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This is key. Yes the CIA or Apple or whoever could conceivably hack/change my phone or laptop to turn on the microphone and camera on, but there's not much you

This is key. Yes the CIA or Apple or whoever could conceivably hack/change my phone or laptop to turn on the microphone and camera on, but there's not much you can really do about that as hardware switches seem to have gone out of vogue (I've got tape over my laptop camera like most sane people, but microphone?) However I suspect the majority of iphones have "Hey Siri" enabled, and probably the same with whatever android uses

kbenson 8y ago
> However I suspect the majority of iphones have "Hey Siri" enabled, and probably the same with whatever android uses IIRC, there's been a lot of coverage here about how Apple put in hardware to detect the "hey siri" phrase without having to go to software and bypass any security. That was it can always listen in "dumb" mode and switch to actively listening/recording and decoding request when the right phrase is heard. I'll see if I can find the discussion (and whether I'm correct or not) and update this comment with whatever the case is. Edit: From what I've been able to find without doing a deep dive, is that in general Apple notes that only local pattern matching is done on the "hey siri" patter, and after triggered then it may utilize other resources (such as online maybe), but prior to that nothing is recorded.[1] In conjunciton with their newer laptop hardware and the new T2 security chip, I think since the Chip handles the "hey siri" matching, it might not actually hit regular OS software processes until it does match. It's not entirely clear from what I skimmed.[2] From the docs on the T2 chip, it looks to be in the newer laptop lineup only.[3] I'm not sure if there's an equivalent bit of hardware in the phones or not, or an older iteration that has the same features in question on older laptops. 1: https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/11/apple-addresses-privacy-questions-about-hey-siri-and-live-photo-features/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/11/apple-addresses-privacy-qu... 2: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/07/12/apple-t2-hey-siri-mac/ https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/07/12/apple-t2-hey-siri-m... 3: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208862 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208862
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  I turned hey Siri off, but found something unsettling. If I say RED FIRE TRUCK to my iPhone with HeySiri turned off, and immediately hold the home button down for Siri, “she” sometimes has fire or fire truck pulled up already. This was WAY WORSE with Hey Siri turned on where it would always have those words and sometimes even more. So best case, they are always caching a little bit and maybe only upload or process it when I hold the button down - but it’s definitely clear they are doing a little general pre-recording of all words. If they’re doing a little, it stands to reason they could do a lot. Which is a bummer, but it’s not like I have much say in the matter.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    That's interesting. I often have a similar experience with pressing the voice button on Android, where if I was streaming some podcast the last few words would precede my intended voice search in what was actually entered. That's usually when streaming in the car through bluetooth though, and I think there's a couple second delay in audio there anyway, so that may explain it in my case. I can't seem to get it to do it manually right now with the phone's mic. > So best case, they are always caching a little bit and maybe only upload or process it when I hold the button down - but it’s definitely clear they are doing a little general pre-recording of all words. That is somewhat troubling to hear. I had some thoughts about how possibly some dedicated hardware is buffering and only handing it off on notification of the manual siri request, but on thinking about it, if the OS can request the info whenever it wants, that's not really any more secure than the OS recording it itself.

kbenson 8y ago

> However I suspect the majority of iphones have "Hey Siri" enabled, and probably the same with whatever android uses IIRC, there's been a lot of coverage here about how Apple put in hardware to detect the "hey siri" phrase without having to go to software and bypass any security. That was it can always listen in "dumb" mode and switch to actively listening/recording and decoding request when the right phrase is heard. I'll see if I can find the discussion (and whether I'm correct or not) and update this comment with whatever the case is. Edit: From what I've been able to find without doing a deep dive, is that in general Apple notes that only local pattern matching is done on the "hey siri" patter, and after triggered then it may utilize other resources (such as online maybe), but prior to that nothing is recorded.[1] In conjunciton with their newer laptop hardware and the new T2 security chip, I think since the Chip handles the "hey siri" matching, it might not actually hit regular OS software processes until it does match. It's not entirely clear from what I skimmed.[2] From the docs on the T2 chip, it looks to be in the newer laptop lineup only.[3] I'm not sure if there's an equivalent bit of hardware in the phones or not, or an older iteration that has the same features in question on older laptops. 1: https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/11/apple-addresses-privacy-questions-about-hey-siri-and-live-photo-features/ https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/11/apple-addresses-privacy-qu... 2: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/07/12/apple-t2-hey-siri-mac/ https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/07/12/apple-t2-hey-siri-m... 3: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208862 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208862

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
I turned hey Siri off, but found something unsettling. If I say RED FIRE TRUCK to my iPhone with HeySiri turned off, and immediately hold the home button down for Siri, “she” sometimes has fire or fire truck pulled up already. This was WAY WORSE with Hey Siri turned on where it would always have those words and sometimes even more. So best case, they are always caching a little bit and maybe only upload or process it when I hold the button down - but it’s definitely clear they are doing a little general pre-recording of all words. If they’re doing a little, it stands to reason they could do a lot. Which is a bummer, but it’s not like I have much say in the matter.
- kbenson 8y ago
  That's interesting. I often have a similar experience with pressing the voice button on Android, where if I was streaming some podcast the last few words would precede my intended voice search in what was actually entered. That's usually when streaming in the car through bluetooth though, and I think there's a couple second delay in audio there anyway, so that may explain it in my case. I can't seem to get it to do it manually right now with the phone's mic. > So best case, they are always caching a little bit and maybe only upload or process it when I hold the button down - but it’s definitely clear they are doing a little general pre-recording of all words. That is somewhat troubling to hear. I had some thoughts about how possibly some dedicated hardware is buffering and only handing it off on notification of the manual siri request, but on thinking about it, if the OS can request the info whenever it wants, that's not really any more secure than the OS recording it itself.