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While I agree with you, I think I am starting to suffer from a kind of "privacy violation revelations fatigue". I have read the article and thought "so here is

While I agree with you, I think I am starting to suffer from a kind of "privacy violation revelations fatigue". I have read the article and thought "so here is another gimmick that steals away a bit of my privacy, so what? no big deal". And that's scary. The problem is there is no coherent programme on how to counter the privacy-encroachment trend. There is a bit of general dissatisfaction, some idealists urging us to repent and leave the clouds and a good amount of profiteers trying to benefit from that dissatisfaction. Meanwhile the forces behind this trend are organized and powerful.

Frondo 11y ago
Another aspect to the problem is that honoring privacy as a human right is a social issue, not a technology issue. The place to work on solving it (and, like all social issues, it won't be "solved," just "solved for now") is in the public and political spheres. We need to talk about this. We need to have the conversations that describe "what does privacy look like" and "how can we get the benefits from these gadgets while protecting our human rights". Right now, no one's talking about a world in which you can have your cell phone listening to your conversations, while ensuring that private companies and government agencies can't make use of that willy-nilly. The place where those restrictions have to happen is in the laws we need to develop to keep them all in check. We can't go back to a primitive, disconnected world, but right now, no one's leading us forward either.
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  > The place where those restrictions have to happen is in the laws we need to develop to keep them all in check. IMO we need that, but we also can't rely on that. Things like the NSA have shown that the laws don't really matter. Yes, we should be striving for those laws, but we should also not depend on them, when they can so easily be ignored.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  There is a technological aspect, and that's putting the voice processing back into the device itself. We can still get the benefit of mass machine learning on failed voice samples by asking users to submit the failed sample only, playing it back for them so they know what is being sent, and deleting the sample once it has been processed. Then an updated speech model can be sent to the device. Or, just do the retraining on the device, too.
CaptSpify 11y ago
> The problem is there is no coherent programme on how to counter the privacy-encroachment trend. IMO, there sort of is: FOSS I have my own "Alexa". It uses FOSS, and recognizes simple commands, like: lights off. Play/pause music. Add something to the grocery list. Unfortunately, it's a lot less feature-full. I really want an Alexa (or the like), but I personally refuse to get one until I can run it on my own servers, and block it from getting on the internet. And unfortunately, that doesn't look like it's gong to happen anytime soon. I think the big problem is the inability to run these systems without "big data" behind them, and I'm not sure what's the answer to that gap.
- lukeschlather 11y ago
  What verifiably private options are there for speech-to-text? It seems like they'd have to be FOSS but most of the "FOSS" solutions I've seen still use a remote server for the actual processing.
  - walterbell 11y ago
    It doesn't have to be FOSS, all you need is software designed to run offline, which can be network isolated, e.g. in a virtual machine. Dragon Naturally Speaking (from Nuance) in a Windows VM could perform the speech recognition and relay commands to a Linux VM. See also the http://www.voxforge.org http://www.voxforge.org effort to aggregate OSS acoustic models.
    - CaptSpify 11y ago
      > It doesn't have to be FOSS, all you need is software designed to run offline, which can be network isolated, e.g. in a virtual machine. It depends on who you ask, some people may only be willing to run FOSS stuff |;) But yeah, I've looked for a "offline: FOSS or not" solution, and haven't found much. EDIT: I can't reply to you because thread is too deep I'm assuming, but: yeah, it looks like it does. Unfortunately I probably won't try this because it requires windows, and I'm not really wanting to set up a VM/Wine to accomplish this. But you are correct.
d23 11y ago
> While I agree with you, I think I am starting to suffer from a kind of "privacy violation revelations fatigue". I have read the article and thought "so here is another gimmick that steals away a bit of my privacy, so what? no big deal". And that's scary. Is it though? To be honest, this article is pretty light on substance. I read through it all because the guy is a good writer, but the only revelation here is him realizing the microphone device he put in his kitchen is... gasp, listening to him. If it turned out Amazon was actually recording and storing everything, that would be quite the revelation. If it turned out your data wasn't being deleted when Amazon said it was, that would be quite the revelation. Otherwise, there's just not a lot here other than a semi-humorous story about accidentally insulting a robot.
- dunkelheit 11y ago
  Sure, there is nothing of substance revealed in the article, but still the gist is that we should be vaguely concerned. My point is that I am tired of being vaguely concerned.

Frondo 11y ago

Another aspect to the problem is that honoring privacy as a human right is a social issue, not a technology issue. The place to work on solving it (and, like all social issues, it won't be "solved," just "solved for now") is in the public and political spheres. We need to talk about this. We need to have the conversations that describe "what does privacy look like" and "how can we get the benefits from these gadgets while protecting our human rights". Right now, no one's talking about a world in which you can have your cell phone listening to your conversations, while ensuring that private companies and government agencies can't make use of that willy-nilly. The place where those restrictions have to happen is in the laws we need to develop to keep them all in check. We can't go back to a primitive, disconnected world, but right now, no one's leading us forward either.

CaptSpify 11y ago
> The place where those restrictions have to happen is in the laws we need to develop to keep them all in check. IMO we need that, but we also can't rely on that. Things like the NSA have shown that the laws don't really matter. Yes, we should be striving for those laws, but we should also not depend on them, when they can so easily be ignored.
nitrogen 11y ago
There is a technological aspect, and that's putting the voice processing back into the device itself. We can still get the benefit of mass machine learning on failed voice samples by asking users to submit the failed sample only, playing it back for them so they know what is being sent, and deleting the sample once it has been processed. Then an updated speech model can be sent to the device. Or, just do the retraining on the device, too.

CaptSpify 11y ago

> The problem is there is no coherent programme on how to counter the privacy-encroachment trend. IMO, there sort of is: FOSS I have my own "Alexa". It uses FOSS, and recognizes simple commands, like: lights off. Play/pause music. Add something to the grocery list. Unfortunately, it's a lot less feature-full. I really want an Alexa (or the like), but I personally refuse to get one until I can run it on my own servers, and block it from getting on the internet. And unfortunately, that doesn't look like it's gong to happen anytime soon. I think the big problem is the inability to run these systems without "big data" behind them, and I'm not sure what's the answer to that gap.

lukeschlather 11y ago
What verifiably private options are there for speech-to-text? It seems like they'd have to be FOSS but most of the "FOSS" solutions I've seen still use a remote server for the actual processing.
- walterbell 11y ago
  It doesn't have to be FOSS, all you need is software designed to run offline, which can be network isolated, e.g. in a virtual machine. Dragon Naturally Speaking (from Nuance) in a Windows VM could perform the speech recognition and relay commands to a Linux VM. See also the http://www.voxforge.org http://www.voxforge.org effort to aggregate OSS acoustic models.
  - CaptSpify 11y ago
    > It doesn't have to be FOSS, all you need is software designed to run offline, which can be network isolated, e.g. in a virtual machine. It depends on who you ask, some people may only be willing to run FOSS stuff |;) But yeah, I've looked for a "offline: FOSS or not" solution, and haven't found much. EDIT: I can't reply to you because thread is too deep I'm assuming, but: yeah, it looks like it does. Unfortunately I probably won't try this because it requires windows, and I'm not really wanting to set up a VM/Wine to accomplish this. But you are correct.

d23 11y ago

> While I agree with you, I think I am starting to suffer from a kind of "privacy violation revelations fatigue". I have read the article and thought "so here is another gimmick that steals away a bit of my privacy, so what? no big deal". And that's scary. Is it though? To be honest, this article is pretty light on substance. I read through it all because the guy is a good writer, but the only revelation here is him realizing the microphone device he put in his kitchen is... gasp, listening to him. If it turned out Amazon was actually recording and storing everything, that would be quite the revelation. If it turned out your data wasn't being deleted when Amazon said it was, that would be quite the revelation. Otherwise, there's just not a lot here other than a semi-humorous story about accidentally insulting a robot.

dunkelheit 11y ago
Sure, there is nothing of substance revealed in the article, but still the gist is that we should be vaguely concerned. My point is that I am tired of being vaguely concerned.