That Game on Your Phone May Be Tracking What You're Watching on TV (nytimes.com)

Rick Zeman writes: The New York Times (may be paywalled) has an article describing how some apps track TV and movie viewing even when the loaded app isn't currently active. These seemingly innocuous games, geared towards both adults and children work by "using a smartphone's microphone. For instance, Alphonso's software can detail what people watch by identifying audio signals in TV ads and shows, sometimes even matching that information with the places people visit and the movies they see. The information can then be used to target ads more precisely...." While these apps, mostly available on Google play, with some available on the Apple Store, do offer an opt opt, it's not clear when consumers see "permission for microphone access for ads," it may not be clear to a user that, "Oh, this means it's going to be listening to what I do all the time to see if I'm watching 'Monday Night Football."'
One advertising executive summarizes thusly: "It's not what's legal. It is what's not creepy."

Comments

Not on an iPhone

[SuperKendall]

Bears repeating but on the iPhone you have to explicitly allow microphone access, and even if you granted that to a game for some reason, if it had the microphone on there would be a big indicator atop the top of the screen indicating recording was active.

Re:Not on an iPhone

[ShanghaiBill]

Of course many people are too stupid to think that if they allow microphone permission that the app might actually listen to the microphone.....

According to TFA, the app can listen even when it is inactive. Plenty of non-stupid people were likely unaware of that.

People gave control of their devices away.

[Anonymous Coward]

Early in the personal computing revolution, consumer computing devices answered to their owners, and life was good.

In the intervening decades via millions of separate choices made by billions of separate mindless consumers, people have voted en-masse to give control of their computing devices to multinational companies, and any data-broker who wants it. They voted to disempower themselves, and give that power to surveillance capitalism companies, even when there were other good choices. They drove the good choices out of the market.

That inevitably means that control will not be used for their benefit. Modern computing is a clusterfuck because too few people chose wisely, and too many chose unwisely. The unwise dictated the market, because they were numerous. The wise are swept along against their will, struggling to avoid the worst of the stupidity.

The sheep have done everything in their power to steer the flock towards the looming precipice.

Re:People gave control of their devices away.

[Rick Schumann]

Or, as I've said many times in the past: Computers used to be fun. Not so much anymore.

There's going to be a fork in the road, somewhere up ahead. We may never even really notice it. The right-hand path will take us to a place where there are strict controls and laws protecting people's privacy, giving them control over their data. The left-hand path will continue down the road we're currently on, where there are more and more data breaches, more and more surveillance in all aspects of our lives, and the people, becoming dumber and dumber, will trade what's left of their privacy and freedom for more 'conveniences', like the native Americans trading away Manhattan for a few baubles. Those of us who never fell for the 'smartphone' meme will be looked upon even more so as freaks, conspiracy theorists, and at worst, criminals trying to hide alleged illegal activities, when all it is we want is some core of our lives left private, not constantly under the microscope of public, corporate, and government scutiny.

There's still a small chance that people will wake up, suddenly seeing what's been going on, experience an epiphany about what it is they've given up, and they may demand it back. Assuming that is that it's not too late to do anything about it. We'll see I guess. Of course it'll be a race to the bottom, between overreaching surveillance and spying on everyone, War to End All Wars, and human-caused global climate change, to see which one finally destroys our civilization and our species. Not sure we can stop any one of them.

Re:People gave control of their devices away.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's important to point out exactly how this happened. It's interesting that in this example story (which is really just one among thousands) the security breach came from a game.

Think back to when you first saw computers that were made to directly work against the interests of their owners. Take some time.

Was it a game console? My bet is yes. You may or may not have had specifically one of these devices, but I think THIS was one of the most pivotal moments in the history of personal computers, and it happened right under our noses while most of us didn't think it was relevant. (I was annoyed, but from the PoV of someone who saw it as a barrier to development and market entry, not as a consumer, and I think that was terribly short-sighted on my part. Ah, the fuckwittery of my youth.) This (or something like it, later) is when most mainstream "consumers" started to get into a zero-sum hostile relationship with our computers. This is when a line was crossed that shouldn't be crossed. But we didn't care (much) because, after all, geez, it's just games.

It leaked into other things later. I bought a Tivo in 2000. Those ran Linux, but it was still proprietary and it tried to "protect" its recordings from its own user. The whole drama inspired the GPL3.

Then in 2007 Apple Fucking Computers introduced a PC (which happened to fit in your pocket) that was based on how videogame consoles work, instead of how all the other personal computers work. Videogame consoles used to be ideologically (if not truly technologically) distinct from personal computers, but the iPhone started to blur it, and compromise PCs with the worst ideas from videogame consoles.

And it's spreading. You don't have to be an Apple customer anymore, to be funding and legitimizing the enemy. It sucks and I'm angry about it. It's one of those things where I look at a guy who I formerly thought was a little crazy and took things too seriously, but now I have to say, "Dammit, RMS was right."

Know how computers stopped being fun? It happened because we thought RMS was a loon, and because so many millions of computer consumers never even looked at the issue enough to bother caling anyone a loon. He really isn't. We just didn't want to listen, because hey, it's just games. Until it wasn't just games. You play games on your phone maybe (I do) but you also do other stuff on it too. How did your fucking email and comms end up within the realm of video game consoles?!? Thanks, Apple. Thanks, everyone.

It's going to be long, twilight struggle to get our computers back now. It didn't have to be this way, but we were asleep at the switch. RMS wasn't.

Re:People gave control of their devices away.

[rogoshen1]

why post this AC? oh i get it!

Seriously though, well written and succinct. The thing you didn't touch on was the convenience factor. People have decided that they'd trade a bit of privacy (hey, it's all aggregate and not PII!) for 'free' stuff like gmail. And it is pretty hard to compete with 'free' (quotes intentional).

It's like Walmart writ large -- Walmart caters to people who's biggest differentiator for a purchase is price. Well, it turns out that that represents such a large majority of consumers, competitors get squeezed out. And it really, really sucks in the long run.

Re:People gave control of their devices away.

[mikael]

> Or, as I've said many times in the past: Computers used to be fun. Not so much anymore.

Amen.

We have just piled layer and layer of software on top of hardware with these smartphones; Android is built on top of Linux, X-windows, EGL, GLES (OpenGL) from UNIX workstations. Add on all sorts of sensors like cameras, microphones, accelerometers, GPS, thermometers, barometers, hydrometers. Advertising agencies are prepared to pay for access to all that data in order to aggregate it and do data mining. Even if you as a developer don't want to participate, they'll find someone willing to clone your app and put in their advertising.

App rules

[JohnFen]

First rule: don't install any apps that you don't have a strong need to install, and particularly avoid games.

Second rule: don't install games.

Third rule: install and use a firewall to prevent any app from communicating to the internet, unless internet access is needed for the app's primary purpose and you really can't live without it.

Fourth rule: marketers are evil scum, and are getting more evil and scummier as time goes on.

Fifth rule: don't install games

Re:App rules

[Rick Schumann]

How about Rule Zero: Don't have a smartphone in the first place.

You do know that right out of the box, never even having done so much as made a normal voice phone call on it, your smartphone was already compromised, right? Likely installed right at the factory, before it was even boxed up to ship to you, or rooted by your wireless carrier before it was handed to you. Even if none of that is true, there's so many browser-based exploits out there for smartphones that you basically can't avoid it, and that's just the normal citizen-criminals I'm talking about, not the mass surveillance machine of three-letter government agencies and their specifically-written code. Before you dismiss me as a crackpot paranoid conspiracy theorist, I suggest you reseach news stories from various sources over the last 5 years. Plenty of revelations from researchers and whistle-blowers about what can and can't be done to a smartphone to turn it into a surveillance device. And, since the wireless companies lock down the core code and OS running your phone, there's literally nothing you can do to effectively secure a smartphone the way you could secure a desktop computer; you're literally not allowed to, for most all intents and purposes. Yes, I suppose if you're a developer-level software engineer and can break into your phone at the bootloader level, completely rewrite you phone's core OS with code you've personally vetted, then you can secure it any way you want. But if you can do that then you're in a minority, a tiny fraction of a percent. But that doesn't help everyone else. For most, the line from the old movie Wargames applies: The only way to win the game is to not play.

..and, no, I don't have a smartphone.

Broadband & battery usage ?

[Alain Williams]

These things are also, presumably, chewing up your internet usage for some purpose that you have not agreed to. Likewise a running app will use processor and thus run your battery down. Both of these cost you in one way for another; the cost is part of the app writer's gain (when they sell the information, whatever) - so you are paying for part of their profit -- all without you knowing!

This falls fair & square in the area of computer misuse.

Re:Broadband & battery usage ?

[Z00L00K]

Blatant theft is probably a better label on that.

Every dark Science Fiction story comes true.

[Z00L00K]

Just read all the dark Science Fiction story out there and you'll see that they come true while we are diverting further and further away from the bright future depicted in Star Trek and similar.

Max Headroom, 1984, Brave New World, THX1138, Soylent Green, Fahrenheit 451, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Running Man, Neuromancer, Logan's Run, The Dispossessed, Altered Carbon, A Clockwork Orange, Earthworks (Aldiss), The Wasp Factory, Darwin's Radio, The Stars My Destination, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub (Lem), After the Flood (P.C Jersild), The Trial (Kafka), Hyperion (Dan Simmons) to mention a few that are more or less dark.

Trivia: I did meet P.C. Jersild once when he had lost the book he was working on due to a computer malfunction, I was able to recover it.

Re:duh?

[WaffleMonster]

Gosh, running proprietary software on your computers comes with great risk? Yeah, that sounds like an important news story .. from maybe 20 years ago.

At no prior time in history have "legitimate" storefronts offered such a massive array of harmful software.

The problem is perverse incentives and associated market failure directly resulting from app store environment.