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this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2024
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Privacy
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Yea, that is my problem with the "always listening" theory. I am sure they're capable of that, but don't think they're doing it just because they can get more data with a fraction of the cost by more "traditional" tracking.
In a way, it is scarier than listening - because listening is far easier to understand than the multitude of ways the data is collected and combined.
Exactly. They definitely could, but there'd also be potential legal issues, and it'd just be much more expensive to analyze sound data.
If it's done on each device, then their battery power would suck, and performance would decline. Sure, they could do that, but I imagine most phone manufacturers would rather sell more phones and make money from app companies (Meta, Google) who pay to have their apps pre-installed on the phone. Or Samsung and Apple, who have their own ecosystems for mining data like Google does.
If they were instead just uploading audio to central servers (which could mitigate legal issues due to "anonymizing" the data), then they'd be paying for the computational power to analyze all that data.
Again, completely possible, and likely in use with things like Alexa and Google Home. But on our phones (and laptops for that matter), they have so many other cheaper ways to get probably the same quality of information.
There is the Near-ultrasonic that can be used to transmit data and it seems that that is always listening so full audio isnt that far. But yeah i recon ur right its too risky when they have plenty of alternative ways to get the same data.
It is not about "too risky". It is about "costs much more in processing power while providing a fraction of the info".
Tbh, my theory wouldn't be too much more.
My theory is not that they're always listening and sending a live stream of audio back to some dingus in headphones. It has to be always listening for the trigger words, right? That's how it works, you say "yo siri" and she hears you, so it must be listening at least for the trigger word. With that in mind, what's to stop them from using other, secret trigger words, which may even behave differently than the advertised ones? Like say I'm Joe Bridgestone, and I pay google to add "tires" or "new tires" as silent trigger words, and instead of "activating" the google bitch it sends ads for Bridgestone Tires? Why wouldn't that be possible? It'd also be harder to catch them, as opposed to "literally a 24/7 hot mic." Tbh I find it hard to believe that the NSA hasn't at least tried to get this up for words like "bomb" or whatever, too.