Your Phone Is Listening and it's Not Paranoia

[humble3d]

Your Phone Is Listening and it's Not Paranoia

Here's how I got to bottom of the ads-coinciding-with-conversations mystery.

A couple years ago, something strange happened.

A friend and I were sitting at a bar, iPhones in pockets, discussing our recent trips in Japan and how we’d like to go

back.

The very next day, we both received pop-up ads on Facebook about cheap return flights to Tokyo. It seemed like

just a spooky coincidence, but then everyone seems to have a story about their smartphone listening to them.

So is this just paranoia, or are our smartphones actually listening?

According to Dr. Peter Hannay—The senior security consultant for cybersecurity firm Asterisk, and former lecturer

and researcher at Edith Cowan University—the short answer is yes, but perhaps in a way that's not as diabolical as

it sounds.

For your smartphone to actually pay attention and record your conversation, there needs to be a trigger, such as

when you say “hey Siri” or “okay Google.”

In the absence of these triggers, any data you provide is only processed within your own phone.

This might not seem a cause for alarm, but any third party applications you have on your phone—like Facebook for

example—still have access to this “non-triggered” data.

 

And whether or not they use this data is really up to them.

Whispering some sweet nothings to my phone

 

“From time to time, snippets of audio do go back to [other apps like Facebook’s] servers but there’s no official

understanding what the triggers for that are,” explains Peter.

“Whether it’s timing or location-based or usage of certain functions, [apps] are certainly pulling those microphone

permissions and using those periodically.

All the internals of the applications send this data in encrypted form, so it’s very difficult to define the exact

trigger.”

He goes on to explain that apps like Facebook or Instagram could have thousands of triggers.

An ordinary conversation with a friend about needing a new pair of jeans could be enough to activate it.

Although, the key word here is “could,” because although the technology is there, companies like Facebook

vehemently deny listening to our conversations.

“Seeing Google are open about it, I would personally assume the other companies are doing the same.”

Peter tells me.

“Really, there’s no reason they wouldn’t be. It makes good sense from a marketing standpoint, and their end-use

agreements and the law both allow it, so I would assume they’re doing it, but there’s no way to be sure.”

With this in mind, I decided to try an experiment.

 

Twice a day for five days, I tried saying a bunch of phrases that could theoretically be used as triggers.

Phrases like I’m thinking about going back to uni and I need some cheap shirts for work.

Then I carefully monitored the sponsored posts on Facebook for any changes.

I'd never seen this ad for "quality clothing" until I told my phone I needed shirts

The changes came literally overnight. Suddenly I was being told mid-semester courses at various universities, and

how certain brands were offering cheap clothing.

A private conversation with a friend about how I’d run out of data led to an ad about cheap 20 GB data plans.

And although they were all good deals, the whole thing was eye-opening and utterly terrifying.

Peter told me that although no data is guaranteed to be safe for perpetuity, he assured me that in 2018 no

company is selling their data directly to advertisers.

But as we all know, advertisers don’t need our data for us to see their ads.

“Rather than saying here’s a list of people who followed your demographic, they say Why don’t you give me some

money, and I’ll make that demographic or those who are interested in this will see it.

 

If they let that information out into the wild, they’ll lose that exclusive access to it, so they’re going to try to keep it

as secret as possible.

Peter went on to say that just because tech companies value our data, it doesn’t keep it safe from governmental

agencies.

As most tech companies are based in the US, the NSA or perhaps the CIA can potentially have your information

disclosed to them, whether it’s legal in your home country or not.

So yes, our phones are listening to us and anything we say around our phones could potentially be used against

us.

But, according to Peter at least, it’s not something most people should be scared of.

 

Because unless you’re a journalist, a lawyer, or have some kind of role with sensitive information, the access of

your data is only really going to advertisers.

 

If you’re like everyone else, living a really normal life, and talking to your friends about flying to Japan, then it’s

really not that different to advertisers looking at your browsing history.

“It’s just an extension from what advertising used to be on television,” says Peter. Only instead of prime time

audiences, they’re now tracking web-browsing habits.

It’s not ideal, but I don’t think it poses an immediate threat to most people.”

 

https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listening-and-its-not-paranoia

 

[steven36]

My phone dont listen to me  as it's a burner it dont have no internet  and i go buy a card from a store and pay in cash to put time on it. If i want to play with Android apps i just install a  Android Emulator on my pc and I  dont dl apks from Google or sign into Google you will get  infected fooling around with them. Last time i signed into google was like 2011. I got paranoid along time ago even before Snowden and it was not no NSA. It was people that knew me in real life stalking what i did online.

[dhjohns]

The only reason to have a phone, or perhaps the best reason is to have access to the internet.  It is pretty obvious that any device, any device at all which responds to voice commands must be listening 100% of the time.  How else would it work?  None of this bothers me, and if I had people I knew stalking me I would need to have a serious discussion or two with them.  

 

I wouldn't say anything about being paranoid to anyone but my shrink though.  Here is the definition of paranoia:

a mental condition characterized by delusions of persecution, unwarranted jealousy, or exaggerated self-importance, typically elaborated into an organized system. It may be an aspect of chronic personality disorder, of drug abuse, or of a serious condition such as schizophrenia in which the person loses touch with reality.

[debebee]

probably paranoia,

 

if both of you used your phone to look up stuff in japan in the past,  or used your GPS, you may have left cookie crumbs on you app history... and that is enough to trigger the ads..

Try talking about a place you haven't visited  and let your phones listen in .. See if you get ads for that place.. 

Only then would the article be credible.

 

[steven36]

29 minutes ago, teodz1984 said:

probably paranoia,

 

if both of you used your phone to look up stuff in japan in the past,  or used your GPS, you may have left cookie crumbs on you app history... and that is enough to trigger the ads..

Try talking about a place you haven't visited  and let your phones listen in .. See if you get ads for that place.. 

Only then would the article be credible.

 

I had that creepy feeling before. so has many others people like when you filling out Google Captcha  and the puzzle you're trying solve are  signs near were you live and you're on vpn  ip from overseas. Do some research  what you say happens to people all the time.

 

And example would be Are You Creeping Out Your Customers? Here's How to Stop

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7908-creepy-online-ads.html

 

and Ban Targeted Advertising

https://newrepublic.com/article/147887/ban-targeted-advertising-facebook-google

[debebee]

Google harvests a a lot of information about you.. directly and indirectly. they just don't admit it..

For example . I've had location histories since I've signed up with gmail. Seen app passwords that i have never used in years ..

If I used my new ANONYMIZED GMAIL ACCOUNT, i get none of those "deja vu ads"

[dhjohns]

Why ban Targeted Advertising?  Do you want UN-Targeted Advertising?  If I get any advertisements at all I want them to be relevant to my interests.

[steven36]

7 minutes ago, dhjohns said:

Why ban Targeted Advertising?  Do you want UN-Targeted Advertising?  If I get any advertisements at all I want them to be relevant to my interests.

Well on this forum most all of us use adblockers  and we hardly  see any Advertising much, so we already have banned  most of it in a sense

[lordnsane]

17 hours ago, teodz1984 said:

probably paranoia,

 

if both of you used your phone to look up stuff in japan in the past,  or used your GPS, you may have left cookie crumbs on you app history... and that is enough to trigger the ads..

Try talking about a place you haven't visited  and let your phones listen in .. See if you get ads for that place.. 

Only then would the article be credible.

 

 

not at all paranoia.

Personal experience, my friend got this awesome piece of musical gadget that I have never even seen or heard of. We were discussing about that gadget for 10-15mins, and then I started browsing facebook to see any new notifications.

Suddenly, there was an amazon advertisement of this gadget, this exact model name that we were discussing about, the first tile in a list of more musical gadgets. Given that I am not a musician, I don't need a microphone/recorder/amps and never searched for them, seeing the exact model of the gadget we were discussing about and all music related things at the same moment, is definitely not paranoia, and the truth that everything we say is being processed and sent.