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for me it kills all desire to have a voice assistant. I am already in the camp of taping over the camera's in my computers now will I need to worry about the mi

for me it kills all desire to have a voice assistant. I am already in the camp of taping over the camera's in my computers now will I need to worry about the microphone or what comes from the speakers? so the question is, shouldn't they be able to detect the wavelength of what they are processing to weed out some of the more obvious tricks? with voice recognition could it also not be limited to a voice it is trained to know?

djsumdog 8y ago
I don't bother taping over stuff. If you think about it, there are probably 10+ microphones in your room (Samsung TVs, phones, laptops, tablets, etc.) I run 3rd party roms, Linux on all my dev/tv machines, disable Cortana on my gaming laptop, and hope there isn't something listening in all that trusted, untrusted and oss code I'm running. I told my roommate I'd move out if he ever got an Alexa or Google home device. I do want to run Jarvis, or one of the OSS alternatives. Many of them send your data to Google/Amazon as well if you enable using their Speech-to-Text services, but they also have options for using local OSS decoders as well (and typically enable those by default). Our phones are so powerful today there is no reason to send your speech to the cloud (someone else's computer). It should just be done locally; and tech should be improved so accuracy is improved locally without needing the larger datasets that Google/Amazon/Apple use. More devs need to use the OSS assistance instead, and maybe that will push other engineers to no go the easy route and opt to protect their privacy instead.
- freehunter 8y ago
  You should bother taping over cameras you're not using though. It's way too easy to hijack them and keep the light from turning on when you do.
  - jonknee 8y ago
    Do you really put tape on your phone?
    - freehunter 8y ago
      I use my phone's camera, so no.
  - ComputerGuru 8y ago
    As of now, I don’t believe any OS’s AV framework allows for multiple video sinks with the default stack and drivers; ie if you are able to use the camera in an app, it can be taken as a sign that no other app is using it at the same time. Which can be a source of some consolation/reassurance.
  - mortenjorck 8y ago
    The way I look at it, if someone has hijacked my MacBook Pro's camera to the degree that they can turn off the light, my entire computer has been rooted and I have far bigger problems than someone seeing me in a towel. As for IoT cameras, though, it's the opposite. I assume all of them have already been pwned, so I never buy them in the first place.
- bluGill 8y ago
  There is a reason I backed mycroft.ai on kickstarter. I also know of snips.ai doing a similar thing. (I picked one at random) I want OSS to succeed and I'm willing to put something into it.
- ComputerGuru 8y ago
  Without commenting on anything else you said, sending voice to the cloud isn’t necessarily for processing power reasons as much as it is for access to a dynamically tuned ML model that is constantly changing and improving based off of the samples it receives on a daily basis. In theory, anyway.
  - hunter2_ 8y ago
    Can't that model be pushed out to each local device on a regular basis, and sending back the dynamic enhancements of the local copy (from your own usage) could be opt-in? The master wouldn't grow nearly as quickly, but it could be a decent compromise. Or maybe it would grow almost as quickly, if its owner also had a fully hosted option that enough people used.
    - ComputerGuru 8y ago
      ML models (depending on how implemented and the scope thereof) can be _massive_ (as in gigabytes to terabytes).
      - hunter2_ 8y ago
        So maybe not on each of your devices, but on your home server. Something fewer people even have these days, but the ones who want this level of privacy might go for it.
reaperducer 8y ago
> could it also not be limited to a voice it is trained to know? iPhones already do this. My wife's iPhone won't respond to me, and vice versa. Though I don't know if this is enough to mitigate the attack mentioned in TFA.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  The article notes that both Amazon and Google speaker-based assistants do this for sensitive operations (Google Assistant on Android does it for everything.) A hidden command that can't mimic your voice could, say, play media with Google Home, but wouldn't have full access.
Retra 8y ago
If someone (or something) is watching me through my laptop camera, then they are going to get a very boring show that cannot possibly be an efficient use of their available time and risk.

djsumdog 8y ago

I don't bother taping over stuff. If you think about it, there are probably 10+ microphones in your room (Samsung TVs, phones, laptops, tablets, etc.) I run 3rd party roms, Linux on all my dev/tv machines, disable Cortana on my gaming laptop, and hope there isn't something listening in all that trusted, untrusted and oss code I'm running. I told my roommate I'd move out if he ever got an Alexa or Google home device. I do want to run Jarvis, or one of the OSS alternatives. Many of them send your data to Google/Amazon as well if you enable using their Speech-to-Text services, but they also have options for using local OSS decoders as well (and typically enable those by default). Our phones are so powerful today there is no reason to send your speech to the cloud (someone else's computer). It should just be done locally; and tech should be improved so accuracy is improved locally without needing the larger datasets that Google/Amazon/Apple use. More devs need to use the OSS assistance instead, and maybe that will push other engineers to no go the easy route and opt to protect their privacy instead.

freehunter 8y ago
You should bother taping over cameras you're not using though. It's way too easy to hijack them and keep the light from turning on when you do.
- jonknee 8y ago
  Do you really put tape on your phone?
  - freehunter 8y ago
    I use my phone's camera, so no.
- ComputerGuru 8y ago
  As of now, I don’t believe any OS’s AV framework allows for multiple video sinks with the default stack and drivers; ie if you are able to use the camera in an app, it can be taken as a sign that no other app is using it at the same time. Which can be a source of some consolation/reassurance.
- mortenjorck 8y ago
  The way I look at it, if someone has hijacked my MacBook Pro's camera to the degree that they can turn off the light, my entire computer has been rooted and I have far bigger problems than someone seeing me in a towel. As for IoT cameras, though, it's the opposite. I assume all of them have already been pwned, so I never buy them in the first place.
bluGill 8y ago
There is a reason I backed mycroft.ai on kickstarter. I also know of snips.ai doing a similar thing. (I picked one at random) I want OSS to succeed and I'm willing to put something into it.
ComputerGuru 8y ago
Without commenting on anything else you said, sending voice to the cloud isn’t necessarily for processing power reasons as much as it is for access to a dynamically tuned ML model that is constantly changing and improving based off of the samples it receives on a daily basis. In theory, anyway.
- hunter2_ 8y ago
  Can't that model be pushed out to each local device on a regular basis, and sending back the dynamic enhancements of the local copy (from your own usage) could be opt-in? The master wouldn't grow nearly as quickly, but it could be a decent compromise. Or maybe it would grow almost as quickly, if its owner also had a fully hosted option that enough people used.
  - ComputerGuru 8y ago
    ML models (depending on how implemented and the scope thereof) can be _massive_ (as in gigabytes to terabytes).
    - hunter2_ 8y ago
      So maybe not on each of your devices, but on your home server. Something fewer people even have these days, but the ones who want this level of privacy might go for it.

reaperducer 8y ago

> could it also not be limited to a voice it is trained to know? iPhones already do this. My wife's iPhone won't respond to me, and vice versa. Though I don't know if this is enough to mitigate the attack mentioned in TFA.

dragonwriter 8y ago
The article notes that both Amazon and Google speaker-based assistants do this for sensitive operations (Google Assistant on Android does it for everything.) A hidden command that can't mimic your voice could, say, play media with Google Home, but wouldn't have full access.

Retra 8y ago

If someone (or something) is watching me through my laptop camera, then they are going to get a very boring show that cannot possibly be an efficient use of their available time and risk.