May be even dozens
Go ahead, make TVs more smart. We literally removed our TV thus weekend. If you want me to upgrade it, please removed the spyware.
My tvs are connected to an SSID that can’t hit the internet. I blocked them before but my dumb ass neighbor left their WiFi unprotected and my tvs just connected to them because it couldn’t get out the internet on my network. So I created an SSID logged them in and blocked it from the internet. It doesn’t bounce to open WiFi anymore. If I block it completely from the network the WiFi just disconnects from the network because it can’t hit anything. I have LG’s.
That is an insane thing to have to do. Having to manipulate your TV into not doing something you don’t want or require it to do.
is this still a surprise to anyone here?
Yes.
Not to you or me, but there are tons of people, even here, that are absolutely incredulous towards the idea that its possible.
I’m part of those people. The usual argument is that everybody’s phone is listening all the time, without agreeing to permissions or showing the mic notification or anything like that. I’ve never seen any proof of that. This article is about a bunch of shovelware apps (Pool 3D, Beer pong: Trickshot, Honey Quest etc) that aren’t even listed anymore. There’s nothing about them skirting permissions or hiding the notification.
People see the headline and assume it’s Facebook et al.
Not helpful
I remember a bunch of people freaking out about this a few years ago and an equal number telling them they were paranoid.
You can talk about stuff and your phone will just magically start suggesting related items. Why would anyone be surprised the monitoring device in their pocket is monitoring them?
I thought Android has a non bypassable green dot in the notification bar when the micro is on ?
I feel like you’re missing the point. Showing a green dot still doesn’t solve the problem or make it ok, especially when this technology works in the background and can capture sound even while the device is in your pocket, like the article says.
I don’t think we should have to be on the lookout for a little dot showing up on the screen constantly. It shouldn’t even ask for microphone access unless it’s absolutely essential for the app’s main purpose. “Features” like this should always be off by default and buried deep in the settings. If people really wanted it (they don’t), they’d go in and turn it on themselves.
Users need to know what this dot means, and some like children or the elderly will likely not understand the ramifications
It’s probably bypassable too. And, anytime the microphone is used, you have no idea the multiple extents that data is being used for.
afaik Android System Intelligence and apps using that will not show the mic icon
This might just push my fear of targeted ads enough to give in to my idea of a nearly soundproof box for my phone when I’m not using it. :(
Just install an OS that allows per-app microphone permissions. I’m running LineageOS and I can tell it for example to only allow Whatsapp mic access when I actively open the app. Actually according to the article, the same can be done on plain Android too.
Beer pong
Yeah that sounds like an app user who would be okay with his audio being recorded…
An app where all you end up recording is “Bro! Bro! Bro! Broseeeeph! Let’s gooooooo, Bro!”
yeah, alphonso appeared on my mibox, eset called it a trojan right after the update. had to delete it through adb, cause its a “system app”
Reading this made me wonder if I was having a stroke, because it seems like English but I don’t recognize so many of the words. 👴
I used to work for a mobile advertiser, and we installed hella bloatware on phones.
This idea was floated a couple times but was deemed not very effective cause you’d have to store and process hours and hours of audio data that didn’t tell us much more than just having a week or so of GPS data, your Facebook profile, and your phone IMEI.
It’s pretty easy to see if you’re near a Popeyes and what other IMEIs are connecting to the same tower, extrapolate that to you being near your wife and you and your wife thinking about shit on the Popeyes menu.
Boom targeted ad/video for fried chicken.
The rest is general tech paranoia leading to Apophenia.
There’s no microphones or cameras, it’s just the already gigantic mountain of data anyone who uses a smartphone is constantly broadcasting getting ground through the big data machine that has been the pillar of all tech since the last recession.
Also, have you ever been butt-dialed by someone? 99% of the time you can’t understand a single word, let alone enough to make any semantic sense out of.
If it’s trying to figure out if you’re watching Stranger Things it can look for when your stationary at home and just needs to record a few seconds at a time every few minutes. I don’t know how the fingerprinting works. It might be able to run locally and not use a ton of power. We’re talking Shazam, not full text transcription.
you’d have to store and process hours and hours of audio data that didn’t tell us much
I mean that could be solved as simply as a local transcription service…
And do what? Sentiment analysis on the conversation you were having?
Remember semantically aware models are still fairly new and even they lack the context for a particular field of text. That’s something even the new fancy LLMs struggle with.
Unnecessary when there’s way better targeted models trained on years of data that people willingly send as part of everyday smartphone use.
tf-idf will give you the keywords you want to target ads
Sentiment analysis on the conversation you were having?
Among other things, sure. More simply, keyword analysis.
Remember semantically aware models are still fairly new and even they lack the context for a particular field of text.
All of these “models” are useless garbage but it doesn’t stop them from trying to absolutely cram them everywhere they can.
Unnecessary
None of what they do is “necessary”. They could just ask you what your relevant interests are and you could tell them, but they do it anyway. They go to great lengths for any seemingly insignificant amount of data they can get their hands on.
But wouldnt it be a moot point if I restrict access to GPS for all apps?
How much of that data is from Google/Apple (e.g. Google Maps)?If you use android google grabs your GPS data regardless, you have to root and disable it.
Apple does the same thing but they didn’t have their pants occupied by third-party network’s fingers like google did until the pixel came out.
Google maps is basically a beacon for AdMob to target you nearly perfectly.
Also using “fine location” in any app grabs the nearby wifi list and sends it to Google/apple if it’s not cached.
Also most ad providers these days have made deals with major networks that let them tell what tower your IMEI pinged off of.
It’s why google tried to push android/ad IDs, way less info for the networks to advertise over, and it also put the tracking in their hands instead.
So graphene os ir a degoolged phone solves the first thing
Right around the confinement my sister and I were talking about getting some seeds for my mom. Neither of us searched for seeds. From that point we both started to get ads for seeds, many for the ones we had talked about in particular. This thing was so unequivocal that it proved to me that our phones listen. Maybe they don’t analyze, but they definitely listen for words actionable for an advertising purposes.
More likely, your late’ish habits and searches combined with age and another mountain of data correlated with people that have the same thought. We are no snowflakes.
Edit: I should say, if this example is true. I’m not saying you are lying, just that if you are, it’s not a “gotcha”. This thread is making me paranoid! :)
That’s why i always forbid access to my microphones by apps. Many AI apps will also remember what you discussed long ago.
OS doesn’t need permissions to access hardware
Use NextDNS with strong filters and the DDG app with App Tracking Protection turned on. While no filter is 100% perfect, this combo stops the vast majority of privacy-invading shit from getting to 3rd parties.
I use shizuku for hidden api/shell access…the devs of that have an app called appops which, you guessed it, allow you to change any appops permission for any app. Allows denying/ignoring clipboard access, device identifiers, location, microphone, etc.
appops screenshots
:::App Ops still works? I haven’t used it in over a decade.
And people wonder why I keep rooting my Android phones.
Without advanced permission denial and file access restrictions, phones will spy on anything and anyone.
That helps with other dangers, but in this case all you need to do is not give “Pool 3D” access to the microphone, no rooting required.
Rooting is no longer required and is a security risk
Or do you mean flashing custom privacy respecting rom
No, I exactly mean rooting, and it is a hard requirement for me when choosing phones.
If you know what you’re doing, there is no security risk involved, since every app requesting for root access needs to be granted individually, and you can opt to do so for a limited time or permanently. Or not grant it at all, obviously.
Tools like AppOps (advanced permission management), Storage Isolation (prevent access to certain folders even if “file access” permission is granted to some app), Ice Box (keep certain apps in a permanent state of hibernation unless you explicitly launch them) are absolute core essentials.
Other apps that enable you to fully remove system apps, system level adblockers, VPN sharing etc. might be optional, and there are no-root workarounds, but they all come with serious limitations.
Hmm… Do you use a different root method than magisk? I don’t think a root method based on the efforts of a single developer is a safe practice.
There are other tools, but their developers aren’t publicly known. So I indeed trust into the one man show that is magisk, at least as a full time Google employee who gets his codebase reviewed in-house, there’s some more trust than to a random nobody. And he does publish the code and allows for user contributed fixes on github.
Appops is great. Just mentioned in another comment ,though I use shizuku.
Doesnt GrapheneOS provide some of these features?
That’s only available for Pixel phones, and I don’t buy from Google.
Little nitpick: Graphene OS isn’t artificially restricted to Google phones. Pixel phones just happen to be the only ones that fulfill the safety requiremets that Graphene OS wants.
Other manufacturers could do the same and Graphene OS devs would welcome it, they just choose not to do that.
Granting blanket root to all programs on an android phone sure that’s a risk; but who the fuck does that on any system…
From memory individual apps would be able to request root which could be denied, approved once, approved always or ignored.
Why would you provide any app with root access tbo?
What do they need it for?
Not OP but rooting is still necessary for advanced backups like those made using Swift Backup
ok thanks, but where’s the list of these apps?
These type of articles never list the apps they’re discussing.
iOS and Android. If you have one of those people are listening.
Comments like this try to make you give up on privacy by making it look like all is lost from the get to.
They are lying, don’t believe them, there is a lot you can do to protect your privacy.
Both of these apps have device-level notifications to let you know when an app is listening. I promise they’re not. There was a service a while back that was claiming this in their advertising and it went public and their partners all scattered like flies. No one wants to be associated with that sort of thing. It’s unnecessary anyway.
Eh, you can be reasonably sure that GrapheneOS or other Android ROMs without any Google Play apps is private.
No
Article is from 2018. Someone must have pasted the url from hacker news where the same story was dug up recently.
Is that to say that it’s no longer valid? Or just that it’s old news? The list of apps associated with the software is still pretty extensive; Google Assistant even showed up.
Well these days Android asks for more permissions so I guess it would prevent it in many cases by preventing access to the microphone for apps where you don’t want to allow it…
Android also shows an indicator when any app is accessing the microphone or camera now.
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-21083
There are probably other exploits around that as well
While these bugs happen, they are fixed very quickly, and wouldn’t be used by any marketing agency. Just keep your phone updated.
it has always asked for mic permission so no change on that front
Yeah, most people just click beyond that in a millisecond because it’s just an an annoyance between them and the needed dopamine.
I think app stores can do a whole lot more, especially with he insane amounts of money they’re earning from it (hello and fuck you, apple). They can make microphone access a special privilege that requires the developer to make a special request that gets verified on the app store before the app can be released, for example
I think a middle ground may be having that requirement for background mic usage, or usage without a specific user prompt that turns on a mic.
Lots of apps have legitimate use for the mic. Apps having legitimate use for the mic while you’re not actively using the app on screen are more limited and need stricter permissions.
I’d also like to have a hardware mic mute switch that physically disconnects the mic, so I can just keep it off unless I want it like I do with the mic and Webcam on my computer.
7 years is a long time in tech.
Google Assistant is supposed to listen for the “Hey Google” trigger word. How else do you expect to use your device hand-free.
It also does it completely locally, using an on-device chip. If your phone has the Google assistant on it, disable all Internet and try the wake phrase, it’ll work. Nothing else does, because it has to phone home for that, but the wake phrase handling IS on-device. Can’t even turn the flashlight on otherwise tho lol, even if you use what we used to call the power button (new name for it? Lock button?) and type what you want it bitches about internet
No, 2018 wasn’t 7 years ago… No… Wait please…! :'(
Old news. It was old news in 2018
me to my phone right now
Wasn’t there just a storey a couple days ago that apps where not doing this but taking screenshots and videos on the screen and sending that. And both iOS and Android have the microphone notification now.
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2023-21083
I guarantee you that the green privacy dot means diddly squat.
This link proves how robust the security research is and how quickly bugs like that are patched.
Past vulnerabilities doesn’t mean there is active mpdern vulnerabilities especially ones in widely tested operating systems that’s exploited by as many apps as people claim are listening when security researchers also regularly reverse engineer and analyze the source code of popular apps to figure out what they’re doing. You can decompile Android apps pretty easily to see what they’re doing. Some are obfuscated so it takes some effort.
Its one thing to claim there’s some a system level bypass for the icon that the NSA uses to spy on its enemies, it’s another thing to claim that it’s being exploited on a wide scale by a tech companies on different apps, iOS and Android, multiple versions/devices.
The reality is that we leak tons of info through other mediums that are easier and cheaper to collect than through microphones.
I know I’m usually on the more paranoid side, but I’ve always assumed everything I do on a smartphone is potentially being monitored via camera or mics.
If the apps are just taking screenshots, or recording a few seconds of data via mic, it would be almost guaranteed that certain corrupt (and also paranoid) governments that are dismissive of privacy rights could force or bribe those apps to allow them to also access screens, mics, and cameras anyway, right?
I’m in the U.S., and especially with how glitchy my phone has suddenly become over the last few months, I’m just at the point where I just assume that’s what’s going on.
I had the same android for like 4 years without many issues, then suddenly around February it just became almost impossible to use. Weird glitchy things with the size of the tool bar at the bottom of my screen and the popup keyboard. Redirect notifications all the time for certain websites, and my VPN connection is just constantly interrupted and having to be reset.
I finally was like fuck it, this is an old phone so maybe that’s it. Brand new phone, but most of the same issues.
I use signal instead of text most of the time, and switched a lot of things to proton mail, but if someone is potentially recording your screen, does it really matter if what you’re doing is encrypted?
Which VPN provider are you using? How do you know they are not the one monitoring your phone?
Did you obtained your phone from a trusted source, such as an official seller. Some phones purchased from overseas might have “International ROM” installed by the seller, which compromises the integrity of the device.
Consider having a trusted tech friend look over your phone to see if the device has malware installed.
I use proton VPN, but no I always just get my phones from Amazon bc it’s cheap. Never was a real problem in the past, but now that the U.S. is (officially) a giant Oligopoly, probably not a wise idea.
I don’t really know any tech friends that are super in the know about that kind of thing. I have a paid Norton 360 subscription that does frequent scans for malware and says it never finds anything, but honestly wouldn’t even be surprised to learn I’m paying for a useless subscription.
The only reason I even bring that up is bc our current Governor who has always been a power hungry authoritarian boot licker renewed the Executive Order for a state of emergency for a cyber incident that our previous governor first created when the data breach happened several years ago.
When he “renewed” the order, he also slipped in a new section that granted authority to the director of one of his cabinet’s agencies, Governor’s office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP), to handle the emergency as he sees fit.
What’s even more concerning is that on the same day he renewed this order, he restructured GOHSEP so that it is now under the control of the state’s National Guard, gave the former director of GOHSEP a new title, and then named a member of the Guard “acting director.”
He’s been very vague about what the renewal was about, but it allegedly had something to do with updating the OMV/DMV data base for the state. Since then he has also created a hiring freeze for the state, which would seem to indicate that whoever was acting director is now indefinitely the director named in the executive order until the governor decides to lift the hiring freeze.
Even for someone not already paranoid, and without everything happening at a national level, that would all be a bit concerning right? I’m not a journalist, but I’ve been trying to get people to pay attention to it.
For some reason, no actual local journalists seem to be willing to point this out, but it’s all publicly available information.
Proton is a trusted VPN/company.
Norton on PC might be useful, but on mobile, it’s probably as good as a placebo.
Good luck with your state government. Sounds like a nightmare.
The reason no local journalist is critical of the state government is because there are no independent journalists left. Google and Meta have sucked up all the advertising dollars, so small local independent media cannot survive. The journalists have to work for mega corporations who dictate what they are allowed to write.
Yeah that is kind of a given, I just wish more people would wake up to that fact.
Every day more people ate taking notice, hopefully we can hit a critical mass within our life times
i used to think this as well (i have never used any facebook apps), but last night something happened that made me question it.
My wife and i were going through a chipotlane that was right next to a Popeye’s. As we were waiting i looked over to popeyes and saw some posters for their new pickle chicken stuff and asked my wife “the fuck is a pickle ‘glaze’?”
she said “i have no idea but i kinda want some fried pickles now.”
literally a few seconds later she opens instagram on her phone and is shown a video of a person making pickle brined chicken.
yes yes it could be a coincidence, but i am a lot less certain of that now.
The way I’ve heard it is that it’s not just coincidence nor microphone scanning, but just the effectiveness of targeted ads in general. You could be within wifi range of other users who are searching for pickle stuff or you yourselves have a history of pickle purchases, etc. This stuff is scary specific already.
