6 ms·

IMHO, Google storing voice recognition samples does freak me out, especially because voice recognition is automatically activated by "OK Google" and maybe other

IMHO, Google storing voice recognition samples does freak me out, especially because voice recognition is automatically activated by "OK Google" and maybe other triggers and maybe depending on version or the hardware used it's not that good - for example when my wife plays songs on her LG phone, she gets Google's voice recognition activated erroneously all the time. So basically random bugs can get your very private conversations recorded on servers that can be under the control of state agencies and disgruntled employees, possibly stored forever? That's a reason to freak out really.

_lce0 10y ago
"I will tell you my secret plans to world domination, but first need you to do something for me. OK? Google this for me and ..."
laserDinosaur 10y ago
>IMHO, Google storing voice recognition samples does freak me out, especially because voice recognition is automatically activated by "OK Google" I've had google search activate a few times by my wife watching TV in the background and once when it was sitting in front of my speakers while listening to a podcast. We've tried going back and replaying the same bits but can never get it to activate in the same place twice. Still, it is strange to be sitting there and suddenly have the Google mic pop up.
EGreg 10y ago
And how are we sure it isn't recording when you're NOT saying OK Google? :-) Is there an analogue for a piece of scotch tape over the webcam for the paranoid (Zuckerbergs) of the world?
- bad_user 10y ago
  I think battery life and 4G network bandwidth are constraints for now. If it would record and stream data while in standby, battery wouldn't last for more than a few hours and would visibly consume your allocated bandwidth. What they do is to introduce a dedicated processor that listens for these keywords and that is supposed to wake the phone up on detection. The danger of course is having that processor activate the phone on keywords other than "OK Google". And it doesn't even have to be on purpose. As I said, my wife's phone detection is totally broken for some reason.
  - EGreg 10y ago
    It doesn't need to stream all the time, just record. The traffic is encrypted end-to-end anyway, you can only do an analysis on the size relative to how much time it's been idle.
  - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
    This. 30* 24* 3600* 22000/(8e9) = 7.8 gigabytes per month for 24/7 surveillance at the bare minimum (AFAIK) of 22 kbps mono audio.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
      2.83GB. Voice sounds fine at 8kbps. Reduce it even further if all you need is to understand what's being said.
      - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        Still, that would light up your data usage like a christmas tree.
        Dylan16807 10y ago
        Do you connect to wifi at least once a month?
        semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        You can also show per-app data usage over wifi on Android (it's a single click away on stock Android). If Google Now was transferring 2.8 GB of data each month, someone would have noticed. Also, the high battery usage argument.
        khedoros 10y ago
        If they were streaming spy data like that, I suspect that they wouldn't report the data usage. IMO, battery life is the strongest indicator that they aren't.
- digler999 10y ago
  I think if this were happening, people would eventually be able to tell by watching the network traffic. You may not be able to decode the network traffic, but if you run it through an analyzer like wireshark, while you say "OK, Google" and you see the bandwith increase, then if you see a similar bandwidth pattern other times you might have a clue that its recording. Of course that assumes they aren't saving to the disk and sending it later.
on_and_off 10y ago
>and disgruntled employees, that at least does not really worry me. Google is very paranoid over who can access customer data from the inside. Government access is way more of an issue IMO. I would be way more creeped out by somebody going over my whole gmail history than my searches (audio or not) though.

_lce0 10y ago

"I will tell you my secret plans to world domination, but first need you to do something for me. OK? Google this for me and ..."

laserDinosaur 10y ago

>IMHO, Google storing voice recognition samples does freak me out, especially because voice recognition is automatically activated by "OK Google" I've had google search activate a few times by my wife watching TV in the background and once when it was sitting in front of my speakers while listening to a podcast. We've tried going back and replaying the same bits but can never get it to activate in the same place twice. Still, it is strange to be sitting there and suddenly have the Google mic pop up.

EGreg 10y ago

And how are we sure it isn't recording when you're NOT saying OK Google? :-) Is there an analogue for a piece of scotch tape over the webcam for the paranoid (Zuckerbergs) of the world?

bad_user 10y ago
I think battery life and 4G network bandwidth are constraints for now. If it would record and stream data while in standby, battery wouldn't last for more than a few hours and would visibly consume your allocated bandwidth. What they do is to introduce a dedicated processor that listens for these keywords and that is supposed to wake the phone up on detection. The danger of course is having that processor activate the phone on keywords other than "OK Google". And it doesn't even have to be on purpose. As I said, my wife's phone detection is totally broken for some reason.
- EGreg 10y ago
  It doesn't need to stream all the time, just record. The traffic is encrypted end-to-end anyway, you can only do an analysis on the size relative to how much time it's been idle.
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago
  This. 30* 24* 3600* 22000/(8e9) = 7.8 gigabytes per month for 24/7 surveillance at the bare minimum (AFAIK) of 22 kbps mono audio.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    2.83GB. Voice sounds fine at 8kbps. Reduce it even further if all you need is to understand what's being said.
    - semi-extrinsic 10y ago
      Still, that would light up your data usage like a christmas tree.
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        Do you connect to wifi at least once a month?
        semi-extrinsic 10y ago
        You can also show per-app data usage over wifi on Android (it's a single click away on stock Android). If Google Now was transferring 2.8 GB of data each month, someone would have noticed. Also, the high battery usage argument.
        khedoros 10y ago
        If they were streaming spy data like that, I suspect that they wouldn't report the data usage. IMO, battery life is the strongest indicator that they aren't.
digler999 10y ago
I think if this were happening, people would eventually be able to tell by watching the network traffic. You may not be able to decode the network traffic, but if you run it through an analyzer like wireshark, while you say "OK, Google" and you see the bandwith increase, then if you see a similar bandwidth pattern other times you might have a clue that its recording. Of course that assumes they aren't saving to the disk and sending it later.

on_and_off 10y ago

>and disgruntled employees, that at least does not really worry me. Google is very paranoid over who can access customer data from the inside. Government access is way more of an issue IMO. I would be way more creeped out by somebody going over my whole gmail history than my searches (audio or not) though.