4 ms·
How is this even legal if wiretapping is illegal in many places?
by afpx 7y ago
How is this even legal if wiretapping is illegal in many places?
- IshKebab 7y agoI don't think there's anywhere where it's illegal to record conversations of both parties know about it.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y agoThat's the point though, if your Nest device starts automatically recording your guests and you don't warn them, could you be liable in a 2-party consent state? But on the flip side, Google Assistant devices don't start recording unless it gets the "OK Google" keyword, so it's not like it's randomly recording everything. You specifically have to turn it on (albeit it can be turned on accidentally if it misdetects an OK Google). Is this somehow different from Nest devices?
- gmadsen 7y agoits listening for that keyword, whose to say its not listening for others
- SlowRobotAhead 7y agoAs an EE, this is the exact point of failure I see even from tech people on this topic. There is LITERALLY ZERO way to tell that your “Assistant” is not listening for words like Trump or Sanders then marking down in a log if they were mentioned with other words like “Fucking” or “Communist” or whatever. No one has or realistically can do a full reverse engineer of the firmware here, you’re talking about the same protections used in game consoles and smart phones. The “research” into “is my Alexa spying on me” looks at large pattern encrypted traffic and determines they aren’t always uploading. But they absolutely could be collecting metadata of what you talk about without the words themselves. The meta data of your habits and conversations for a month would be kilobytes at most and sent in a single HTTP/MQTT message that could look a ping or keepalive or some normal traffic.
- krageon 7y agoWhere I live this is illegal. Unless you mean when both parties actively consent to it, which in this case is not happening.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 7y agoCalifornia is a pretty relevant example.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- wongarsu 7y agoThe owner of the device consented either explicitly or implicitly. For everyone else it's not immediately obvious where to assign the blame: is it the owner of the device recording you without consent, as it would be with a normal microphone, or is the smart device manufacturer at fault? Just telling people "ask every guest for permission" ostensibly clears this up: it's the owners fault for not getting permission. Of course in many places courts are in the habit of disregarding completely unrealistic disingenuous demands.
- luckylion 7y agoAn edge case might involve anyone who bought a Nest device with a hidden microphone that was removed from specs/documentation, only to later be enabled by a software update.
- criddell 7y agoI wish I could record my phone calls. It would be easy for Google to add that function to Android but they don't. I assume it's due to legal problems. On the other hand, they sell devices that record all conversations in a home. If they want to put the responsibility on the owner then do that. Add recording to Android. Otherwise, be consistent with your other products and turn off automatic recording.