a randomly generated address, immediately pasted the link in their Skype conversation, and seconds later the link was visited by an IP address owned by MS.
Pretty sure Skype is reading your messages and M$ is passing that off to Cortana for targeted ads. I wouldn't put it past them entirely, but having Cortana sift through an app's data they already have more readily available sources for would be Rube Goldberg levels of stupid.
As much as I love to jump aboard the Microsoft hate-train, it should be noted that iOS does the exact same thing with reading your texts and e.g. suggesting adding upcoming plans to your calendar, even if Siri is turned off. If Siri is turned on, it does stuff like that but moreso. The real question is, does any of this 'message parsing' end up on Microsoft servers? If it's all local, and the results aren't sent to MS, then who cares?
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
ALL spy on you. When installing SQL server the other day, read the privacy statement which actually said you can not turn off some of the spying. It turns out to be true with Office as well.
Microsoft is scary as hell and should be considered absolute spyware as it is. Regardless of data collection purposes, building in over reaching collection and NOT giving users a choice about it is not only user-hostile, but it's hateful.
I work for a 11K employee company and we are actually in talks to NOT use microsoft going forward. Our CIO actually has come up with a fairly workable plan (Although I believe it will be a little more work).
How is is this any worse than using a service like Skype or Hangouts that store chat log history server side? Cortana is just some extra logic applied to that record
Why are you discussing "secret" stuff on a non-secret network? The Internet is not a secure network and your computer is not secure either. Stupid.
Your skype conversations go through servers controlled by microsoft, they have always had the capability to read them and the potential for abuse has always existed.
The only thing that's changed now is that they're providing a potentially useful service with the data that you were already giving them.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
"I am not saying Microsoft has malicious intent by adding Cortana to Skype; the company could have good intentions."
I'll say it: Microsoft has malicious intent by adding Cortana to Skype.
The admission that they're parsing and mining your "private" conversations means they're no longer "private".
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
you think your data and personal information is private... on Microsoft services and products?
so google isn't processing all of your browsing history in chrome, gmail conversations and google voice text messages for use with targeted marketing and god knows what else? don't you have to have cortana and skype installed for this to matter? I guess that pretty much rules out skype on android or iphone being an issue, so is this just a Win 10 "problem"? Wake me when we are pissed at Amazon, Facebook, and Google for the probe they have installed in all of us.
Gates is putting billions into eradicating Malaria and getting clean drinking water to people. How is that "pushing Big Pharma"?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
sneakernet.
So to test this, lets file a lawsuit, allege that our opponent uses Skype, and issue a subpoena to Microsoft for any Skype conversations from our opponent's CEO that include both the phrases "Contoso" and "destroy evidence"
Siri is also upfront in some of the settings that if enabled will involve SMS uploaded to the cloud for dictation support and so on. For the virtual assistants they all treat the phone as a thin client.
Don't think so. What you are seeing is browser activity caused by tracking cookies sending reports back home. IF YOU allow cookies the problem is your fault, not Ubuntu's. Use an ad blocker or script blocker.
There is no process (or service) which is tasked with watching your keyboard except the traditional keyboard interrupt which is required in order that YOU can communicate with Ubuntu. All OS's have this capability and it is not a bug or spyware.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Somewhere in the "terms and conditions" or "end user agreement ", which none of us read but could/should, they probably told us that they were going to use our data(typed or spoken) to improve their products/profit.
Whether it's an OS, browser, communication, chat, VOIP, or on-line game, every program you use or install has a line in the mass of waffle a cryptically written paragraphs which you agree to which states that anything you do with their product is fair game.
ZRTP: Media Path Key Agreement for Unicast Secure RTP
People are not special. Your privacy is still yours. Microsoft and Cortana don't give a crap about your wacking off, cheating on your spouse, or whatever it is you think matters.
You must be new to computers and operating systems.
Consult:
http://www.billparish.com/msft...
to bring yourself up to date.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Users don't care and by now many developers are young enough to have grown up with pervasive monitoring, so they don't have a bad conscience about it either. Don't use what the masses use, unless you want to be tracked, analyzed and taken advantage of. One, makers of the One Plus phone, send a log of just about everything you do with their phone to their servers. Yes, their phone, not yours. You only get to use it. Why else would it report to them, not to you? Firefox comes with "telemetry" and Mozilla has announced that it will start sending URLs that you visit to a "recommendation" service. Google reads your emails. Skype reads your messages. Computers and phones in particular are bugging devices nowadays. Privacy is dead, whether you like it or not.
I really don't get the crowd who's always on about security/privacy here. Sure, you don't want the inconvenience of stolen data. But as Equifax (latest in a long line) demonstrates, it's *going* to happen, and it doesn't require Skype or Google to be compromised. And as it happens more and more, the culture becomes more and more forgiving of individuals who may have been compromised. It's not a life-ending problem.
Meanwhile, the life efficiency benefits from having good data vacuuming and processing are incredible. They make you into Person+ in terms of getting things done and done quickly, and over time they accumulate.
On some story here the other day there were a bunch of people pushing a Debian phone whose big calling card was apparently that—thanks to being so completely locked down against data collection—that it's basically nothing more than a 1:1 communicator—you and whatever other person you're connected to. The big data services get nothing. The big selling point.
I just wouldn't be interested. I actively try to multiply the amount of data I'm providing to Google and others with the way I create and configure logins and use software, because it pays multiples and dividends in productivity and convenience. If someone came up with a phone that got an order of magnitude *more* of my behavioral, locational, and conversational data crunched by big services in order to leverage it all for customization/context/workflows, *that* is something I'd be interested in. Take my data. Make my life faster/better/more convenient.
I don't need someone to make secret the fact that I like show X and buy product Y and often drive to place Z. I need someone to spread the word to as many services as possible and help them to make use of this data to make my life better.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I had to try Firefox on Linux for a website, that was not compatible with the Opera web browser. Firefox on Linux does not clear the cookies it pretends to do so but it does not. I set it to custom settings for history and except third-party cookies from visited websites and clear them when "I close Firefox." that was the only option available. When opening to check its full of cookies. Google who I do not use ended up tracking me across the web with suggestions what I should purchase and what I have purchased using Firefox.
I remove Firefox and tried the Windows version. The Windows version comes with a Yahoo pup potentially unwanted program pop-up ads for Yahoo and Yahoo search very annoying Malwarebytes called it Yahoo Browser hijacker.
56.0 Firefox Release September 28, 2017.
One of the perks of using the Linux client is that we don't even have decent support for plain chats, so we won't be seeing Cortana in a while.
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
Don't Microsoft own the Skype servers already?
Assistant program that presents contextual information from chats has to read chats to do its job. Film at 11.
Ubuntu constantly monitors your typing to sell you stuff from Amazon. How is that any different?
First, Ubuntu is not the sum total of all Linuxes -- just because one distro does something doesn't mean "Linux" does it.
Second, you can totally disable this.
Are there ANY OSes out there that don't spy on you? I don't think so...
Yes, there are quite a few, including the vast majority of Linux distros.
I'm sorry but was anyone ever assuming anything on Skype (or any other hosted IM platform, SMS platform, hosted email platform, etc) was really "private" to begin with?
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I think he was referring to the Ubuntu Dash services.
if you try to handle it yourself. That's what the emerging round of services is FOR—the systems can handle the data for you, and do it well. But only if they know you and know what you care about.
Google Now + Google Inbox, for example. Between these two services, about 90-95% of what I care about is surfaced for me automatically from the noise. Places, times, patterns in my schedule, traffic reports and weather reports for places I'm likely to go just now, events that are happening that are "my kinds" of events, things that I might like to read based on my habits, etc.
I don't have to log into Amazon track my packages or onto the community calendar to see what's going on or into Google Maps or Waze to check traffic or into email to see if my boss emailed me. All of those things are pushed to me in a contextual way all in one place, and it's pretty magically accurate nearly all of the time.
Sure I still have a gmail box that gets hundreds of messages per day, but I never have to see 90% of them. Same for the other apps. Just figure out what I need right now based on what I'm doing and what I typically do, and then push it to me.
The big data SaaS vision is actually evolving into a reality, and it's working better than I'd ever have thought it would if you'd asked me 20 years ago. I don't want to manage my own digital life; I want services to do it for me. It's like SPAM filtering x10, with an actual PDA (remember "personal digital assistant?" as a concept) on top of that that functions *like* an assistant. Proactive, reasonably smart, and very capable.
The last thing I do, or want to do, is process data and multi-task. These are exactly the things that today's combination of services can increasingly take off your plate, if you'll let them.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
"If you use Skype on mobile to discuss private matters with your friends or family, Cortana is constantly analyzing what you type."
Last I checked, Cortana doesn't run on my old Droid phone or iPhone 4S.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Or, better yet, don't use Microsoft Windows at all. If you want to feel more secure then make the tradeoffs to get away from Microsoft operating systems and other software. Note I'm being honest about it: You'll have to make some compromises to make it happen. But if you want control of the hardware you own and control over access to your data and communications, then that's what you're going to have to do, plain and simple. Use encrypted communications to prevent as much spying over the Internet as you can, too, or just never use the Internet for sensitive communications at all, either. You CAN take back your privacy and control of your life; the price you'll pay for that is loss of some convenience. Choose wisely.
I don't think many people here are always on about security/privacy. Just like not many people here think security/privacy never matters. People just want the option of holding certain discussions in private. Because sometimes security/privacy matters.
Unfortunately, very few of these online communications tools give you a trustworthy "secure" or "encrypted" option - trustworthy enough to exclude the author/server from monitoring your communications. Back in the early days of the Internet, some friends and I set up a private IRC channel to discuss some personal matters. About a half hour in, an uninvited mod left a derogatory remark - he'd been abusing his mod privileges to evesdrop on our "private" channel. We never used IRC again. Once your credibility is shot like that, you're never getting it back.
Likewise, if you surreptitiously install the ability to monitor conversations users think are private and confidential, your credibility is shot. While you're correct it's unreasonable and counterproductive to expect security/privacy all the time, it's completely reasonable to expect it some of the time at your own choosing. The presumption has been that this is true for Skype because it's encrypted. But submitter is correctly providing a PSA by pointing out that this is not the case, and that Microsoft has the ability to listen in. People need to use something other than Skype if they're going to discuss something they wish to keep private.
Every major browser I've tried in the last decade + comes with a key logging function tied to it's search bar. Or do you think that the "Suggestions" for search terms are magically created on your local machine. Do the search engine companies keep the stuff you type but don't hit return on? I don't know, but I do know that they see it as you type to allow their servers to pass suggestions to you. I agree it is not a bug, it's a malware feature people have come to expect because for the vast majority, people are un-thinking morons.
In Illinois, and perhaps other states, it is illegal to record someone in a private residence without their consent.
Just because you agreed to the TOS and EULA doesn't mean that I've agreed to it. So, if Cortana records me in your house, it is very possible that Microsoft has broken the law. I never agreed to the EULA or the TOS, nor did I give you or Microsoft permission to record me.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I don't use skype, Microsoft, or cortana
service, half of the /. comments are bemoaning its existence and sarcastically remarking on more data "slurping," how everyone is more owned by company X, and so on. (1) They don't have to use the service, and (2) the service exists that way intentionally, i.e. it's part of the model and intrinsic to the service, which many people find valuable. I *love* that my tech "knows" me and can increasingly deliver me what I want and help me to find/remember stuff that is important, etc.
As far as basic privacy goes, just a couple thoughts:
(1) Privacy is not an on/off thing. Most of the time, people do not want something to be "fully private" (i.e. only for themselves). If they do, they don't put it into technology items in the first place—or at least, they shouldn't. Write it down on paper and keep it in a safe. This is not an appropriate use case for modern tech, at least not at the individual level. Most of the time, people want something to be "private from" a particular someone else (We're talking about Elsie getting fired, so we don't want it to get back to Elsie, etc.; We're talking about a product we're building, so we don't want our competitor to find out) I don't see cloud and big data services as doing much damage there unless you are clueless enough to post your conversation on Facebook or have bad passwords and team security. But in the end, it's not the system that's the risk here, it's bad choices by the individuals as they use the system.
(2) If what someone is after really is "secure 1:1 communication, with no chance of the information reaching any third party," then again—it's 2017?! This need is orthogonal to the very functionality of comm tech. Your communication will have to pass through other parties and systems. Forget Microsoft, everyone knows about the NSA these days, it's an open "secret." If you really want "1:1 privacy" protected against all ears, you tell someone to meet you at a particular small coffee shop in a random neighborhood eight miles from either of your regular haunts, and you go in the back and have a couple coffees and talk in low voices.
It just seems to me that in 2017 anyone who's upset about Google or Microsoft and the ways in which they collect and leverage communication data is fundamentally misconstruing the nature of the technology ecosystem right now. Even that secure Debian phone kickstarter project is still going to need to have a closed source baseband to comply with FCC rules and will ultimately pass packets over the same wireless networks that everyone else uses. Hello, NSA.
You have to decide—are you doing something private, or are you just doing something average for which the only compelling interest that you have in your privacy is a kind of paranoia about third parties, future totalitarian states, etc.? If the former, you'd better get your a$$ off of networks that serve the public in any way. If the latter, you have a choice to make: if you use infrastructure that the general public uses, yet you think you can make it secure, you're dreaming, so you'll need to accept that at a very fundamental level, "public" and "private" are *orthogonal* quantities (it is a fool's game to try to do something private in public, no matter how fancy you get), so you'll either need to concede your publicness and live with it or actually take what you're doing *private*, which means—don't do it in public.
The mobile networks are public. Google is public. Microsoft is public. Facebook is public. These are public places. Even if you put a bag over your head to try to disguise who you are, being in public is being in public and there's always the chance that someone will yank that bag off. That doesn't mean that being in public is a bad thing, or that we ought to culturally forbid or decry publicness.
It means that you should take your private shit private, or at least understand that there is a spectrum of publicprivate correlated to risk that is not going away. Less public? Sure, more private. Also, less
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
PSA #2 ...
Your colleagues, friends, family, acquaintances, workmates, customers
not all of them, but a considerable subset, think you're a cunt.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not calling you a cunt.
I'm just speaking for *some* of those you are personally close to, because they're too polite to say it themselves.
Cause your "openness" exposes them without their consent.
Whenever they meet you, they are surveilled, scanned, watched, listened to, linked, implicated.
And maybe, just maybe, they don't WANT to be "wired in" like you.
Maybe they don't like your mobile microphone being on, live, all the time.
Maybe they don't like that you don't care to inform them that you carry a live mike, and a live camera with a live location beacon.
I actively try to avoid people just like you, but not you specifically.
I'm a little bit deviant, in my own way, which can be easily twisted to be a "pervert" and then ostracised.
The arrogance of such people is infuriating, and they often refuse to acknowledge their responsibility for others' discomfort.
Think on these things ...
Or do you think that the "Suggestions" for search terms are magically created on your local machine.
What suggestions?
That's one of the first things I disable when installing a new browser.
For those still having problem to kill the Cortana background process, that is still running even if you disabled Cortana, because it respawns after a few seconds if you kill it, use task-manager and go to its home directory and rename it (to .bak or whatever)
It won't allow that of course, because it's still running so you have to place the resulting "retry" window and the task-manager side by side, _then_ kill the process and immediately hit 'retry' to kill it dead,
But you have to be fast.
"So, here's the deal, folks. In order for this magical "in-context" technology to work, Cortana is constantly reading your private conversations."
Ooooh scary...
Oh wait, no fuckin' shit, how else would "Cortana suggest useful information based on your chat"
> Microsoft could use Cortana's analysis to spy on you for things like advertising or worse, and that stinks. Is it really worth the risk to have smart replies and suggested calendar entries? I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have my Skype conversations read by Microsoft.
If you are using Skype, MS already has full access to your chat. Either you trust them or you don't. Having Cortana do suggestions based on keywords is not Microsoft reading your chat messages any more than using Skype in general.
It's ridiculous to even debate this.
If a person (or a machine) overhears a private conversation, and then later—in a completely different context—betrays any understanding of such—name one animated, 3D-chessboard villain who can't sniff betrayal off a single, misplaced syllable—what you've got is a side channel that needs to sleep with the fishes.
The only reason Cortana snoops is to later betray its gleanings though autocorrelated "suggestions".
Swear, fucking Cortana, swear.
The idea that you're interesting enough to merit anything but a short-cycle machine analysis is amusing. You know what it costs to elevate something to have a human look at it, and then to have an actual human look at it for any length of time? I will remind you that this is across all Cortana instances. Everyone with a Windows box and Cortana active. Much easier to set up trigger words... "let's schedule the three o'clock suicide bombing" might draw attention. Or schedule a soothing ice drop-in at 6.
Not that I'd use it, but that's mostly because Cortana is terrible.
Dragon Dictate only works locally on desktops, and for some markets only.
There's currently no local Dragon Dictate for embed device.
There's currently no local medical dragon dictate, it only exists as a cloud-only product.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Skype was fundamentally flawed well before this came into play: Skype was always non-free software. Skype was therefore always untrustworthy. How proprietors (Skype pre-Microsoft, Microsoft, or any proprietor who comes to own it later) describe Skype's code is therefore also untrustworthy. So as much as centralized call routing makes spying easier, a mere optimization on an inherently untrustworthy program. This change certainly didn't mean that Skype was in any way trustworthy before, and therefore this change was simply not the significant event you make it out to be.
People really ought to stop arguing as if they know why spies spy. We don't know the reasons why they made these choices; you're simply speaking beyond your knowledge. We can reasonably talk about who benefits from their choices and what power proprietary software grants a proprietor, but that's about it. Collected data is useful for multiple purposes not just advertising. Some of the reasons collected data is useful may not yet be known to the spies. What's most important aren't the reasons for spying. The strongest argument for respecting one's privacy is that humans need privacy to live a dignified life. If computer users are to take on software proprietors in a meaningful way they'll have to support software freedom for its own sake. Software freedom (respecting a user's right to run, inspect, share, and modify all published computer software) is a practical means to show other computer users that respect for one's dignity and a means to enjoy that dignity oneself.
Digital Citizen
I'm pretty sure that Cortana can spy on anything you do, hell it may even have full memory access. I would literally rather use Gentoo than Windows 10 because of shit like this.
Seems like this could run afoul of state and/or federal wiretapping laws.