• ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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    16 days ago

    Techbros really went full police state just to deliver ads I wouldn’t click on straight into my adblocker

      • M137@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        Even people you’d really expect to use adblockers. A good example is right here on Lemmy, people here are generally pretty tech-savvy yet you get threads with lots of people complaining about ads. This has been a weird lesson as I get older, seeing that most people somehow don’t even think about lifting a finger to fix things they see as problems, they really just complain and then do absolutely nothing to help themselves. It’s the same with if someone mentions something they don’t know what it is, instead of taking 5 seconds to just look it up they comment to ask about it and then never reply to people answering their question. I’m certain that it’s very common to have some weird need to make others do work for you, they don’t actually care about finding out what something is or how to do something to fix a problem, they just care about making others spend any kind of effort for them.

          • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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            15 days ago

            I encountered a user a week or two ago who was confused by the inaccurate output of an LLM, didn’t/couldn’t understand that it’s more or less just fancy autocomplete, who then tried to interact with the post replies as if the users were also an LLM. I had a great time calling that out. It was kinda hilarious, tbh.

          • shneancy@lemmy.world
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            15 days ago

            if someone is like, half of the described vampire i don’t mind. Honestly it feels strange to have our ancient way of finding things out (asking your friends if they know) be somehow seen as wrong nowadays. I want to learn from other human being, not disembodied pieces of information oftentimes tied to ads for driver updating software

        • anhydrous@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          I work as a software engineer with other software engineers. Even software engineers and UX designers using the internet that way. Talented ones. Many of them - maybe the majority. It takes me a second to get over my astonishment when they share their screens. Not only astonishment at how overboard ads have gotten w/o an adblocker, but also that this particular person doesn’t use an adblocker.

          So many people aren’t well-informed about what ad networks or doing, or how different the web experience could be.

      • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
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        16 days ago

        I have a friend that pays Google a YouTube tax every month… He tells me he wants to support the creators.

        I’m just kind of sad for him… I tried to explain direct donations were a million times more effective, but he clearly just doesn’t want to learn how to use an adblocker.

        This guy is like 30 years old.

        • tyler@programming.dev
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          14 days ago

          Why in the world would you think that someone paying to use a service is a problem? Sure direct donations are more helpful, but that doesn’t run servers to actually distribute the content you’re viewing. Your problem is completely different than what we are discussing about ad blockers.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    They really need to name-and-shame beyond “Facebook Partner” considering we’re talking about fucking Cox Media Group.

  • oweka@sh.itjust.works
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    14 days ago

    For everyone saying apps need permission to use your mic I want to point you to “play services”. The permissions protections only apply to user space apps not system apps. Thats how u can say “OK google” and get the chat ai to pop up even tho its “not listening” according to the OS.

    Also if you read the website they are not piping audio to their servers. They push triggers (keywords, etc) to the local ai on your phone that listens for things like “OK google” and then sends those reports back.

    Meta apps would need permission to to mic but I think if y’all check your big tech apps u will be surprised how many have that permission.

    I can’t speak to iOS because its closed source but it probably has similar backdoors for apple.

  • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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    16 days ago

    “Meta does not use your phone’s microphone for ads and we’ve been public about this for years,” the statement read.

    Meanwhile:

    • Billiam@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Not defending Facebook, but if you record a video with sound, then the FB app has to have permission to record your audio.

      That said, delete Facebook. Fuck Zuck.

      • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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        16 days ago

        if you record a video with sound, then the FB app has to have permission to record your audio.

        I can’t tell if you’re trying to explain how it currently works (which I know very well, thanks) or asserting that the current behavior is necessary in order to record with sound.

        It really doesn’t have to be as it is. The OS can provide a record-video API, complete with a user-controlled kill switch and an activity indicator, and the app can call it. The app doesn’t need direct access to the microphone to allow the user to create a file with sound.

        Edit to clarify: I’m not saying that the “permission” doesn’t work as advertised. I’m saying that recording an audio file doesn’t have to require a permission system as coarse and disempowering to users as it is today. I guess the people clicking the downvote button misunderstood.

        • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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          16 days ago

          Pretty sure that qualifies for that permission.

          But the whole point of doing so is to use it in the app, and you for sure can’t do that without the permission.

          • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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            16 days ago

            I think this is more a teleological argument he is making and I agree. We’ve become numb to these permission warnings. Oh this app needs access to my camera because I need to take a photo of something once at registration. Why can’t it link to my default trusted photo app and that app can send a one time transfer to it? I hardly question these permissions anymore since many apps need permissions for rare one off functions. The only thing I deny every single time is my contact list.

          • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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            16 days ago

            Pretty sure that qualifies for that permission.

            I don’t know what you mean. Existing behavior does not provide the control or visibility that I described.

            One important difference is that the “permissions” in the screen shot are effectively all-or-nothing: if you don’t agree to all of them, then you don’t get to install the app. They’re not permissions so much as demands.

            (Some OS do have settings that will let you turn them off individually after installation, but this is not universally available, is often buried in an advanced configuration panel, leaves a window of time where they are still allowed, and in some cases have been known to cause apps to crash. Things are improving on this front with new OS versions, but doing so in microscopic steps that move at a glacial pace.)

            • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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              16 days ago

              If your app touches the camera and mic, it will show up on that screen that it does so. “Using the API” (which is just how the OS works) doesn’t prevent it from appearing on that screen, especially when you’re doing so for the purpose of putting video and audio in posts.

              • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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                16 days ago

                If your app touches the camera and mic, it will show up on that screen that it does so.

                Showing up on that screen is no substitute for what is actually needed:

                • Individual control (an easy and obvious way to allow or deny each thing separately)
                • Minimal access (a way to create a sound file without giving Facebook access to an open mic)
                • Visibility (a clear indication by the OS when Facebook is capturing or has captured data)
                • Farid@startrek.website
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                  16 days ago

                  All of those things are implemented in modern Android. Well, almost.

                  • Whenever the app wants to use microphone an OS popup asks you if you want to give the app permission to use the feature. The options are “when using app”, “only this time” (it will give the app one-time-use access to the mic) and “never”. If you click the 1st or 3rd options, you wouldn’t see the popup again and you’ll have to change the permission from settings. If you choose the 2nd option, you can manually choose to give permission each time it’s requested.
                  • This is impossible? The OS can either let the app use the mic or not, it can’t tell what the app is doing with the mic. Unless you mean give a one-time permission this time, but not in the future, then we covered that in previous point.
                  • Android always shows a green indicator on screen (upper right corner) when any app is using the microphone or camera API. Well, almost always, some system apps might not trigger it. But if you want to see which app is using mic/camera you can tap the indicator.
      • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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        16 days ago

        Nobody said it was the same thing as listening in the background. It’s still relevant and important.

        I trust that most adults understand the implications of an exploitable permission and a strong incentive to abuse it, as well as the track record of corporate denials.

        • Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          Using the permission to record audio triggers an on-screen indicator that the mic is recording. Someone would probably notice it on 24/7 recording. Someone would have also by now found the constant stream of network traffic to send the audio to be analyzed, because they also aren’t doing that on-device.

  • gcheliotis@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    A market agency claiming they do something of the sort isn’t proof that conversations are being monitored en masse. Security researchers can and probably have tested for this and found no clear, verifiable evidence, otherwise we would have known. Also, this stuff can be blocked at the OS level and I find it hard to imagine (esp. without solid proof) that Google or Apple would jeopardize their reputations to this extent by enabling such unauthorized listening in on users’ conversations.

    Of course it’s good to keep watching this space but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      15 days ago

      They have it’s very easy there are free programs that monitor all data traffic.

      This claim that Facebook listens to you on your phone has been around for years. It has been investigated numerous times and has never turned out to be true. Until recently the processing capacity required would have been insane and you would have an incredibly high noise to signal ratio. It’s just not an economical way of gathering data for advertising.

      Why bother anyway when people put their entire lives on Facebook, for free, in easily processable text?

      • homicidalrobot@lemm.ee
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        15 days ago

        Your phone/plan carrier using voice data to make a marketing profile is well documented actually. This data is purchased and verified and resold by meta, or in some cases bought and used by alphabet for GAS. Cacti can show you outgoing data for every device on a network, and you can see data being sent from a phone in signed packets going to your carrier when you’re not “actively using” it. It seems like you know about network monitoring tools but you haven’t actually used them, just talked about them in reference to data collection.

        “Why buy the cow” here is also easily answered: not everyone uses Facebook, a fair number of users will deactivate their facebook page but continue to use messenger.

        • Xatolos@reddthat.com
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          15 days ago

          So what you’re saying is the biggest companies like Amazon, Google, ChatGPT, etc… can’t perfect voice dictation when I’m talking directly and clearly to my device, but this company has been able to figure it out. And doing it while hiding from the smartphone OS that it’s doing it. While the device is at a distance/hidden in my pocket. And is using it just to sell ads.

          👍

            • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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              14 days ago

              Yeah, with lots of leaked customer data. Nothing about using voice data to make a marketing profile. Unless there is a second leak I don’t know about.

              But judging by your inability to link it you just made it up.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        14 days ago

        Because people’s (presumed private) conversations on Messenger are not the same thing as things people post publicly.

        Personally, I would never install that malware on my phone. But if you even have FB Messenger installed on your device, chances are that it’s constantly sending your data to Facebook. Go take a look at what permissions it “needs.”

        • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          We can see what it’s sending to facebook though, and it’s not constant. There’s a bunch that it does send and receive, but this isn’t hypothetical speculation, like, we can just see that it’s not using your microphone for that, or sending anything like audio data. You can check this yourself, wireshark is free and packet specifications are available.

          • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            13 days ago

            I get that, but it just happens far too often to be coincidence.

            I’m not going to claim to know how, but it’s naive to take the word of corporations when we have so much circumstantial evidence that shows these firms are targeting people with ads for things that they had never shown interest in, but happened to mention once in the presence of a device with a microphone and internet connection. There have been people who have tested this, and have gotten results that indicate that this just cannot be a coincidence. It has happened to me personally on several occasions (before I started keeping my mic off at the OS level, hasn’t happened since).

            I’ve been around long enough to know that, just because the general public doesn’t know how some proprietary tech that corporations spend billions on R&D for might work, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. People have come up with insane shit, and that’s just the stuff that people have voluntarily (usually) disclosed. God knows what kind of proprietary shit is out there that we have no awareness of.

            I mean, for fuck sake, you can now steal a person’s password by listening to their keystrokes:

            https://www.tomsguide.com/news/the-sound-your-keystrokes-make-is-enough-for-ai-to-steal-them-how-to-stay-safe

            Not to mention the fact that the NSA likely has back doors in every major piece of software and hardware in the US…

            I know that stuff isn’t directly related, but the point is that these things always seem impossible, until it gets leaked that it’s been possible for years now.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      15 days ago

      Anybody that’s ever spoken to a salesperson knows that they’re talking out of their arse most of the time, and I doubt this is an exception.

      He’s said this because he thinks that the people he’s talking to will give him more money if he does.

      If it was happening at all you’d have seen proof by now. Like people pulling apps apart and finding proof, not just “I spoke to Bob last week about cameras and now I’m seeing ads for cameras”.

      The truly terrifying part is they don’t need to listen to your conversations to know what you want.

      • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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        14 days ago

        By paying people $20 / month in exchange for installing a VPN that will snoop on your data so they can market research their competitors.

        It is unacceptable, but it wasn’t in secret from the users. They agreed to get paid in exchange for the usage data of competitor apps.

        So it’s a completely different situation to any “secretly spying” claim. The users had to go out of their way to get it setup.

          • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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            14 days ago

            This has nothing to do with trust and everything to do with facts and evidence.

            • InternetPerson@lemmings.world
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              14 days ago

              The evidence is: among other things, facebook has repeatedly violated user’s privacy. It would be no surprise if they would also monitor conversations via the microphone. Sure, currently there seems to be no evidence for that. But I wouldn’t be so naive to just trust them on that.

              • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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                14 days ago

                The evidence is: among other things, facebook has repeatedly violated user’s privacy

                This is not evidence that they’re using your microphone, and you know it’s not.

                It would be no surprise if they would also monitor conversations via the microphone.

                Honestly, I would be very surprised. Not that they would, but that they were able to. And that they were able to without ever being caught, somehow bypassing Google and Apple’s mic usage notifications.

                But I wouldn’t be so naive to just trust them on that.

                I don’t know why you keep coming back to trust. I’ve already addressed this. No one is suggesting that you should trust them. You shouldn’t trust them. And you shouldn’t use their services. That’s not the point.

                • InternetPerson@lemmings.world
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                  14 days ago

                  This is not evidence that they’re using your microphone, and you know it’s not.

                  I didn’t claim it to be evidence for that.

                  somehow bypassing Google and Apple’s mic usage notifications

                  Unless some form of hardware notification is hardwired into the device, which indicates cam or mic usage, I’m on the rather paranoid side regarding software notifications. Software is usually much easier to break. I’m leaning a lot out of the window now, as I don’t know how secure those notifications are implemented. However, even then there is reason for concern, given that facebook had / has questionable deals with device manufacturers. If they were willing to share personal data with device manufacturers, there is reason to suspect this went or can go the other way around as well.

                  I don’t know why you keep coming back to trust. […] That’s not the point.

                  It is mine. Even though there is no evidence for a surveillance using device microphones itself yet and it could be surprising if they were able to, given the history of facebook, they participated in a lot of rather surprising shit.

  • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de
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    16 days ago

    Recent versions of Android make it much more difficult for a background app to access the microphone. There will be a notification if any background app is using the mic or camera.

    • ChillPill@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Google’s “Now playing” feature constantly listens to what’s going on in the background to show you what songs are playing. They claim this is done with a local database of song “fingerprints”. The feature does not show the microphone indicator because: “…Now Playing is protected by Android’s Private Compute Core…”

      I’m not saying that other, non-google, app do this to my knowledge; but the fact that this is a thing is honestly a bit scary.

      Edit: screenshot of the “Now Playing” feature

      1000009252

      • Pichu0102@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        For what it’s worth, I did just test it with airplane mode and it still correctly identified the song playing. So at the very least, it’s not lying about using a local database to identify songs, at least when it is offline.

        • Im_Cool_I_Promise@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          It also uses a cloud fingerprint database apparently according to the second paragraph:

          If you turn on “Show search button on lock screen”, each time you tap to search Google receives a short, digital audio fingerprint to identify what’s playing.

          • Pichu0102@lemmy.world
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            16 days ago

            Oh, I didn’t notice this, my apologies. Turning on identify songs nearby reveals two new options, notifications and show search button. That show search button option must be new; I had identify nearby music on already since my last phone. Guess they added something new. My bad.

        • ChillPill@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          What other apps use Google’s “Android Private Compute Core” and therefore don’t show mic or camera usage notifications? Not trying to sound all tinfoil hat here, but seriously: can apps other than those from Google use the “Android Private Compute Core”? Even if only Google’s own apps can use the “Android Private Compute Core”, we can’t see the source code for Google’s apps as (far as I know, anyway) they are not open source. If an app is not open source, we do not really know what the app is doing in the background; we’ll just have to take them at their word.

  • Redruth@feddit.nl
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    14 days ago

    easy to test. men can say “tampons glitter lotion” several times a day. women say “garage exhaust cable”.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    What’s the last “bombshell scandal that would ruin a company” that actually ruined a company?

    • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      Unroll.me was a service that would scan your email and clean up your inbox. The New York Times reported that the company was gathering sales receipts emails, anonymizing them, and selling them to rival companies; for example Uber paid them to hand over all the sales receipts they could on Lyft rides in people’s mailboxes. The bad press made them eventually sell the company to Slice, mainly for the email archives they amassed.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        15 days ago

        Cambridge Analytica, but only because what they were doing was so monumentally illegal. I’m sure the government would have let them get away with it if they could have thought of a way out for them. A lot of them mates were involved in that scandal.

      • zbyte64@awful.systems
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        15 days ago

        As a business you can be a maverick against many laws, just not the laws regarding finance.

  • N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    16 days ago

    “Meta does not use your phone’s microphone for ads and we’ve been public about this for years,” the statement read. “We are reaching out to CMG to get them to clarify that their program is not based on Meta data.”

    Ah, yes. The tried and true defense of “we’ve denied it for years and continue to deny it” must be credible coming from a source as trustworthy as Facebook. I hear they’re planning on holding a press conference to pinky swear they’re not listening to the microphone they demand access to in order to show you ads that make them money.

    • edric@lemm.ee
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      16 days ago

      FWIW, this was debunked when CMG originally made the claim. It was a marketing guy overselling their product and they had to correct their statement. They use the same info data brokers collect, and phones actively listening to you is not true.

      • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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        16 days ago

        Even what they said could be true without applying to phones. They said “smart devices” a lot. They never said “smart phone”.

        There are a lot of IoT devices, some of which have microphones, a lot less secure than either iPhone or Android.

      • N0body@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        16 days ago

        The fundamental question is, “Do you trust Facebook?” They have the resources to manipulate the story and twist the truth. They have the capability to spy on you with mics, but they say they don’t do so. Do you trust them?

  • slimarev92@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    I think they’re lying. Apps can’t access the microphone, on an OS level, without explicit permission from the user. Unpess Facebook found and used insane exploits in both Android and iOS, I’m calling bullshit. They’re just bragging about something they can’t possibly do.

    • Capricorn_Geriatric@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      Wouldn’t want to be mean to Facebook users, but the vast majority of them probably has micophone access enabled for Messenger at least, if not Facebook.

      • Zink@programming.dev
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        15 days ago

        This comment inspired me to go turn off microphone, camera, Bluetooth, and local network access for every app. I’ll reenable as necessary.

        • Texas_Hangover@lemy.lol
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          15 days ago

          Just leave it on for whatever runs your phone calls. I emabarrasingly discovered that the phone app NEEDS microphone access lol.

          • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            14 days ago

            I keep my microphone and camera off at the OS level always now. Android has quick options for it that you can add to your pull-down menu thing at the top. When I get an incoming call, a popup comes up asking if I want to allow voice permissions. Then after the call I disable it again. Same goes if I need to take photos.

            I’ve never not believed that they listen to this shit. I’ve had far too many coincidental ad placements after saying something completely unrelated to anything I’ve ever searched for.

    • Clbull@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      Facebook listening in on your microphone is one of those things that I actually believe to be true. Ever had conversations with people to then realize that you’re being served targeted ads based on these conversations? Seems very coincidental.

      • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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        14 days ago

        Nope

        There are other ways they do that, like thrird party cookies, and combining data from many, many sources.

        Apps simply CAN’T access those kinds of things unless you allow it. You can check this in the apps permissions on your phone if you’re not sure. If microphone access is allowed, then yeah, they’ll be listening, probably. But remove that permission and you’ll be fine

    • chakan2@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      Ever use voice in messenger? If so FB has the permissions it needs to open your mic.

      • slimarev92@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        Even if they have that permission, they can’t just turn on the microphone when you’re not in the app. Also the battery drain and data usage will be impossible to miss.

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      At least on iOS, it takes it a step farther and tells you specifically when an app is accessing your location, microphone, camera, etc… It even delineates when it’s in the foreground or background. For instance, if I check my weather app, I get this symbol in the upper corner:

      The circled arrow means it is actively accessing my location. And if I close the app, it gives me this instead:

      The uncircled arrow means my location was accessed in the foreground recently. And if it happens entirely in the background, (like maybe Google has accessed my location to check travel time for an upcoming calendar event,) then the arrow will be an outline instead of being filled in.

      The same basic rules apply for camera and mic access. If it accesses my mic, I get an orange dot. If it accesses my camera, I get a green dot.

      • 𝒍𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒏@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        14 days ago

        For anyone who doesn’t have a device that natively supports this feature, there’s an app on F-Droid called “Privacy Indicators” that provides this for camera and mic access. It uses the built-in Accessibility services to provide this, and needs a couple of other special permissions

        You can change the color of the indicator, mine’s red for more visibility.

        I installed it from GitHub however, since the F-Droid build was really outdated: https://github.com/NitishGadangi/Privacy-Indicator-App

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        14 days ago

        My Pixel does the colored dot thing as well. It also has the ability to add “Mic access” and “camera access” quick options to the pull down menu to quickly turn the permissions on/off at the OS level. I keep mine off at all times. If I receive an incoming call, I get a popup asking if I want to enable the microphone to answer it.

      • whalebiologist@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        I know you mean well, but you are making assumptions that the software is not lying to you. You can’t trust a UI element.

  • foremanguy@lemmy.ml
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    14 days ago

    Until now it was really annoying to collect audio and then use it. The app needs to constantly record, send out the datas and then lastly process it to be useful. Today the cost versus benefits are really not to their advantage.

    But tomorrow this might change, if they find a way of using the mic to serve ads be sure that they will. The only question today is how? The only option at this time is for me to process the stuff offline. As they do today with “ok google”. Within the next months-years we are going to see more and more phones and it stuff using dedicated or specialized AI chip, they will be great with really low consumption to run 24/24. They could analyse offline the speech, make a resume and lastly when the connectivity is sufficient and enough datas are collwcted, the phone sends out all the infos to the companies servers.

    I’ve seen some comments about the fact that others companies that Google cannot really use the mic in this way, this is right…today. But in the future make sure that when they will have developed correctly this concept, Google (and Apple) would surely be okay with this approach (maybe in exchange with some bucks).

    Today phones are surely not listening to us, but they know so much things that we are actually thinking that they are. But this way is maybe not enough profitable for them, so they want to invade even more our privacy to gain more of this fucking thing called “money”.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    15 days ago

    I remember reading some time ago that “the idea (of phones listening to everything you say to serve ads) makes no economic sense, because it’d be too expensive to run”

    Looks like it actually isn’t “too expensive” to run in the end.

    • Overshoot2648@lemm.ee
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      15 days ago

      Except Facebook never used it this was a 3rd party trying to hype up investors. Many audits have been run on these apps and there is no way they use your microphone. It’s way cheaper to just look at your search history.

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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      15 days ago

      Even then, you have local voice recognition. You don’t need to stream all microphone recordings to some central server for processing, you just do voice recognition and keep a log of say the last 100 nouns and a high priority log for the last twenty nouns used near verbs like purchase, buy or get. Then send those lists to the ad provider as context. All the hard work is done on the client device and the same backend used for ad context on web pages can be used for this as well.

      • sysop@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Then hide it encrypted in an image upload or some other packet. Listen for ‘buy a <something>’ encrypt its text version, wait for something to cargo it with in a data transmission so people looking at data transmissions aren’t any the wiser, hide it in some obscure way that would look normal otherwise, it’s intercepted, sends off to advertisers. Adtech is cyber terrorism.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          15 days ago

          You don’t think security experts know about stereonography techniques? It’s like the first thing you learn about in uni for it. Like the first week.

    • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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      15 days ago

      It’s not when it’s your device doing the computing. All electronic devices should have visible hardware indicators for when their camara or microphone is on, but that’s a consumer rights issue most people are dismissive of, so it’s not happening. Some people even always want it on for the assistant functionality.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          15 days ago

          Not how it works.

          They have an ultra low power processor that listens for the “hey Google” keyword, then that wakes up the main audio processor. But the main microphone is not actually on, and that small processor isn’t capable of recording audio it’s just looking for a certain matching sound wave and then triggering.

          That’s why it sometimes triggers if you just go “hurr ner dorrll” because those random sounds are close enough to what it’s looking for.

          That is why some older devices can’t actually install the assistant software. They lack the necessary hardware to do it in a power efficient manner.

    • Maeve@kbin.earth
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      15 days ago

      Yep, and it’s not just Facebook, not just microphone. My lappie recently started serving ads for something I searched on a device not linked to it. I’m guessing it’s my ISP engaging in these sneak tactics.

      • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Depemds if you are logged i to google services on your phone and on you pc browser. If you log into anything google on your browser it retains that log in across all the apps

        • Test_Tickles@lemmynsfw.com
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          15 days ago

          You don’t even have to be logged in, or even go to the same website. There are a number of companies that offer free analytics tools to websites. A completely innocent website that just wants to know how many people have visited their page might use a free people counting widget from Google, Facebook, or wherever. Now every time that webpage gets loaded by a browser so does that widget. The widget itself doesn’t even have to report back to the original creators. If it includes something hosted by the original creators, then they can track the destination IP and browser tags.

  • dan@upvote.au
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    15 days ago

    Title is basically clickbait given it’s Cox Media Group doing this, not Facebook. They’re partnered with a bunch of companies.

    • Blackdoomax@sh.itjust.works
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      15 days ago

      But before that, when it was not acknowledged by social media, it was more like ’ you’re paranoid. And you think you’re that important that they listen to you? Common, get back to reality ’

      • JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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        15 days ago

        I feel like we’ve been gaslighted so bad about this that we were even denying each other’s reality.

        I knew they had to be doing this so I turned off all mic permissions. One day it pissed me off so much I started keeping my phone off completely unless I needed to use it.

        The only good thing that came out of it was I learned about ad blockers. Fine, listen to me since I can’t fucking stop you(keeping phone off was inconvenient), but it’s futile now and you wasted money since I won’t see your stupid fucking ads anymore.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          15 days ago

          I knew they had to be doing this so I turned off all mic permissions. One day it pissed me off so much I started keeping my phone off completely unless I needed to use it

          It might be an easy to just stop using Facebook really.

          I’ve had enough time to work out which of my relatives are racist, so I don’t really need it anymore.

    • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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      14 days ago

      It’s the reverse. Non tech people believe the snake oil, tech people know this is snake oil.

  • FlavoredButtHair@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    This is why I don’t have the Facebook app installed. However, what about messenger? Did the collect the data from messenger?