15 ms·

Sonos is spying on me (and you)

291 points by gingerlime 6y ago

naskwo 6y ago
For "offline" speakers, just buy some (used) Bang & Olufsen speakers (with built-in amplifiers) and a Bluetooth receiver to connect your mobile device. Done.
centimeter 6y ago
It shouldn't surprise anyone that sonos does malicious shit with their software given that you can't set up these speakers without A) giving them an internet connection (local wifi is not sufficient) and B) creating a sonos account. There is zero legitimate reason that speakers need to phone home or be associated with your identity to function. Any device that has mandatory account registration should be looked upon with extreme suspicion.
jacquesm 6y ago
Sonos is a horrible little company and the sooner they die the better. Privacy violations, intentional bricking of devices, grafting a service onto hardware that doesn't need any, forcing users to disclose a ton of information they should never have to disclose in order to get their bloody speakers to work. Sincerely hoping that the GDPR will be used to maximum effect to show once and for all that these practices need to end. Them saying they have a 'legitimate interest' does not make it so, that's just a preemptive strike against their future GDPR audit.
chromatin 6y ago
I really need an open alternative -- sonos speakers run linux under the hood (AFAIK), and I would be surprised if there is not a RPi powered project somewhere. The speaker hardware is perhaps the hard part.
- eddieroger 6y ago
  I agree there should be a compute platform somewhere to do this, but having listened to (and owning one) a few Sonos products, I think the technology is the less interesting part of the deal. Their speakers sound really good, and seem to make my sources sound really good in a really easy to use package. I have their AirPlay 2 compatible soundbar, and it works so well when hooked up to my TV as the input, and seamlessly can then receive AirPlay from my devices and fill a room. If there is an open source equivalent, or plans to make one, I would love to see it paired with really amazing sound producing hardware.
  - chromatin 6y ago
    Agree -- I have two old Play:1 synced in a L-R stereo pair which sounds fantastic.
- monocasa 6y ago
  SnapCast is what I've been looking at in that space. https://github.com/badaix/snapcast https://github.com/badaix/snapcast
  - gchucky 6y ago
    I run Snapcast across my house connected to MPD running on a local Linux box, and have been pretty happy with it. I've had to do very little maintenance to keep things running. The main thing I haven't been able to figure out is how to have multiple Snapcast streams and control which room listens to what. I don't actually think it's possible to do.. (though I could be wrong?)
    - badaix 6y ago
      Input streams are configured once on the server. You can group clients together and assign a stream to a group. This can be done either with Snapdroid https://github.com/badaix/snapdroid https://github.com/badaix/snapdroid or with Snapweb (is shipped with the Snapcast server since version 0.21) https://github.com/badaix/snapweb https://github.com/badaix/snapweb or with any other control client from the community
- mnd999 6y ago
  Logitech Media Server / Squeezelight on some Pis (or whatever) should do it. It’s pretty old skool now but it works just fine. Has plugins for airplay and whatever android does as well.
  - contravariant 6y ago
    It's a bit annoying that Logitech killed the squeezebox, which made it somewhat more accessible, but I believe that thanks to that the code is open source now, so there's that.
- thelastknowngod 6y ago
  Arylic boards https://www.arylic.com/collections/diy-audio https://www.arylic.com/collections/diy-audio
Lutzb 6y ago
I hope that in the future we will get some insight on how sonos became the company it now is. When they started there were no mandatory accounts, no spying, dedicated remotes (i.e. no analytics). I really wish we could get back to this time.
- orev 6y ago
  It’s really not hard to see why all tech companies are going this way. Data collection is the new gold rush and any company not trying to get into it will lose to ones that do. It not really much of a mystery.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pascalo 6y ago
  Me too. The most infuriating bit is the settings that require a login. That should never be needed.
yalogin 6y ago
Sonos is just a speaker. IMO that is it’s main allure. They don’t need to know who I am and they don’t offer me services or expect recurring revenue from me. At least that’s what one would think. Looks like they went into the data harvesting business too. Too bad.
- jowsie 6y ago
  Someone at every company has clearly done the math and decided the security conscious customers they alienate/lose will be massively offset by the amount of revenue they can generate by harvesting data. I'm no longer surprised to find [random simple device] is sending any data it can find off to third parties anymore.
  - chubot 6y ago
    Reading between the lines in Wikipedia, it seems like they were forced into a pretty hard pivot in recent years. I think people were pressuring the founder/CEO to switch to a different revenue model, and then he stepped down shortly thereafter. It's hard to compete in this area for sure. I want a no-cloud, LAN not WAN speaker, but I think economics forces them to do the "Big Tech" thing ... That business model works :-/ It does seem like another instance where the markets are "broken" (or maybe not, I guess most people just like giving up their data, and they don't have subscription fatigue) Looking at the last data point, I feel like they'll be incentivized to do more of this kind of stuff to improve the business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonos In March 2016, CEO John MacFarlane announced the company's shift to streaming music services and voice control instead of local playback, and laid off some employees.[25] In July 2016, the company opened its first Sonos Store in SoHo.[26] In September 2016, the company announced that its products would become available at the Apple Store.[27] In January 2017, MacFarlane announced via the company's blog that he would be stepping down from his role as CEO, and that he would be succeeded in this position by former COO Patrick Spence.[28] ... In August 2018, Sonos went public, trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol SONO.[30] In November 2019, Sonos acquires Snips SAS, a privacy-focused AI voice platform for connected devices with the goal to bring a music-specific assistant to its devices.[3] In June 2020, Sonos announced plans to lay off 12% of its workforce, close its New York store and six of its offices, and cut its top executives' pay by 20% for three to six months, in response to the economic disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic.[32]
eludwig 6y ago
Not making excuses for this issue, but it seems to me that keeping a company like Sonos (upscale audio hardware) alive & prosperous with the crazy megalithic competitive forces that lurk on all sides must be a nightmare. On the one hand you have Apple and their half-hearted (for now) entry, and at the low end you have Alexa/"Talk to it" speakers. These alternatives seem destined to encroach on the Sonos turf come hell or high water. I will say that for their intended purpose--streaming music to a network connected speaker, Sonos speakers just work great! Their app interface, while not a great experience, functions. When I click "Play," stuff immediately comes out of my speakers. NOW. There is never a delay, never a spinning pizza, never, never NEVER! (anecdata, of course) So I (me, not you) can't blame them for wildly thrashing a bit on the data collection side. I get it. They are terrified they are going to get squeezed eventually. Do I wish they would reconsider advertising and related marketing shenanigans as business models? Yes, I do. For now they meet my needs and they just work. It's a trade off I'm (me, not you) are willing to make for now.
- adkadskhj 6y ago
  Sonos have had me curious for a while. I often use in-home small bluetooth speakers and frankly i'm happy enough with them - i just want more of them, with more power. So for louder, phone connected speakers would you still recommend Sonos? Ie i'm not sure i need the idea of multiple rooms playing the same thing. I'd love it, but my wife wouldn't hah. However i do want (decent) quality speakers in all rooms that i can play music on, and i'm largely satisfied with the bluetooth-phone experience. I'm just not satisfied with my tiny bluetooth speaker quality or sound level. Any opinion of if i should look into Sonos? Or would cheaper bluetooth speakers fit better? (edit: Sidenote, the voice assistant option is a downside for me. Otherwise i'd probably own a few Apple HomePods)
  - HeyImAlex 6y ago
    I have three of their little speakers and a sound bar and I’m pretty happy. No connecting/disconnecting bluetooth, no walking out of range and the sound getting choppy, I can select which speaker I want to play directly from spotify or open the app and play multiple rooms at once. Not sure how well it works (or if it even can) as a direct bluetooth speaker. I think it’s more like a little music server and your phone is just the remote.
mimixco 6y ago
The OP writes that Sonos speakers can function without an internet connection which is entirely untrue and what differentiates the product from others in the market. Sonos speakers access the net and your streaming music accounts by themselves without using your phone and you can demonstrate this by turning off the phone while they're playing. Logically, therefore, the cloud service on which this relies must keep that personal info about you. Location is used to find the speakers around you when you're using the phone app. I'm very against unnecessary data collection and even more opposed to companies selling my data, but I'm very happy with my Sonos and I don't see any evidence that they're doing either of those things.
- pintxo 6y ago
  True, no need for a controller (phone). But the sonos speakers themselves are little controllers, in theory they can perform all necessary actions, store the needed data and talk to any streaming services. Why is there a technical need for a cloud service?
  - avianlyric 6y ago
    > Why is there a technical need for a cloud service? oAuth? I suspect a primary need for a cloud service is to just handle authentication with music services. In theory you could do it entirely locally, but then you would run into super weird and dangerous (from a security perspective) situation where the redirect leg of the oAuth would need to point to a local IP address or similar. I imagine it is possible to work around these issues, but it would be a huge faff, and would be very hard to make it as slick as a cloud based system. Ultimately most consumers just don’t mind signing up for things. So why make your engineering 50% more complicated for a tiny minority of your target market.
    - Bud 6y ago
      On the contrary, it's really quite easy to run a NAS and do all your music locally, and it's very easy to make it "as slick" as a cloud system. Millions of people are doing this already with products like Plex.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Stuff like this is why I keep cobbling together my own systems out of open source components. It’s less slick than a turnkey solution like Sonos, but it makes me feel less like a resource that’s being exploited by another big company.
- TLightful 6y ago
  Care to share the main components of your setup? I've been close making an investment in Sonos, mainly in Amps to ensure good multiroom and the simple Sonos experience. But tired of reading this kind of stuff and the usual "large company" bullsh!t. Thanks,
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Audio isn’t something that I’ve had the opportunity to work on yet, given that I currently rent and don’t own. But I have my eye on Monoprice’s line of audio gear for when I eventually get a chance to buy a house. My smart home setup, which I’ve spent more time on, is to use home assistant with zigbee2mqtt to control a lot of cheap Zigbee hardware. This lets me buy otherwise untrusted smart home items from places like Ikea and Xiaomi without having to give them full access to my wifi network.
    - TLightful 6y ago
      Interesting, thanks!
- ric2b 6y ago
  Plus it just keeps working, while the commercial solutions frequently change the entire experience (usually not an improvement) or stop supporting products in a destructive way (where they prevent you from using most/all the features of the product instead of just saying they no longer support it).
jannes 6y ago
Not to mention the fact that their app is constantly bugging me to turn on the "recently played" feature, which will store my listening history on their servers. There is a "Hide" button which dismisses it for a few days, but then it just comes back. I keep denying it every single time, but the app doesn't care how often I have denied it already.
mrweasel 6y ago
I haven't tried Sonos, but if a product, which you'd assume is more or less just a speaker, requires you to "sign up" or to some extend expects you to manage it via a smart phone, you should generally be sceptical. What annoys me is that Sonos shouldn't even need to do this crap. The people I know who own Sonos products love them and already pay a premium for the product. How much can they honestly be making of this data? We know from a few years back, that the experts in violating your privacy, Facebook, will make around $60 per year, for an American, somewhat less for Europeans and nothing from everyone else. I doubt that Sonos is able to make ANY meaningful profit from the data they collect, so why bother? It's the same with Samsung, how much does it cost to develop and maintain the infrastructure for collecting data, compared to how much money is to be made?
- amelius 6y ago
  It's recurring revenue, while they only sell a speaker once. Anyway, I don't understand why governments don't ban user tracking or targeted ads.
  - mrweasel 6y ago
    Ah, I've been thinking about this, what we need to ban is this: * The creation of products or services derived from the collection of users private information. I don't expect Garmin to not track their users, that's basically the feature we bought when we buy their watches. Sonos/Samsung/Facebook/Google, who-ever, should be allowed to collect data on their users, BUT they should NOT be allowed to turn that data into a product that is resold to third parties. For most companies that would mean the end of data collection, while not preventing those companies who use the data for creating meaningful services to do so.
    - teddyh 6y ago
      Wouldn’t that merely create an incentive to work around the “no third party” rule by doing everything in-house? Like Google, for instance.
jeffbee 6y ago
Sonos uses location data because it allows you to control nearby speakers. The only thing that really bothers me about the mandatory sign-in thing (which is new ... there was no reason to sign in for the first 15 years of the product) is that their password flow sucks and I end up having to look up the password in my password manager and type it in. Would be much better if I could simply authorize new clients using my web browser, they way you do it with Amazon Prime Video on a new TV.
- pmlnr 6y ago
  Lol, no. That's the right needed on android to scan the available cells, and wifi aps.
bobwall 6y ago
I recently got the outdoor Polk audio speakers. And have them hard-wired to a fairly high-end receiver. The sound quality is so much better. I listen to a lot of vinyl, so that makes it an easier choice too. We use the smaller WonderBoom speaker when we do need it for the beach or something, but when at home, I will always chose to get the hard-wired path. Regardless how quickly the Sonos speakers connect to your source, hard-wired is better quality and is always connected.
- mattmcknight 6y ago
  I have a fully hardwired multi-room and outdoor setup (Klipsch speakers) using the Sonos Connect AMPs. They support this path pretty well. You can use Sonos Port with your existing amp as well, but it's a little overpriced.
techslave 6y ago
thought this would be useless griping of sonos that has existed for years now. no, this is new and valuable information. glad i got rid of sonos long ago.
lprd 6y ago
Excellent write-up! If one is looking for a better alternative, just buy a modern receiver with airplay 2 built in and pair it with some decent speakers. Not only will that sound better by an order of magnitude, you'll have the option of upgrading your system over time. I admit that Sonos has the high ground when it comes to convenience, but after reading this and being burned by their bricking policy on older devices, one is far better off with a traditional 2.1 set up (at least for a living area).
reid 6y ago
I just got a few smart speakers as well and avoided Sonos. Decided to go all in on AirPlay 2. JBL Link Music devices are about $70 right now and support AirPlay 2 only operation with no need for another app, just the built-in Home app. I picked up 3 locally from Home Depot and I’m happy with ‘em. They also have 5 GHz Wi-Fi and the connection a bit better than the 2.4 GHz AirPort Express when far away from my AP. And if you already use Google Home, these work with it too with Chromecast built-in, but it’s optional. I just kept them AirPlay 2 only. I also use hard wired Ethernet on AirPort Express devices as AirPlay 2 receivers. They all mix together nicely. Planning to add wired outdoor speakers with a spare one.
geekuillaume 6y ago
Shameless plug: I'm building an alternative to Sonos focused on managing audio streams on your home network. It's a software and a controller webapp to broadcast synchronized audio on any number of Windows / MacOS / Linux / Chromecast / Airplay speakers / Web pages / Philips Hue (light synchronized to the audio). It's available on https://soundsync.app/ https://soundsync.app/ and the sources are on Github: https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync
- tmikaeld 6y ago
  Really well done and a fair license too. Thanks for sharing!
- bambax 6y ago
  Looks very good!!
- lawn 6y ago
  I was wondering what I should replace our sonos with. This looks quite interesting, thank you.
- kingosticks 6y ago
  I like the inclusion of synchronising browser playback also, that's something beyond what snapcast offers. And it seems to be based on webRTC, is that right? Any pointers for integration with a gstreamer-based source?
  - badaix 6y ago
    Snapcast actually has synchronous browser playback. Since version 0.21 WebSocket streaming clients are supported: https://github.com/badaix/snapcast/releases/tag/v0.21.0 https://github.com/badaix/snapcast/releases/tag/v0.21.0 and is shipped with SnapWeb https://github.com/badaix/snapweb https://github.com/badaix/snapweb, that seems to get merged into Iris also.
    - kingosticks 6y ago
xoxoy 6y ago
it’s surprising this is still surprising. IOT is inherently invasive. Anyone who gets an Alexa speaker or Google one or a Roku and is surprised they are spy devices is just telling on themselves at this point.
hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago
I just went to disable data collection in the Sonos app. It was the only part of their app hidden behind a password - seems like it’s trying to dissuade people from accessing that particular setting...
mimixco 6y ago
One thing non-Sonos owners might not realize about their business model is that it is the opposite of subscriptions. Because the software is so cool (creating an infinite jukebox out of all your music sources and subscriptions, both local and online), you are inclined to buy their boxes. Sonos doesn't charge anyone for using the software and there are no ads introduced into your listening experience by Sonos. Their idea (and I think it's a great one) is to make the listening experience so great and so unique on their hardware that you are simply compelled to buy more of it and to recommend it. I started out with a Play:5 and upgraded a year later to a second one to make a stereo pair. I've also used these units in business with 5-7 Play:3s and multiple employees controlling them from their phones. There is simply nothing like this in the Bluetooth or other "smart speaker" worlds. My house could support two Play:5s in four rooms + outside. Sonos setups offer "Disney-like" sound control where you decide what music plays in what room(s) and at what volume. Were they to convince me to part with that much money, they could sell me $5K worth of speakers just based on the software experience (and the great sound quality, which no one disputes).
- tomc1985 6y ago
  How about having their business model as selling solid wireless speakers without all this extra value-added smart crap Their current business model is not worth defending. There is no reason a smart speaker needs location access, network access, an account, or even a privacy policy. I wish someone would bring these folks to heel
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    Well, it likes network access to be able to stream music from Spotify or whatever, but I get your point.
  - azinman2 6y ago
    Sure it does — because it’s thru your network that the device works, thru your account they see each other and registers/links with various services, and location access (which I don’t believe I’ve ever had requested) could easily be for available stations etc. I’m not seeing the big deal here. When the title said it’s spying on me, I thought it was listening with its microphone. This is making a big deal about nothing AFAIK.
ycombonator 6y ago
Assume that any microphone not under ‘your control’ and has an opaque interface is spying on you.
pimlottc 6y ago
It's worth mention what this doesn't include - namely, audio recordings. Sonos should at least get credit for offering a microphone-free version of their products for users who don't want to an Amazon/Google/Apple listening device into their home. Definitely helped sway me into choosing Sonos when I was shopping for wireless speakers.
mdoms 6y ago
Why would you give a speaker your email address? I would return it the second I was faced with that.
s1mon 6y ago
Location data may be necessary for the simple reason of following the local laws for WiFi channels. Different countries allow different channels to be used at different strengths. If that’s the case, Sonos should make that more clear.
jonahbenton 6y ago
Sonos speaker owner for more than 10 years, and also privacy engineer. This article is largely wrong, on substance, on inference, and on intent. There are a LOT of businesses that create privacy problems in the world. My experience with and read of both Sonos' business and their privacy policy- what they are doing is not problematic. To the specific points in the piece: 1. why does Sonos need location To provide music service choices that are appropriate for the region the owner is listening from. This is necessary from an IP- Intellectual Property- perspective. Not debatable. Please share naive takes on the legitimacy of IP in other fora. 2. additional usage data First, some context- as a business, you absolutely NEED to KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS. The most expensive sales are to new customers. The cheapest are to satisfied existing customers. The differences in these costs are often in the orders of magnitude. They are the difference between profitability and bankruptcy. There is no debate about this. It is the nature of business: of sales, of marketing, of user education. If you want to run a business, you have to know whether your products are working for your customers. Now, how do you know whether your products are working for your customers? Here's a secret- THEY WILL NOT TELL YOU. Yes, some vanishingly small fraction will complain when something doesn't work, or credit you with their joy. But the vast (VAST) majority- between 99% and 99.99%, depending on product and scale and so forth- you will hear NOTHING from. In that context, how do you know whether your product is working, whether they are using it- and presumably enjoying its use? The implicit exchange here- as a user- is between communicating with the vendor, or, permitting the product to provide usage data to the vendor. On this question, people fall on a bimodal distribution. There is a tiny (TINY) fraction who prefers to communicate and not have usage data collected. This fraction can be very helpful, but also completely unhelpful, because they are a vanishingly small fraction, and not representative, of the market. Therefore, in order to run a business, and to know your customers, you have to get the usage data from the product itself. Of course, what usage data do you collect? Here's where we get to legitimate interest, probably the most misconstrued part of the article. 3. legitimate interest The author of the piece makes a big todo about this, but then bails at the last minute with: > If you read their privacy policy further, you could spot the real incentives and potential uses of the data, but I won’t dive into it here. I do recommend reading it though. Yes- go read the privacy policy. It's very well written, describes exactly what and why, in very clear terms. The incentives are- being able to stay in business selling speakers that people like and use without building a surveillance infrastructure. The author also says- > In my mind, most of this collection is unnecessary. Let me be blunt- your mind does not know what is involved in keeping a business alive. Also: > Do they need to collect all this personal data about me to determine what feature improvements would please their customers most? I don’t think so. I'm sorry. You're wrong. Sonos is in fact a great case study. The business did run entirely without any customer accounts or other usage monitoring for the first several years of its existence. Guess what? They were unprofitable, and running out of cash, headed to failure. New leadership, changes in these practices to pay more attention to metrics and usage, and to the market, has enabled them to survive, even when facing increased competition from the tools that are cheaper surveillance vehicles. Sonos is clear that their business is not dependent on advertising or other data harvesting-based business models. One can decide not to believe them, but one should take that step from a position of knowledge and awareness, both of what is involved in running a business- with a vested interest in having happy, engaged users- and also in the distinctions between surveillance businesses and non-surveillance businesses. The author does not understand these things. The author concludes with some ridiculous recommendations, like > Don’t connect your Sonos to 3rd party services: Sonos would encourage you to give it access to your Spotify account, Amazon, Apple or any other 3rd party music service. You don’t actually need it in most cases. You can use the music service directly, and just play it on your Sonos speaker as a destination (e.g. using Airplay) Not only is this a distinction without a difference- any privacy violation is going to be happening at the 3rd party music service- this is an example of a user being ignorantly hostile to a business they bought a product from.
fphhotchips 6y ago
None of this seems unreasonable? I don't even own a Sonos (the whole forced obsolescence thing), but there's a whole range of reasons they'd need location; at least on Android it's basically a proxy for Bluetooth access (don't know if that's the case on iOS), but there's also other legitimate reasons for it like determining correct WiFi channels for the region, detecting nearby speakers, etc etc. The account has obvious legitimate uses for features the speakers provide. The only thing that's questionable to me is the Activity Information. Which you can opt-out of. So, if you don't like it, opt-out. If you're one of the many people on thread complaining about the account requirement, I suggest you buy one of the many speakers that doesn't require an account. It'll probably be cheaper, too.
TedShiller 6y ago
I bought one too, and when it forced me to provide my location during activation I just laughed and promptly returned the speaker. First, nobody needs to know my location for me to listen to music. Second, when Sonos goes out of business in the future, they want their speakers to become landfill? Nobody should support a company like that. There are too many great dumb speakers out there. I ended up getting a Xeo2 speaker from Dynaudio. So much better quality anyway.
killjoywashere 6y ago
This is why I love the Airport Express. It plays audio over Airplay, synchronizes multiple streams, and oh by the way, you get a wifi repeater out of the deal. All you need is dumb, simple speakers to connect. Works with all the major streaming services as long as you have an Apple device. For better or worse, this is not a problem for me.
thethethethe 6y ago
I dont really see why this is a big deal. The majority of the data mentioned in this article have a clear application in improving user experience and customer support. Sonos is an ever evolving ecosystem which works with a huge variety of services and devices, which are also constantly evolving. I was just at my parents house with sonos speakers and I could be play to them instantly from the Spotify app without any configuration or delay. It’s basically magic. They are essentially operating a massive edge network for many thousands of customers to support all of these magic features and add new ones to stay competitive. When you are operating a network, you are gonna want telemetry and metrics so you know what’s working and how to improve. That’s what I believe this data is used for, which seems pretty legitimate to me. I don’t think it is some conspiracy to gather a database of WiFi network data for nefarious purposes. If you don’t want the telemetry, setup you own speaker network with a rpi or something which you can operate yourself in your free time. However, most people don’t want to do that so they buy Sonos.
- m463 6y ago
  I believe lots of people bought sonos, who then changed the deal over time.
laserbeam 6y ago
No idea if stil true, the following happened 4-6 years ago. I had a Sonos connected to my Mac and I started digging around to figure out how it works. I eventually found a simple open URL on the IP of the Sonos where I could see in plain text the output of a `top` command running on my mac. Those devices collect way more data than what is described in the article.
rurban 6y ago
> Complain to Sonos about it sounds a bit naive, since Sonos came out to be a CIA front with the Snowden leaks. It's their business to spy on innocent customers.
- xlii 6y ago
  Do you have any backings for that? I was curious about it and the only claims I found is some random GitHub report and comment made by you from the last year or so.
- jasonvorhe 6y ago
  This isn't true and you have no proof of that because it doesn't exist since you made that up.
Oricle 6y ago
Shock horror! What you think they were invented for? Who runs and owns all companies either directly or indirectly? Jewgle jewtube Jewazon J.S.A Over 2000 year old war and you don't even understand what's going on! I never let schooling get in the way of my education!

291 points by gingerlime 6y ago

For "offline" speakers, just buy some (used) Bang & Olufsen speakers (with built-in amplifiers) and a Bluetooth receiver to connect your mobile device. Done.

centimeter 6y ago

It shouldn't surprise anyone that sonos does malicious shit with their software given that you can't set up these speakers without A) giving them an internet connection (local wifi is not sufficient) and B) creating a sonos account. There is zero legitimate reason that speakers need to phone home or be associated with your identity to function. Any device that has mandatory account registration should be looked upon with extreme suspicion.

jacquesm 6y ago

Sonos is a horrible little company and the sooner they die the better. Privacy violations, intentional bricking of devices, grafting a service onto hardware that doesn't need any, forcing users to disclose a ton of information they should never have to disclose in order to get their bloody speakers to work. Sincerely hoping that the GDPR will be used to maximum effect to show once and for all that these practices need to end. Them saying they have a 'legitimate interest' does not make it so, that's just a preemptive strike against their future GDPR audit.

chromatin 6y ago

I really need an open alternative -- sonos speakers run linux under the hood (AFAIK), and I would be surprised if there is not a RPi powered project somewhere. The speaker hardware is perhaps the hard part.

eddieroger 6y ago
I agree there should be a compute platform somewhere to do this, but having listened to (and owning one) a few Sonos products, I think the technology is the less interesting part of the deal. Their speakers sound really good, and seem to make my sources sound really good in a really easy to use package. I have their AirPlay 2 compatible soundbar, and it works so well when hooked up to my TV as the input, and seamlessly can then receive AirPlay from my devices and fill a room. If there is an open source equivalent, or plans to make one, I would love to see it paired with really amazing sound producing hardware.
- chromatin 6y ago
  Agree -- I have two old Play:1 synced in a L-R stereo pair which sounds fantastic.
monocasa 6y ago
SnapCast is what I've been looking at in that space. https://github.com/badaix/snapcast https://github.com/badaix/snapcast
- gchucky 6y ago
  I run Snapcast across my house connected to MPD running on a local Linux box, and have been pretty happy with it. I've had to do very little maintenance to keep things running. The main thing I haven't been able to figure out is how to have multiple Snapcast streams and control which room listens to what. I don't actually think it's possible to do.. (though I could be wrong?)
  - badaix 6y ago
    Input streams are configured once on the server. You can group clients together and assign a stream to a group. This can be done either with Snapdroid https://github.com/badaix/snapdroid https://github.com/badaix/snapdroid or with Snapweb (is shipped with the Snapcast server since version 0.21) https://github.com/badaix/snapweb https://github.com/badaix/snapweb or with any other control client from the community
mnd999 6y ago
Logitech Media Server / Squeezelight on some Pis (or whatever) should do it. It’s pretty old skool now but it works just fine. Has plugins for airplay and whatever android does as well.
- contravariant 6y ago
  It's a bit annoying that Logitech killed the squeezebox, which made it somewhat more accessible, but I believe that thanks to that the code is open source now, so there's that.
thelastknowngod 6y ago
Arylic boards https://www.arylic.com/collections/diy-audio https://www.arylic.com/collections/diy-audio

Lutzb 6y ago

I hope that in the future we will get some insight on how sonos became the company it now is. When they started there were no mandatory accounts, no spying, dedicated remotes (i.e. no analytics). I really wish we could get back to this time.

orev 6y ago
It’s really not hard to see why all tech companies are going this way. Data collection is the new gold rush and any company not trying to get into it will lose to ones that do. It not really much of a mystery.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pascalo 6y ago
Me too. The most infuriating bit is the settings that require a login. That should never be needed.

yalogin 6y ago

Sonos is just a speaker. IMO that is it’s main allure. They don’t need to know who I am and they don’t offer me services or expect recurring revenue from me. At least that’s what one would think. Looks like they went into the data harvesting business too. Too bad.

jowsie 6y ago
Someone at every company has clearly done the math and decided the security conscious customers they alienate/lose will be massively offset by the amount of revenue they can generate by harvesting data. I'm no longer surprised to find [random simple device] is sending any data it can find off to third parties anymore.
- chubot 6y ago
  Reading between the lines in Wikipedia, it seems like they were forced into a pretty hard pivot in recent years. I think people were pressuring the founder/CEO to switch to a different revenue model, and then he stepped down shortly thereafter. It's hard to compete in this area for sure. I want a no-cloud, LAN not WAN speaker, but I think economics forces them to do the "Big Tech" thing ... That business model works :-/ It does seem like another instance where the markets are "broken" (or maybe not, I guess most people just like giving up their data, and they don't have subscription fatigue) Looking at the last data point, I feel like they'll be incentivized to do more of this kind of stuff to improve the business. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonos In March 2016, CEO John MacFarlane announced the company's shift to streaming music services and voice control instead of local playback, and laid off some employees.[25] In July 2016, the company opened its first Sonos Store in SoHo.[26] In September 2016, the company announced that its products would become available at the Apple Store.[27] In January 2017, MacFarlane announced via the company's blog that he would be stepping down from his role as CEO, and that he would be succeeded in this position by former COO Patrick Spence.[28] ... In August 2018, Sonos went public, trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol SONO.[30] In November 2019, Sonos acquires Snips SAS, a privacy-focused AI voice platform for connected devices with the goal to bring a music-specific assistant to its devices.[3] In June 2020, Sonos announced plans to lay off 12% of its workforce, close its New York store and six of its offices, and cut its top executives' pay by 20% for three to six months, in response to the economic disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic.[32]

eludwig 6y ago

Not making excuses for this issue, but it seems to me that keeping a company like Sonos (upscale audio hardware) alive & prosperous with the crazy megalithic competitive forces that lurk on all sides must be a nightmare. On the one hand you have Apple and their half-hearted (for now) entry, and at the low end you have Alexa/"Talk to it" speakers. These alternatives seem destined to encroach on the Sonos turf come hell or high water. I will say that for their intended purpose--streaming music to a network connected speaker, Sonos speakers just work great! Their app interface, while not a great experience, functions. When I click "Play," stuff immediately comes out of my speakers. NOW. There is never a delay, never a spinning pizza, never, never NEVER! (anecdata, of course) So I (me, not you) can't blame them for wildly thrashing a bit on the data collection side. I get it. They are terrified they are going to get squeezed eventually. Do I wish they would reconsider advertising and related marketing shenanigans as business models? Yes, I do. For now they meet my needs and they just work. It's a trade off I'm (me, not you) are willing to make for now.

adkadskhj 6y ago
Sonos have had me curious for a while. I often use in-home small bluetooth speakers and frankly i'm happy enough with them - i just want more of them, with more power. So for louder, phone connected speakers would you still recommend Sonos? Ie i'm not sure i need the idea of multiple rooms playing the same thing. I'd love it, but my wife wouldn't hah. However i do want (decent) quality speakers in all rooms that i can play music on, and i'm largely satisfied with the bluetooth-phone experience. I'm just not satisfied with my tiny bluetooth speaker quality or sound level. Any opinion of if i should look into Sonos? Or would cheaper bluetooth speakers fit better? (edit: Sidenote, the voice assistant option is a downside for me. Otherwise i'd probably own a few Apple HomePods)
- HeyImAlex 6y ago
  I have three of their little speakers and a sound bar and I’m pretty happy. No connecting/disconnecting bluetooth, no walking out of range and the sound getting choppy, I can select which speaker I want to play directly from spotify or open the app and play multiple rooms at once. Not sure how well it works (or if it even can) as a direct bluetooth speaker. I think it’s more like a little music server and your phone is just the remote.

mimixco 6y ago

The OP writes that Sonos speakers can function without an internet connection which is entirely untrue and what differentiates the product from others in the market. Sonos speakers access the net and your streaming music accounts by themselves without using your phone and you can demonstrate this by turning off the phone while they're playing. Logically, therefore, the cloud service on which this relies must keep that personal info about you. Location is used to find the speakers around you when you're using the phone app. I'm very against unnecessary data collection and even more opposed to companies selling my data, but I'm very happy with my Sonos and I don't see any evidence that they're doing either of those things.

pintxo 6y ago
True, no need for a controller (phone). But the sonos speakers themselves are little controllers, in theory they can perform all necessary actions, store the needed data and talk to any streaming services. Why is there a technical need for a cloud service?
- avianlyric 6y ago
  > Why is there a technical need for a cloud service? oAuth? I suspect a primary need for a cloud service is to just handle authentication with music services. In theory you could do it entirely locally, but then you would run into super weird and dangerous (from a security perspective) situation where the redirect leg of the oAuth would need to point to a local IP address or similar. I imagine it is possible to work around these issues, but it would be a huge faff, and would be very hard to make it as slick as a cloud based system. Ultimately most consumers just don’t mind signing up for things. So why make your engineering 50% more complicated for a tiny minority of your target market.
  - Bud 6y ago
    On the contrary, it's really quite easy to run a NAS and do all your music locally, and it's very easy to make it "as slick" as a cloud system. Millions of people are doing this already with products like Plex.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Stuff like this is why I keep cobbling together my own systems out of open source components. It’s less slick than a turnkey solution like Sonos, but it makes me feel less like a resource that’s being exploited by another big company.

TLightful 6y ago
Care to share the main components of your setup? I've been close making an investment in Sonos, mainly in Amps to ensure good multiroom and the simple Sonos experience. But tired of reading this kind of stuff and the usual "large company" bullsh!t. Thanks,
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Audio isn’t something that I’ve had the opportunity to work on yet, given that I currently rent and don’t own. But I have my eye on Monoprice’s line of audio gear for when I eventually get a chance to buy a house. My smart home setup, which I’ve spent more time on, is to use home assistant with zigbee2mqtt to control a lot of cheap Zigbee hardware. This lets me buy otherwise untrusted smart home items from places like Ikea and Xiaomi without having to give them full access to my wifi network.
  - TLightful 6y ago
    Interesting, thanks!
ric2b 6y ago
Plus it just keeps working, while the commercial solutions frequently change the entire experience (usually not an improvement) or stop supporting products in a destructive way (where they prevent you from using most/all the features of the product instead of just saying they no longer support it).

jannes 6y ago

Not to mention the fact that their app is constantly bugging me to turn on the "recently played" feature, which will store my listening history on their servers. There is a "Hide" button which dismisses it for a few days, but then it just comes back. I keep denying it every single time, but the app doesn't care how often I have denied it already.

mrweasel 6y ago

I haven't tried Sonos, but if a product, which you'd assume is more or less just a speaker, requires you to "sign up" or to some extend expects you to manage it via a smart phone, you should generally be sceptical. What annoys me is that Sonos shouldn't even need to do this crap. The people I know who own Sonos products love them and already pay a premium for the product. How much can they honestly be making of this data? We know from a few years back, that the experts in violating your privacy, Facebook, will make around $60 per year, for an American, somewhat less for Europeans and nothing from everyone else. I doubt that Sonos is able to make ANY meaningful profit from the data they collect, so why bother? It's the same with Samsung, how much does it cost to develop and maintain the infrastructure for collecting data, compared to how much money is to be made?

amelius 6y ago
It's recurring revenue, while they only sell a speaker once. Anyway, I don't understand why governments don't ban user tracking or targeted ads.
- mrweasel 6y ago
  Ah, I've been thinking about this, what we need to ban is this: * The creation of products or services derived from the collection of users private information. I don't expect Garmin to not track their users, that's basically the feature we bought when we buy their watches. Sonos/Samsung/Facebook/Google, who-ever, should be allowed to collect data on their users, BUT they should NOT be allowed to turn that data into a product that is resold to third parties. For most companies that would mean the end of data collection, while not preventing those companies who use the data for creating meaningful services to do so.
  - teddyh 6y ago
    Wouldn’t that merely create an incentive to work around the “no third party” rule by doing everything in-house? Like Google, for instance.

jeffbee 6y ago

Sonos uses location data because it allows you to control nearby speakers. The only thing that really bothers me about the mandatory sign-in thing (which is new ... there was no reason to sign in for the first 15 years of the product) is that their password flow sucks and I end up having to look up the password in my password manager and type it in. Would be much better if I could simply authorize new clients using my web browser, they way you do it with Amazon Prime Video on a new TV.

pmlnr 6y ago
Lol, no. That's the right needed on android to scan the available cells, and wifi aps.

bobwall 6y ago

I recently got the outdoor Polk audio speakers. And have them hard-wired to a fairly high-end receiver. The sound quality is so much better. I listen to a lot of vinyl, so that makes it an easier choice too. We use the smaller WonderBoom speaker when we do need it for the beach or something, but when at home, I will always chose to get the hard-wired path. Regardless how quickly the Sonos speakers connect to your source, hard-wired is better quality and is always connected.

mattmcknight 6y ago
I have a fully hardwired multi-room and outdoor setup (Klipsch speakers) using the Sonos Connect AMPs. They support this path pretty well. You can use Sonos Port with your existing amp as well, but it's a little overpriced.

techslave 6y ago

thought this would be useless griping of sonos that has existed for years now. no, this is new and valuable information. glad i got rid of sonos long ago.

lprd 6y ago

Excellent write-up! If one is looking for a better alternative, just buy a modern receiver with airplay 2 built in and pair it with some decent speakers. Not only will that sound better by an order of magnitude, you'll have the option of upgrading your system over time. I admit that Sonos has the high ground when it comes to convenience, but after reading this and being burned by their bricking policy on older devices, one is far better off with a traditional 2.1 set up (at least for a living area).

reid 6y ago

I just got a few smart speakers as well and avoided Sonos. Decided to go all in on AirPlay 2. JBL Link Music devices are about $70 right now and support AirPlay 2 only operation with no need for another app, just the built-in Home app. I picked up 3 locally from Home Depot and I’m happy with ‘em. They also have 5 GHz Wi-Fi and the connection a bit better than the 2.4 GHz AirPort Express when far away from my AP. And if you already use Google Home, these work with it too with Chromecast built-in, but it’s optional. I just kept them AirPlay 2 only. I also use hard wired Ethernet on AirPort Express devices as AirPlay 2 receivers. They all mix together nicely. Planning to add wired outdoor speakers with a spare one.

geekuillaume 6y ago

Shameless plug: I'm building an alternative to Sonos focused on managing audio streams on your home network. It's a software and a controller webapp to broadcast synchronized audio on any number of Windows / MacOS / Linux / Chromecast / Airplay speakers / Web pages / Philips Hue (light synchronized to the audio). It's available on https://soundsync.app/ https://soundsync.app/ and the sources are on Github: https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync https://github.com/geekuillaume/soundsync

tmikaeld 6y ago
Really well done and a fair license too. Thanks for sharing!
bambax 6y ago
Looks very good!!
lawn 6y ago
I was wondering what I should replace our sonos with. This looks quite interesting, thank you.
kingosticks 6y ago
I like the inclusion of synchronising browser playback also, that's something beyond what snapcast offers. And it seems to be based on webRTC, is that right? Any pointers for integration with a gstreamer-based source?
- badaix 6y ago
  Snapcast actually has synchronous browser playback. Since version 0.21 WebSocket streaming clients are supported: https://github.com/badaix/snapcast/releases/tag/v0.21.0 https://github.com/badaix/snapcast/releases/tag/v0.21.0 and is shipped with SnapWeb https://github.com/badaix/snapweb https://github.com/badaix/snapweb, that seems to get merged into Iris also.
  - kingosticks 6y ago

xoxoy 6y ago

it’s surprising this is still surprising. IOT is inherently invasive. Anyone who gets an Alexa speaker or Google one or a Roku and is surprised they are spy devices is just telling on themselves at this point.

hsbauauvhabzb 6y ago

I just went to disable data collection in the Sonos app. It was the only part of their app hidden behind a password - seems like it’s trying to dissuade people from accessing that particular setting...

mimixco 6y ago

One thing non-Sonos owners might not realize about their business model is that it is the opposite of subscriptions. Because the software is so cool (creating an infinite jukebox out of all your music sources and subscriptions, both local and online), you are inclined to buy their boxes. Sonos doesn't charge anyone for using the software and there are no ads introduced into your listening experience by Sonos. Their idea (and I think it's a great one) is to make the listening experience so great and so unique on their hardware that you are simply compelled to buy more of it and to recommend it. I started out with a Play:5 and upgraded a year later to a second one to make a stereo pair. I've also used these units in business with 5-7 Play:3s and multiple employees controlling them from their phones. There is simply nothing like this in the Bluetooth or other "smart speaker" worlds. My house could support two Play:5s in four rooms + outside. Sonos setups offer "Disney-like" sound control where you decide what music plays in what room(s) and at what volume. Were they to convince me to part with that much money, they could sell me $5K worth of speakers just based on the software experience (and the great sound quality, which no one disputes).

tomc1985 6y ago
How about having their business model as selling solid wireless speakers without all this extra value-added smart crap Their current business model is not worth defending. There is no reason a smart speaker needs location access, network access, an account, or even a privacy policy. I wish someone would bring these folks to heel
- t-writescode 6y ago
  Well, it likes network access to be able to stream music from Spotify or whatever, but I get your point.
- azinman2 6y ago
  Sure it does — because it’s thru your network that the device works, thru your account they see each other and registers/links with various services, and location access (which I don’t believe I’ve ever had requested) could easily be for available stations etc. I’m not seeing the big deal here. When the title said it’s spying on me, I thought it was listening with its microphone. This is making a big deal about nothing AFAIK.

ycombonator 6y ago

Assume that any microphone not under ‘your control’ and has an opaque interface is spying on you.

pimlottc 6y ago

It's worth mention what this doesn't include - namely, audio recordings. Sonos should at least get credit for offering a microphone-free version of their products for users who don't want to an Amazon/Google/Apple listening device into their home. Definitely helped sway me into choosing Sonos when I was shopping for wireless speakers.

mdoms 6y ago

Why would you give a speaker your email address? I would return it the second I was faced with that.

s1mon 6y ago

Location data may be necessary for the simple reason of following the local laws for WiFi channels. Different countries allow different channels to be used at different strengths. If that’s the case, Sonos should make that more clear.

jonahbenton 6y ago

Sonos speaker owner for more than 10 years, and also privacy engineer. This article is largely wrong, on substance, on inference, and on intent. There are a LOT of businesses that create privacy problems in the world. My experience with and read of both Sonos' business and their privacy policy- what they are doing is not problematic. To the specific points in the piece: 1. why does Sonos need location To provide music service choices that are appropriate for the region the owner is listening from. This is necessary from an IP- Intellectual Property- perspective. Not debatable. Please share naive takes on the legitimacy of IP in other fora. 2. additional usage data First, some context- as a business, you absolutely NEED to KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS. The most expensive sales are to new customers. The cheapest are to satisfied existing customers. The differences in these costs are often in the orders of magnitude. They are the difference between profitability and bankruptcy. There is no debate about this. It is the nature of business: of sales, of marketing, of user education. If you want to run a business, you have to know whether your products are working for your customers. Now, how do you know whether your products are working for your customers? Here's a secret- THEY WILL NOT TELL YOU. Yes, some vanishingly small fraction will complain when something doesn't work, or credit you with their joy. But the vast (VAST) majority- between 99% and 99.99%, depending on product and scale and so forth- you will hear NOTHING from. In that context, how do you know whether your product is working, whether they are using it- and presumably enjoying its use? The implicit exchange here- as a user- is between communicating with the vendor, or, permitting the product to provide usage data to the vendor. On this question, people fall on a bimodal distribution. There is a tiny (TINY) fraction who prefers to communicate and not have usage data collected. This fraction can be very helpful, but also completely unhelpful, because they are a vanishingly small fraction, and not representative, of the market. Therefore, in order to run a business, and to know your customers, you have to get the usage data from the product itself. Of course, what usage data do you collect? Here's where we get to legitimate interest, probably the most misconstrued part of the article. 3. legitimate interest The author of the piece makes a big todo about this, but then bails at the last minute with: > If you read their privacy policy further, you could spot the real incentives and potential uses of the data, but I won’t dive into it here. I do recommend reading it though. Yes- go read the privacy policy. It's very well written, describes exactly what and why, in very clear terms. The incentives are- being able to stay in business selling speakers that people like and use without building a surveillance infrastructure. The author also says- > In my mind, most of this collection is unnecessary. Let me be blunt- your mind does not know what is involved in keeping a business alive. Also: > Do they need to collect all this personal data about me to determine what feature improvements would please their customers most? I don’t think so. I'm sorry. You're wrong. Sonos is in fact a great case study. The business did run entirely without any customer accounts or other usage monitoring for the first several years of its existence. Guess what? They were unprofitable, and running out of cash, headed to failure. New leadership, changes in these practices to pay more attention to metrics and usage, and to the market, has enabled them to survive, even when facing increased competition from the tools that are cheaper surveillance vehicles. Sonos is clear that their business is not dependent on advertising or other data harvesting-based business models. One can decide not to believe them, but one should take that step from a position of knowledge and awareness, both of what is involved in running a business- with a vested interest in having happy, engaged users- and also in the distinctions between surveillance businesses and non-surveillance businesses. The author does not understand these things. The author concludes with some ridiculous recommendations, like > Don’t connect your Sonos to 3rd party services: Sonos would encourage you to give it access to your Spotify account, Amazon, Apple or any other 3rd party music service. You don’t actually need it in most cases. You can use the music service directly, and just play it on your Sonos speaker as a destination (e.g. using Airplay) Not only is this a distinction without a difference- any privacy violation is going to be happening at the 3rd party music service- this is an example of a user being ignorantly hostile to a business they bought a product from.

fphhotchips 6y ago

None of this seems unreasonable? I don't even own a Sonos (the whole forced obsolescence thing), but there's a whole range of reasons they'd need location; at least on Android it's basically a proxy for Bluetooth access (don't know if that's the case on iOS), but there's also other legitimate reasons for it like determining correct WiFi channels for the region, detecting nearby speakers, etc etc. The account has obvious legitimate uses for features the speakers provide. The only thing that's questionable to me is the Activity Information. Which you can opt-out of. So, if you don't like it, opt-out. If you're one of the many people on thread complaining about the account requirement, I suggest you buy one of the many speakers that doesn't require an account. It'll probably be cheaper, too.

TedShiller 6y ago

I bought one too, and when it forced me to provide my location during activation I just laughed and promptly returned the speaker. First, nobody needs to know my location for me to listen to music. Second, when Sonos goes out of business in the future, they want their speakers to become landfill? Nobody should support a company like that. There are too many great dumb speakers out there. I ended up getting a Xeo2 speaker from Dynaudio. So much better quality anyway.

killjoywashere 6y ago

This is why I love the Airport Express. It plays audio over Airplay, synchronizes multiple streams, and oh by the way, you get a wifi repeater out of the deal. All you need is dumb, simple speakers to connect. Works with all the major streaming services as long as you have an Apple device. For better or worse, this is not a problem for me.

thethethethe 6y ago

I dont really see why this is a big deal. The majority of the data mentioned in this article have a clear application in improving user experience and customer support. Sonos is an ever evolving ecosystem which works with a huge variety of services and devices, which are also constantly evolving. I was just at my parents house with sonos speakers and I could be play to them instantly from the Spotify app without any configuration or delay. It’s basically magic. They are essentially operating a massive edge network for many thousands of customers to support all of these magic features and add new ones to stay competitive. When you are operating a network, you are gonna want telemetry and metrics so you know what’s working and how to improve. That’s what I believe this data is used for, which seems pretty legitimate to me. I don’t think it is some conspiracy to gather a database of WiFi network data for nefarious purposes. If you don’t want the telemetry, setup you own speaker network with a rpi or something which you can operate yourself in your free time. However, most people don’t want to do that so they buy Sonos.

m463 6y ago
I believe lots of people bought sonos, who then changed the deal over time.

laserbeam 6y ago

No idea if stil true, the following happened 4-6 years ago. I had a Sonos connected to my Mac and I started digging around to figure out how it works. I eventually found a simple open URL on the IP of the Sonos where I could see in plain text the output of a `top` command running on my mac. Those devices collect way more data than what is described in the article.

rurban 6y ago

> Complain to Sonos about it sounds a bit naive, since Sonos came out to be a CIA front with the Snowden leaks. It's their business to spy on innocent customers.

xlii 6y ago
Do you have any backings for that? I was curious about it and the only claims I found is some random GitHub report and comment made by you from the last year or so.
jasonvorhe 6y ago
This isn't true and you have no proof of that because it doesn't exist since you made that up.

Oricle 6y ago

Shock horror! What you think they were invented for? Who runs and owns all companies either directly or indirectly? Jewgle jewtube Jewazon J.S.A Over 2000 year old war and you don't even understand what's going on! I never let schooling get in the way of my education!