fuck offffff
I believe that the idea is genuinely good; however if you think about all the data that leaves your phone and that can be used for tracking, spying and so on, it gets disgusting.
i think that a lot recently. so many great technologies that cannot be trusted in the hands of corporations. and sadly, people then reject technology instead of demanding a version in public domain.
How do I opt-out?
By using a de-googled phone…
Thank god I have Graphene.
They have been doing this with Nest for years. Lots of reports of people saying something random and suddenly getting ads. Say no secrets!
I hope this is exclusive to newer models and leaves my 8 pro alone… fuck Google
The pixel line has had dedicated AI chip/functionality for several generations
Illegal in Germany. You may not record conversations, if you try to enter something like that as evidence you’ll get punished as well.
I suspect there are many countries with laws like that, and if your phone actually disables the feature when you enter them or just let’s you hang to dry…
Doubt. The law likely talks about making unauthorized recordings. There is likely nothing in the law that would disallow automatic transcription if no recording is created.
Unless the law is extremely vague such as “it is unlawful for a microphone to pick up conversations” the law likely doesn’t cover this situation.
I am more than happy (and eager) to be proven wrong, but in my experience the law tends to lag behind tech by quite a bit.
I didn’t check the actual law, always a good idea to do so.
So, §201 StGB actually covers both, it is forbidden to “aufnehmen” (record) as well as “mithören” (spy on). Bonus, its forbidden to cite transcription (im Wortlaut mitteilen).
Its an old law, going back to video cameras with magnetic tape and actually tapping a phone line. So it was used quite often, including the mentioned fake surveillance cameras, that didn’t record or even view anything but seemed to the public they did.
When dashcams became a thing people would be sentenced for using them. These days you can use dashcams, but never save for more than 24h or show the recording to anyone but the police/court.
I guess the law is a relict of living next door to Stasi, but its really just a guess of mine.
If huge tech corps are good at anything, it’s swerving around laws or simply deciding to ignore them.
They’ll argue that since you consented, it’s not spying.
And they’ll put something in the terms that it’s your responsibility to inform people around that your or their conversations will be recorded (lol, as if anyone would - but they’ll claim that as a defence).
And if they end up in court and get fined, even millions is just a slap on the wrist compared to how much they made from all that juicy data.
Laws will not stop them.
Illegal in parts of the U.S. as well
I wonder if there’s a legal loophole here? Specifically this works by transcribing “important conversations” into text, it’s not actually storing .mp3 recordings. Obviously still disgusting and I hate it.
The legal loophole is Google can afford to pay the fine. They make more money breaking ze to law than they do following they law
No, the user breaks this law, not the manufacturer. So the loophole for google is, they don’t care about you.
This right here. Companies like Google effectively have infinite money and it’s not a big deal for them to pay off the (usually miniscule) fines that they get hit with.
Not a lawyer, but as far as I got it, the storing isn’t the punishable part, the recording is.
You can’t have security cameras filming public spaces (like the road in front of your house). Even if its dummies, as people couldn’t tell the difference whether the camera actually films them or not.
Motorola needs to release those GrapheneOS compatible phones now 💀
Reason n+1 for me being thankful for switching to GrapheneOS.
Doesn’t help if someone you’re talking to has it on. And unlike Zuck’s stupid glasses you won’t even be able to know unless you ask every single person you talk to first. This sucks.
It’s probably illegal in Germany and some other EU countries. Not that that always stops Big Tech. But this one, at least in Germany, could land the user some jail time.
It’s illegal in parts of the US too
How’s the app support? I want to switch if/when the Motorola phones come out, but I’m wondering how many of my apps/services I’ll have to abandon.
Almost everything just works after installing sandboxed Google Play Services. For a few apps you have to tweak a setting to turn off some of GrapheneOS’s exploit protections. But I’ve found very few that refuse to run, and nothing indispensable. If you don’t like your main profile having Play Services you can set them up under a second profile or a private area and keep the apps that use them away from your main profile.
The other thing that might be a dealbreaker for you is no contactless payments with things like google wallet will work. But you could always just attach your credit card to the back of your phone and :tada: it works again lol
Contactless payments technically work fine, just not via Google Wallet. Banks that have their own tap to pay app usually don’t have that problem.
You must be lucky to have such banks in your country.
There’s several EU countries that do. Some of them as part of a push for sovereignty, but most, I think, cause they developed their solutions before Google Wallet was enabled in that country.
There was no work profile support when I last tried to convert. deal breaker, atm.
That has been working fine for years at this point.
Just grab an app like Shelter.
0% of the apps/methods available at the time worked with my employers setup. I did everything except the adb method. ended up getting a crap phone for work. it just sits on my desk anyway.
Oh, you mean a profile set up by your employer. Actually, dunno whether that works. I never let any employer touch a personal device.
Ive only got one gripe with it and its the requirement for RCS. I do prefer to use signal but genuinely only one person I know has gotten on to it. I hate using google messages but for folks that send me bulk pictures from iOS its just a hassle until there’s a Foss one that works but there isnt to my knowledge. I do know RCS only works on the main profile goo
Some bank apps may not work, but you can check by searching for you bank name + GrapheneOS
I found this list helpful: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/
I also found that one of the ones I use would only work in the Owner profile with Gplay services so the secondary profile wasn’t an option for it.
I’ve had zero apps not work, including my banking apps.
I already get “random” ads for things that were only part of a verbal conversation that happened to be near the phone.
What I want is a physical kill switch for the mic and camera, less surveillance not more.
That’s been happening for well over a decade now, and while “respectable security researchers” call it bullshit… there’s simply too much anecdotal evidence for it to happen organically.
The reality is they don’t need to listen.
They have so much data on users.
- how old you are
- where you are
- what you last bought
- when you just bought it
- who you are near
- what they bought
- what the people around you are searching and what ads they are seeing
- what is being bought and sold by everyone around you
- when you sleep
- what you eat
- the things you are chatting about on MMS
- where you go
- when you’re home and when and where you work
It just goes on and on and on.
People think they are unique but they are not as unique as they think.
NONE of that data can predict a random occurrence discussion that goes in a specific direction.
A great example is something that happened to me in 2015. One night I was out with friends, and one of them had a really bad panic attack. The next day I was discussing it with a colleague during a smoke break, who recommended he gets a clip-on pulse oximeter. No searches, nothing, literally just a half minute detour in our chat. I repeat, nothing was typed in or looked up or in any way entered into any computer intentionally.
Five minutes later we’re sitting in front of our respective computers and I start getting ads for the very thing. Mind you, we’re still at a point where nothing noted during this discussion was entered into any computer. Explain this.
Did anyone you were with the night of the panic attack search for what to do? Or texted anyone about it?
They can link you to other people by networks or nearby devices. Especially if you’re frequently around those people.
It would have been more concerning if your coworker got the ads.
Friend, or friends discussed said panic attack on big tech social in DMs or something. Obviously, you follow your friends, you are likely to go out on Saturdays with them, maybe even your first name was mentioned in their messages, you are now tied to an advertising angle for ‘Panick Attacks’. Data brokers buy this information, serve ads. This is just ONE way the data may have been inferred. This doesn’t include contact scanning, location services and so on.
Okay but how does all of that
Tell them I’m in the market for a toilet seat?
And then forget to tell them - I only need 1 toilet seat?
All the toilets in your building / neighborhood were installed all the same time and your need for a toilet seat likely matches the average lifespan of that item. They see this, they see you bought a toilet seat.
They don’t sell ads directly for you though. The do sell ads to people your age in your location that might need a toilet seat. They might also know that that item has a high return rate. On the chance you return it they want to sell the opportunity to advertise to you for more to potential customers (ad buyers)
It just goes on and on.
that’s an easy one.
google is an ad company, their main customers are the people who buy ads, pretending you need a toilet seat let’s them charge toilet seat makers more to “target” you
It’s not all that exciting. If the person you had the conversation with searches for the thing and they’re in proximity or on the same network, they can link you to them.
Except that doesn’t happen.
I always wonder whether we’re getting it backwards.
Like, did you see ads for kayaks because you had that conversation about kayaking, or did you have the conversation because an ad company/social network decided it was time for you to get into kayaking?
It may not even be that they advertised kayaking to you. They may just have a very good model of your behaviour that predicts you’re likely to be interested in kayaking.
Honestly this is scarier, and harder to understand. But I suspect it to be the case
Not that hard to understand. They have an extremely large dataset to analyze for “subjects adjacent to these searches” and it returns “kayaking” among other things. Then just show ads for those related things. You ignore the things you’re not considering as background noise, and notice the ones related to your new hobby.
Sorry, harder to understand for the general population. Most people just think their phones are listening to them.
Ah fair enough
I’m figuring it’s smart TVs and smart speakers, not the phones
I have one smart TV and a few streaming devices, none of which have microphones. Yes that includes the remotes. I have zero smart speakers even plugged in to power.
I do have one smart phone with a least one microphone though.
I’m pretty sure fairphone has that hardwired killswitch
Should be legally mandated in the surveillance environment we are in.
Welcome to your “I only buy vintage tech” era.
Mine started when 3.5 mm audio jacks started disappearing. We all draw a line.
Alternatively - the pocket computer revolution is beginning. Hell, many in my tech circles are making cyberdecks and the sorts with hopes of only using a phone to make and receive calls. Disconnect from the ‘big’ in Big Tech, not the tech :D
Well there are adapter cables USB-C to 3.5mm. On my previous phone in my car I used a splitting cable to power it while using the 3.5mm as input to the car radio. However on my new phone Samsung decided to not support it anymore -.-
I’m going off memory here, but I think this was an issue way back with some phones having DAC hardware built in, and others skipping that hardware in exchange for requiring dongles that included such?
Maybe you just need to find a new dongle? Hopefully that helps and sorry if it doesn’t, but I’d rather just have a headphone jack back and skip all the complications…
Fucking yikes
Um, oh fuck no.
The reams of personally-identifiable information that will leak is insane.
We’re not allowed to have Siri and Alexa listening when we’re working, lest a stray word on a phone call from the home office risks a privacy breach.
Oh yeah? I’d like to see them parse it when i switch to talking in igpay atinlay
It’s easy to imagine scenarios where something like this could be useful. Sometimes very, very useful. “Hey Google, I spent the last 20 minutes speaking to a police officer, be sure to keep and transcribe all that.”
But no one’s going to trust it (no one should trust it) because it’s offered by a big tech company. “Of course this new service is designed to be used against us,” we correctly assume.
This is where I’m at.
I’ve got a really bad memory. Ever since seeing Iron Man (I was never into the comics), I’ve dreamed of having a JARVIS-esque virtual assistant, something that could be omnipresent in my life to document and recall and remind and suggest and…
I’d be willing to pay for it, too. $100-$150 a month, maybe more, would be well worth it to keep my life from spiraling, like it has a tendency to do. But it would have to be my data. Never used for anything but myself. And that’s just unacceptable to the Tech Bros.
With self-hosted LLMs continuing to get better and cheaper, maybe this will happen in my lifetime. 🤞
Yeah no fuck that
Google: sorry, we work for the police, so that audio was not recorded.
Or it accidentally got the wording wrong, oops
Aaaand it’s Niantic all over again.
