Smart Spearkers and tin foil hats

[alisdairm]

I refuse to get a smart speaker as I don't want an internet company listening to my conversations.

For no justifiable reason I don't believe Apple/amazon/google/Microsoft listen to my conversations on my smart phone.

Am I justified in wearing my tin foil hat?

[Fore Left]

One sec, I'll ask Alexa.
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.
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Alexa says No, its not listening but recommends Bacofoil

[Mars]

I manage a networking team. After the Trump Huawei scandal, we tested all our Huawei networking kit and found it was not sending secret reports of our company data back to Chairman Mao.

For fun, and while we had the sniffers all primed, we tested 4 Alexas that my team members brought in from home. We found that, apart from the time when you wake her up and ask a question and for the few seconds afterwards, she does not send any data back to Bezos.

She did occasionally wake up inexplicably though but the amount of info she sent could not have been anything more than a quick "ping" to perhaps determine if there was any updates waiting, or something like that.

That said, my networking team are all paranoid and have firewalls at home.

[simon_harris]

I told my wife a joke the other day, I laughed, she laughed, Alexa laughed...

[threadlock]

alisdairm said:

Am I justified in wearing my tin foil hat?

What are you worried about them learning?

On a related note, anybody happily using a supermarket loyalty card while refusing to let Google/Apple/Amazon into their lives for privacy reasons needs to have a think...

[simon_harris]

threadlock said:

alisdairm said:

Am I justified in wearing my tin foil hat?

What are you worried about them learning?

On a related note, anybody happily using a supermarket loyalty card while refusing to let Google/Apple/Amazon into their lives for privacy reasons needs to have a think...

This.

Having spent some time in the data industry I have full awareness of the scope and range of data being collected about you and your habits (spending and otherwise) and it goes way beyond Alexa/Siri listening to you. If everyone was actually aware there would be uproar, and don't think that by not using a loyalty card they aren't collecting the same information and tying it back to you because they are.

At one point if you had facebook open in your browser it was accessing the cookies for every other page you had visited and had open at the time to learn more about you. The only way to avoid data collection is to live in cave and never leave it.

[Doofus]

I have nothing to hide, and if They want to spy on my tedious life, then bully for Them.

Having said which, I don't need a smart speaker because I have fingers. I don't need my washing machine to text me when it's finished. I don't need to shut my curtains or turn on my heating when I'm in the supermarket and I don't need my kettle to tell me it's half full.

I'm not scared of any of this ste; I just can't see any benefit to having it.

Edited by Doofus on Tuesday 1st August 15:53

[Motorman74]

threadlock said:

What are you worried about them learning?

On a related note, anybody happily using a supermarket loyalty card while refusing to let Google/Apple/Amazon into their lives for privacy reasons needs to have a think...

As a Tesco clubcard user I often wonder who they sell the data to, and for what purpose, as the only people who have ever targeted me with regards to things I either used to buy but had since stopped, or products that are similar to ones I already buy, are Tesco, in the form of money off vouchers about once a quarter - hardly intrusive advertising...

[simon_harris]

Motorman74 said:

threadlock said:

What are you worried about them learning?

On a related note, anybody happily using a supermarket loyalty card while refusing to let Google/Apple/Amazon into their lives for privacy reasons needs to have a think...

As a Tesco clubcard user I often wonder who they sell the data to, and for what purpose, as the only people who have ever targeted me with regards to things I either used to buy but had since stopped, or products that are similar to ones I already buy, are Tesco, in the form of money off vouchers about once a quarter - hardly intrusive advertising...

tesco use the data for all sorts of reasons, forecast planning, product requirement determination, in store product location success, cross advertising. I recall being in one meeting with hem and they were boasting they could tell if a female customer was pregnant often before she knew.

[threadlock]

Motorman74 said:

threadlock said:

What are you worried about them learning?

On a related note, anybody happily using a supermarket loyalty card while refusing to let Google/Apple/Amazon into their lives for privacy reasons needs to have a think...

As a Tesco clubcard user I often wonder who they sell the data to, and for what purpose, as the only people who have ever targeted me with regards to things I either used to buy but had since stopped, or products that are similar to ones I already buy, are Tesco, in the form of money off vouchers about once a quarter - hardly intrusive advertising...

They would (hopefully) not be selling your data to a third party, but will certainly be using data about each customer to promote specific special offers within the voucher scheme to encourage people to change to more profitable purchasing habits. They'll also be aggregating the data to improve their own marketing and that of their suppliers, organising their stores and shelves better, creating more effective in-store offers, tracking when and where people use their apps to organise home-delivery orders, and so on. Big retail is incredibly sophisticated these days at maximising their profitability at customers' expense. They could just take 1% off all in-store prices, but instead they use that 1% as a carrot to encourage us to participate in these data-farming loyalty discount schemes to make us think we're getting a deal.

I'm willing to be part of my local supermarket's scheme, but then I'm eyes-open about what it all means to my privacy. Same with Google Assistants. If they were doing something dodgy behind the scenes sending data to Google then a clever investigative geek somewhere (Mars, I'm looking at your team here) would have found out about it long ago. But they're not.

[nebpor]

alisdairm said:

Am I justified in wearing my tin foil hat?

No. These are large companies with a lot to use if they misuse your private data. I'm not saying blindly trust them, but all have good records with regards to privacy. If they breach this trust it could have a large impact on their revenue.

Worry much more about what your legacy telco is doing with all the juicy data they get as you carry your mobile phone from place to place. Worry more about the apps on your phone and what they are measuring when you use them, unless you are on an iPhone, where Apple do a pretty good job of restricting what they can do without your express permission. I'm not throwing Google under a bus, but their approach (and largely advert-derived revenue) is different. I still trust them, compared to smaller companies who don't have as long a track record.

We have world-class privacy protections in our laws that mean large corporations would be breaking the law if that data was used for nefarious schemes. They're unlikely to be doing so. Sadly you lost a lot of that protection with Brexit, but even then the UK laws are decent.

[nebpor]

simon_harris said:

tesco use the data for all sorts of reasons, forecast planning, product requirement determination, in store product location success, cross advertising. I recall being in one meeting with hem and they were boasting they could tell if a female customer was pregnant often before she knew.

This is not a tesco story. It's based on much older story about Target in the USA, and was probably a load of nonsense. Not saying clubcard data isn't of insight to Tesco.

[h0b0]

Doofus said:

I have nothing to hide, and if They want to spy on my tedious life, then bully for Them.

Several of the smart speaker manufacturers were testing their ability to "listen" out for COVID coughs. They had 98%+ positive hit rate. I know this as I worked for one and was offered the chance to join the beta test when it was very confidential.

I do not know what each manufacturer intended doing with the information. Would they tell you? Would your speaker make an announcement? Would they keep the info to themselves but recommend stocking up on COVID tests? I do not know.

A company possibly knowing you were sick and you not. They could share the info with your insurance company. In the US there was real concern that COVID would be classed as an existing condition that needed to be declared on insurance renewals. What if you were part of the 2% false positive?

How does this sit with you?

[simon_harris]

nebpor said:

simon_harris said:

tesco use the data for all sorts of reasons, forecast planning, product requirement determination, in store product location success, cross advertising. I recall being in one meeting with hem and they were boasting they could tell if a female customer was pregnant often before she knew.

This is not a tesco story. It's based on much older story about Target in the USA, and was probably a load of nonsense. Not saying clubcard data isn't of insight to Tesco.

I was sat in an actual room with actual people from the data team from tesco where this claim was made. At the time we were pitching on some work for managing tesco clubcard data as they were thinking about launching the Tesco credit card. As it happens we won the work and then a few years later had to deal with all the issues because they decided to use the clubcard numbers as the credit card numbers. They were fun months...

[megaphone]

Doofus said:

I have nothing to hide, and if They want to spy on my tedious life, then bully for Them.

Having said which, I don't need a smart speaker because I have fingers. I don't need my washing machine to text me when it's finished. I don't need to shut my curtains or turn on my heating when I'm in the supermarket and I don't need my kettle to tell me it's half full.

I'm not scared of any of this ste; I just can't see any benefit to having it.

Edited by Doofus on Tuesday 1st August 15:53

THis.

[bigpriest]

Meh, data schmata. You're only ever part of a bigger group that eventually gets contacted by some marketing campaign looking at all the 20-25 years olds who browse PistonHeads and buy lots of boxes of tissues or whatever. It's not like the data-harvesting is going to end up with just you, the most important person in the world, being "targeted".

[nebpor]

simon_harris said:

I was sat in an actual room with actual people from the data team from tesco where this claim was made. At the time we were pitching on some work for managing tesco clubcard data as they were thinking about launching the Tesco credit card. As it happens we won the work and then a few years later had to deal with all the issues because they decided to use the clubcard numbers as the credit card numbers. They were fun months...

I am not calling you out, you may well have done. But the claim they were making is nonsense and based on a 2012 Target news story. They were boasting above their station

[Tony1963]

My default position on all this sort of chat is this: in all the years of it being possible for companies to harvest my browsing data, I have NEVER been presented with an advert online for something I want/am likely to buy. Their algorithms must be incredibly unproductive!

Perhaps one day I’ll respond to an online advert, but until then, those adverts are just background noise.

[rodericb]

Tony1963 said:

My default position on all this sort of chat is this: in all the years of it being possible for companies to harvest my browsing data, I have NEVER been presented with an advert online for something I want/am likely to buy. Their algorithms must be incredibly unproductive!

Perhaps one day I’ll respond to an online advert, but until then, those adverts are just background noise.

Not even the hot MILF in the next suburb over?

[GravelBen]

Google often seems to swamp me with ads for things I already bought, until I buy something else and then it gives me ads for that.

I was interested recently though after visiting a shop I hadn't been to before (with location turned off in my phone settings), to find a few hours later an ad on facestagram for that specific shop, which I can't recall ever seeing an ad for before...

Back on topic, I don't see the point of smart speakers either.