Facebook Patent Imagines Triggering Your Phone's Mic When a Hidden Signal Plays on TV (gizmodo.com)

Based on a recently published patent application, Facebook could one day use ads on television to further violate a user's privacy. From a report: The patent is titled "broadcast content view analysis based on ambient audio recording." It describes a system in which an "ambient audio fingerprint or signature" that's inaudible to the human ear could be embedded in broadcast content like a TV ad. When a hypothetical user is watching this ad, the audio fingerprint could trigger their smartphone or another device to turn on its microphone, begin recording audio and transmit data about it to Facebook.

Comments

There's only two reasons you'd patent this:

[Rick Schumann]

1) You patent an idea like this so that nobody else can use it.
2) You're fucking evil and don't give a fuck about silly frivolous things like people's privacy rights, you want all the data so you can sell it to the highest bidder.

Time to dismantle Zuckerbook once and for all, and pass legislation preventing any company from pulling the sort of shit Zuckerbook has been perpetrating for years now.

Re:There's only two reasons you'd patent this:

[ArylAkamov]

What can really be done?
I explain shit like this to people, they call me paranoid.
I show them proof, they say they don't care.
Privacy? They say they have nothing to hide.
They're beyond saving, but they're the majority. They don't care about their privacy, all they know is they can trade it for more cute cat mobile games.
So what can you do?

Re:There's only two reasons you'd patent this:

[Rick Schumann]

The average person has a threshold that they have to be pushed beyond before they'll actually take anything like this seriously. What makes matters worse is that the average person has been so thoroughly indoctrinated by Corporate America and so-called 'social media' sites that sharing everything is what's normal and natural, and that people who want 'privacy' either have something wrong with their brains, or they're criminals with something to hide. With any luck this will all eventually catch up with everyone and there'll be a revolt. Until then all you can do is stay on-message, be consistent, and do what you can to protect yourself (i.e. don't use 'social media', so you're not part of the problem).

Re:There's only two reasons you'd patent this:

[rgmoore]

Privacy? They say they have nothing to hide.

I don't have anything to hide when I'm taking a shower, but that doesn't mean I'm OK with somebody recording it.

Re:There's only two reasons you'd patent this:

[MrKaos]

The average person has a threshold that they have to be pushed beyond before they'll actually take anything

This process has a taxonomy that comes under anal fist fucking, right now they're really enjoying it but they're looking at the fire extinguisher with some mixture of fear and anticipation.

Re:There's only two reasons you'd patent this:

[MrKaos]

Love your imagery. What's after the fire extinguisher?

Setting off the fire extinguisher

Re:There's only two reasons you'd patent this:

[mjwx]

What can really be done?
I explain shit like this to people, they call me paranoid.
I show them proof, they say they don't care.
Privacy? They say they have nothing to hide.

Then when their private details and credit card numbers are published online they shout "why didn't someone do something about this" in shrill nasal tones.

Someone could have done something about this Karen, you could have Karen. But you said it was too hard and too inconvenient to practice a few basic self preservation measures. You wanted to gratification now Karen and this is how you pay for it. I swear you'd still take sweeties from strangers if your mother didn't drill it into your head as a kid, I suspect literally, Karen.

Even if you agreed to this

[taustin]

is the terms of service you didn't read before you clicked "I agree," if you're not in the room alone, in a place that one would expect privacy, like your own home, this would run afoul of wiretapping laws in all-party consent states. In some cases, it's a felony.

I would dearly love to see Zuck in an orange jumpsuit for this.

Re:Even if you agreed to this

[Narcocide]

They would already be on the hook for wiretapping violations caused by their app and tracking links if that was gonna happen. The problem is that our own government is just as interested in illegally collecting such data as the other cyber criminal gangs are.

Re:Even if you agreed to this

[taustin]

Indeed. But you cannot give consent for me. If I'm a guest in your house, and your phone is recording me without my knowledge or consent, as would be the case if this is implemented as described, your phone, and possibly you, are in violation in all-party consent states.

Devices Need Transient Permissions

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love a pop-up EVERY TIME an app on my iPhone needs permission to access this or that (with the option to okay it into perpetuity should I choose). And instead of simply "OK" to grant permission, offer me a list: OK for 5/10/30 minutes, 1/3/6/12 hour(s), 1/7/30/60/90 day(s), or forever. Perhaps even the option to okay permissions for the app "for X minutes OR until the app is no longer active or is sent to the background, whichever is soonest."

Then I could be SURE that granting that one app that needed to read a QR code so got camera access doesn't FOREVER have camera access. This would fix issues with Facebook wanting to access my camera, mic, phone contact list, photo library, etc. when I'm not expecting it.

Another awesome option would be to grant FAKE permission. I.e., an app asks for my phone contacts and won't let me continue unless I grant it FULL access, I can click "OK--grant access to empty phone contacts" or "fake mic that only records white noise" or "fake camera that only records black as if obscured/covered by a phone case".

Yes, apps could detect permissions. Request access to motion/gyro sensors, grant access to fake, and suddenly movement detected is zero... that would be suspicious. Even so, I'd love that option.

And finally, I don't want apps to be able to query and discover if permissions are temporary or permanent. They just have permmissions--for now--that's all they can know.

Re:Devices Need Transient Permissions

[vlad30]

I'd prefer an option thats fills their database with random data or data I choose such as congress and senators addresses, or that facebook fanatic till they realise these companies are crap

If not a phone, then something else nearby

[theCat]

Amazon eventually has something similar planned for Alexa, where casually spoken words (not directed at Alexa) will do exactly the same thing. The trend here is that any device in your vicinity (not even your own home, anywhere at all) can be triggered by any kind of sound (voice or ads, audible or not) to turn on your phone and record other conversation, or maybe to direct your phone web client to an online ad or retailer.

We're screwed.

Turning on the microphone?

[Anonymous Coward]

But if it only turns on the microphone when it "hears" the sound, how does it hear it?

Of course the microphone is turned on all the time, just that when it hears the sound it starts recording and send it home.

Still a horrible idea and whoever conceived it should lose their basic human rights as a punishment since they want to take some of them (privacy) away from others. There is a special place in hell for people like these.

Remember La Liga?

[drew_kime]

Remember the story here just two weeks ago?

The La Liga app, which is the official streaming app for Spain’s most popular football league, has reportedly been using the microphones on fans’ phones to root out unauthorized broadcasts of matches in public venues like bars and restaurants.

Sounds like the same thing.

Manually disable camera and microphone

[myid]

Phones and computers need a manual (not software) "data capture" on/off switch. This switch would physically disable the phone's microphone and cameras (and if possible, screen capture).

If I manually slide the data capture switch to OFF, then the mic and cameras are physically disabled. No matter what any data, software, or user preferences are, the mic and cameras are physically unable to capture sound or images. They can't capture sound or images again, until I manually slide the data capture switch back to ON.

microphone is already on

[markdavis]

>" It describes a system in which an "ambient audio fingerprint or signature" that's inaudible to the human ear could be embedded in broadcast content like a TV ad. When a hypothetical user is watching this ad, the audio fingerprint could trigger their smartphone or another device to turn on its microphone"

How can it "turn the microphone on" if it was already "on" and constantly listening for this audible signal? Thus, the mic was already "on" and analyzing everything, all the time. This is aside from the asinine premise of this whole concept. I am sure we all have a BURNING need for our phones to be listening all the time, burning up the battery, doing god-knows-what in the background, sending personal info to places like Facebook, all so we can watch COMMERCIALS and then get even more automatic COMMERCIALS on our phones and give companies even more metrics about our personal lives, whereabouts, believes, and associations. Oh, man, sign me up now! I will make sure to throw away my DVR in the process, too, so I can watch COMMERCIALS religiously...

What I want are HARDWARE switches for: microphone, cameras, and radios on my devices. Funny how many devices USED to have such things in the past.

Re:microphone is already on

[markdavis]

>"Okay Google"

Indeed. First thing I turned off on my phone.... and hoping it really is off.

Re: microphone is already on

[Calydor]

Off the top of my head, microphones, radios and cameras did.

Pollute their data

[Solandri]

As I've said before, I believe the best strategy for fighting this type of privacy invasion is to simply pollute their incoming data. Figure out which triggers they're using to initiate the recording (e.g. inaudible audio signal at the beginning of a commercial), and duplicate it and program your phone and other speakers to play them back anywhere and everywhere. The mall, the park, stadiums, restaurants, concerts, movie theaters, amusement parks, traffic jams (over your car stereo with your windows rolled down), YouTube videos, etc.

There's an apocryphal story that at the end of the Cold War, members of the KGB and CIA got together for beer and to swap war stories. The CIA spooks lamented how hard their job had been. They had to struggle just to get anyone into the country since the Soviet Union was such a closed society, while the KGB could simply enter on a tourist visa and drive up to (and even take a tour of) most targets in the U.S. The KGB spooks disagreed, saying that theirs had been the harder job. The U.S. produced so much information that they had to devote huge resources to sift through it all to figure out which was credible and which was not. e.g. If the National Enquirer published a story about the USAF testing a captured UFO at Area 51, they had to figure out if it was made-up or if there was really something to it.

Re:They're already doing this.

[Tuidjy]

Oh, really? They are already doing it?

Can you please explain to me how you can possibly 'trigger' your microphone only after when you detect an 'inaudible' signal from the TV? If they have a way to detect a signal before turning on the microphone, it's sure worth a patent!

Of course, I'm just being facetious. It's probably the summary that is misguiding, as usual. In order to detect the signal, the microphone needs to be already on, i.e. the Facebook app has to already be listening to everything the phone hears. The patent is probably only about taking action afterward (sending the record home) I just love it how they assume that they will be monitoring everything around your phone. Well, those that allow it deserve it.

I know everyone harps about 1984, but I think that Lacey and His Friends was a lot more on the ball. Not quite as scary, but a lot more likely. And when I say "not as scary" it's only because what passes for the 'good' guy (a convicted rapist serving as a cop, and murdering people in cold-blood) usually prevents his (worse) antagonists from succeeding.

So.....

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

....how is this not illegal?

It seems like a classic example of wiretapping, especially as it's done without the user's consent (EULAs notwithstanding).

Fucking marketers...they should all die in a fire.

This is reason #3,255,094,649 as to why I don't use Facebook.

Re:They're already doing this.

[Calydor]

You realize the Facebook app on an average phone has already been granted access to the phone's mic and could have it running constantly, listening for such an activation sound, right? So when it gets its wakeup call in bat-level frequency it starts recording and transmitting to the mothership.

Don't use apps

[tsa]

This is why I don't use apps. They steal your contact lists, use your camera and microphone when it's not necessary for the functioning of the app and they do some mining on the side. Apps suck. Use the website.

Re:Begin to record?

[Askmum]

Why need such an elaborate scheme to check if your ad is being broadcast? Surely you can rig something to record a channel and check that programmatically? Why would you need a third party phone for that? Unless you want to check your exposure rate. And then still: why does Facebook need this and not the party that paid for the ad?
My first idea when reading your response was that Facebook was maybe trying to get the reaction to the ad from the viewer. "Hey! That's a cool gizamadoodle! Let's go out and buy that right now!"
But however I look at it, it is a wholly new level of intrustion alltogether. And yet another proof that that robot that's controlling Facebook can not be trusted.

Re:Begin to record?

[Miamicanes]

It would also help advertisers to catch networks and streaming services that habitually mangle their commercials by cutting them off a second or two early, or showing the same commercial multiple times in a row. Anybody who's ever used the CW's streaming app (and CW Seed) knows exactly what I'm talking about... it's not bad enough they show 30-40 minutes of commercials per 40 minutes of actual show... they make you watch the same commercials over... and over... and over... often back to back (to back to back), and routinely cut off the last 2-3 seconds.

Seriously, though... CW is the worst, but other streaming services do it too. I can almost see it being tolerated with live TV channels (where cable companies or local affiliates get to insert a commercial or two of their own into specific timeslots marked by embedded DTMF tones, and when that time's up "the show must go on"), but it blows my mind that streaming services don't just do it... they (seemingly) do it a hundred times WORSE than cable, satellite, and OTA channels EVER did. And WHY?!? It's not like anybody is going to genuinely CARE if a streaming show with nominal length of 60 minutes ends up running for 60 minutes and 19 seconds. Streaming is on-demand ANYWAY. There's no NEED for shows to be rigidly tied to any specific timetable. If they only have enough ads to show 3 minutes worth of ads instead of 20-40, they should just show each ad once (maybe twice, at least 20 minutes apart), show the ad in its entirety from start to finish without cutting anything off, and end the show in 43 minutes instead of senselessly subjecting you to the same ads over and over just because their system is set up to do it that way. And if they can fill enough ads to run the full 60 minutes, but showing the ads in their entirety means it takes 60 minutes and 19 seconds, SO FUCKING BE IT.

Another thing that's utterly PLAGUED the CW streaming channel lately in South Florida... they've been running endless ads in Spanish during shows like "The Flash", "Supergirl", "Legends of Tomorrow", and "Supergirl". If you think about it, it's completely INSANE... they're showing Spanish ads on a channel that shows only English-language shows and whose viewers, by literal definition of watching the show, know English. And unlike broadcast TV, the streaming shows don't have alternate captions in other languages, or SAP.

I can't help wondering, what crazy local ad agency is pissing away their client's advertising budget on those pointless ads, or what possible additional value they think they're getting from showing Spanish ads on English shows compared to the value they'd have gotten from showing a commercial in English.