4 ms·
How do you know that phones don’t turn on their microphones outside of a call?
by mikeash 7y ago
How do you know that phones don’t turn on their microphones outside of a call?
- emiliobumachar 7y agoBack in the 1990s, their hardware design was simple enough that any mass surveillance would inevitably get exposed when the odd hacker took his device apart. These days, I'm not sure at all. All we have is the law as a deterrent, and that's weak, especially to governments.
- blub 7y agoThis was answered in another comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20593642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20593642 One cannot know with absolute certainty, only with reasonable certainty. On the other hand, an assistant is listening all the time by design. If one needs to know with absolute certainty, then they cannot use a mobile phone, nor probably a reasonably modern regular phone.
- saagarjha 7y agoModern smartphones have assistants that "listen all the time" in the same way that you're saying that smart speakers do (namely, they look for a wakeword).
- Faark 7y agoNo, modern smartphones allow you to have assistants that listen all the time. Disabling those is one of the first things I do, and I'd be pretty unhappy if it turns out those are still listening and wasting battery (even aside of privacy issues).
- eridius 7y agoNo the parent is right. They are not "listening all the time". They're essentially sleeping while a separate process handles the audio stream looking for the wakeword. When it finds the wakeword, it then "wakes up" the assistant which reprocesses the audio snippet to confirm the wakeword is really there (using more expensive analysis), before then actively listening to the rest of the audio.
- blub 7y agoThe implementation is inconsequential as long as the smart assistants can be turned off.
- blub 7y agoSaid smartphone assistants can be switched off and one still has a smartphone. Switching a smart speaker off turns it into a paperweight.