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Nevermind that we are already in a world where you can play any song you like from the wireless computer you carry in your pocket. That's not convenient enough.
by williamscales 8y ago
Nevermind that we are already in a world where you can play any song you like from the wireless computer you carry in your pocket. That's not convenient enough.
/s
- mikeash 8y agoThat pocket computer also has all the same potential threats to privacy. Somehow nobody cares about them, though.
- mieseratte 8y ago> That pocket computer also has all the same potential threats to privacy. Somehow nobody cares about them, though. This is just whataboutism. We can complain about Amazon in a thread about Amazon without having to tackle a whole different issue.
- mikeash 8y agoIt’s not “whataboutism” to point out that (almost all of) the people who can’t conprehend why anyone would ever have one of these devices have, in fact, already had one for years.
- mieseratte 8y agoThere's a big difference between a device that occasionally listens and can easily be powered off or muffled and a device that is actively listening at all times and can easily "accidentally" capture your conversations.
- tambourine_man 8y agoThat pocket computer can be programed to listen, or not. The whole point of these cylinders is to be listening at all times.
- mikeash 8y agoLots of phones can be set to listen all the time, and you have no way of knowing if it’s been programmed to listen even if you turn that off.
- tambourine_man 8y agoLots of phone can be set to not listen all the time. iPhone for instance. Yes, it’s ultimately trust in the device maker, the compiler, the chip manufacturer, etc, and those can and have been verified to some extent. But that’s not the point. A phone can listen or not, where you have no doubt with the cylinder. It’s its raison d'etre.
- mikeash 8y agoOK, but you used the word “tapped.” A smart speaker isn’t supposed to be tapping you any more than a phone is. In both cases, they have to be doing something more than they’re supposed to.
- tambourine_man 8y agoI disagree. To be listening at all times is the very definition of a tap, don’t you think? And people know this. It’s not like they are being misled. It’s a conscious exchange of privacy for convinence. It’s just that, in my mind, you are getting very little for what you’re giving.
- mikeash 8y agoIn my mind, you’re giving almost nothing if you already have a cell phone. I made a different choice, but I totally understand why someone would choose not to have a phone or smart speaker due to privacy concerns. What I don’t get is someone who has a phone but sees smart speakers as crazy.
- tambourine_man 8y ago
- kec 8y agoAside from cell tower location tracking, you’d know because it would absolutely tank the battery life of your pocket computer.
- mikeash 8y agoI doubt it. Recording audio is pretty cheap. Lots of smartphones can now do continuous “wake word” listening just like smart speakers while on battery power.
- kec 8y ago"Pretty cheap" is still likely an order of magnitude or more than actual standby, and using a small ring buffer to identify a pre-established wake word is similarly going to be cheap compared to actually streaming audio to disk. If you actually care, this would be pretty trivial to verify using an oscilloscope to observe the energy draw from the battery while different things are said around your device.
- mikeash 8y agoI’ve verified it accidentally by using an intelligent alarm with my phone unplugged. The battery drain for eight hours (which includes analysis that would be unnecessary for just recording) was a few percent.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoWhat do I need a car for? I've already got a horse.
- tambourine_man 8y agoIs that really a fair comparison?