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I recently tried to find a health related tracking app on the Apple AppStore in order to conveniently track and manage my health but I noticed that I cannot tru

I recently tried to find a health related tracking app on the Apple AppStore in order to conveniently track and manage my health but I noticed that I cannot trust any offered app anymore, regardless of paid or free. This can come either because the proliferation of *analytics, broad openness of supposedly sandboxed systems, needless availability of fingerprinting methods and lack of proof of privacy commitment by the vendors (and any published privacy policy is not enough), or because I just became too paranoid (or both?). Examples like these validate the suspicion that you can’t trust any app or plug-in anymore, with big vendors being in a inbetween position of “too big to lose trust”. I wonder when we will reach the point where there is no trusted web browser anymore, no trusted computer appliance. When will it be that you cannot even say a word to a person in-person anymore because it lands in a weakly secured cloud by the microphone inside their smartwatch that runs a weather app that is run by crooks. Or is that point reached already?

strogonoff 6y ago
> When will it be that you cannot even say a word to a person in-person anymore because it lands in a weakly secured cloud by the microphone inside their smartwatch that runs a weather app that is run by crooks. I believe it can already be the case with Google’s (and possibly Facebook’s) apps on Android—at least in case of Google I witnessed real-life tests showing how saying something in presence of the phone causes related ads and content to be shown in feeds—but it’s scarier with less scrupulous app maintainers. Disclaimer: I am not claiming that Android API grants all apps unauthorized access to always-on mic. The device in question was configured to enable continuous listening by the owner. I am not claiming voice recordings are stored or used in nefarious ways.
- mdpye 6y ago
  Citations please. Not because I think you're definitely fear mongering, but because real evidence would be important to see.
  - strogonoff 6y ago
    An owner of a Google-branded Android phone demonstrated it to me last year, it worked remarkably fast. IIRC, the example chosen was Google News. I can’t see how this is fear mongering. Device was not acting against owner’s will: that person specifically does not tighten relevant privacy settings and enables always-on mic because they see useful content suggestions as a feature. It is different from my outlook (and I take it yours too), but I think that point of view deserves the right to exist. The issue is that now when I am talking to someone like that in real life, I know I may be implicitly agreeing that Google would pick up my speech as well. It’s a clash similar to one between a person (e.g., my mom) who grants messenger apps full access to their phone’s address book for convenience, and their contact (e.g., myself) who does not want their information to be shared with Facebook et al. Addendum: a cursory search confirms this experience. — https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listening-and-its-not-paranoia https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listeni... — https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/your-smartphone-listening-or-coincidence/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/your-smartphone-listening-or-c... (2019) — https://www.quora.com/Does-Google-listen-to-my-conversations-to-push-ads-to-me https://www.quora.com/Does-Google-listen-to-my-conversations... (the first answer does not mention ads, but others share similar experience to what I saw) — Counterpoint: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49585682 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49585682 “phones that secretly listen to us are a myth” (2019). Notably, with all my respect for BBC, this article lacks a lot of context (did they turn off voice activation before testing? what were their privacy settings?), and to test devices listening they played commercials in presence of the phone rather than using voice (I have relatively high confidence that modern devices can easily distinguish between speech nearby and sound from a commercial before recording leaves the phone). Some sources claim that as of last year Google is changing the way their apps work. Not sure if they stop listening or stop showing relevant content. (I don’t personally own an Android phone, and even if I did I would have turned off virtual assistants & disabled always-on mic just as I do with my iPhone, so I wouldn’t be able to present first-hand proof.)
    - BoorishBears 6y ago
      This is fear mongering because you literally have no credible proof.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  If this were true, I think a single person, ever, would have been able to furnish evidence of how this actually works. Since complex voice-recognition (of other than the activation hotword) is done off-device, you will be able to see network traffic as a result of this occurring. That's quite simple to check for.
  - strogonoff 6y ago
    > complex voice-recognition (of other than the activation hotword) is done off-device Wrong. It’s been feasible to do on-device for years[0][1]. > That's quite simple to check for. It’s also quite simple to check that it happens, if you have a Google phone. It’s been done in front of me last year[2]. It’s been demonstrated to happen by other people than me, so you don’t have to rely on my word here[3]. > a single person, ever, would have been able to furnish evidence of how this actually works. I don’t think it’s easy to show how this works under the hood, since speech can be recognized on device and devices communicate with remote services very verbosely over HTTPS (probably with certificates pinned to prevent MITM) making it non-trivial to distinguish that traffic from background network activity. Recognized speech data doesn’t have to be communicated in real-time, in fact it would make sense to wait and batch it with other requests for efficiency. (There’s a technical paper[4] that summarizes research in this direction as of 2019, and turns out it’s not trivial to definitely prove or disprove based on network activity.) [0] https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/03/an-all-neural-on-device-speech.html https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/03/an-all-neural-on-device-sp... [1] https://medium.com/better-programming/ios-speech-recognition-on-device-e9a54a4468b5 https://medium.com/better-programming/ios-speech-recognition... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25622659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25622659 [3] https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listening-and-its-not-paranoia https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listeni... [4] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-22479-0_6#Sec16 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-22479-0_...
    - jcrawfordor 6y ago
      While the technology is now somewhat accessible (as of 2019 in both cases you mention), this conspiracy theory dates back nearly to the introduction of smartphones. I have heard it as early as 2011. A number of other anecdotal experiments, such as one performed by myself, failed to show this behavior. A more tightly controlled but still informal experiment by a vaguely related security firm failed to find this behavior[1]. An academic effort by researchers at Northwestern failed to find this behavior [2]. This is by far the most thorough academic effort on the topic I have seen. Facebook has clearly denied it [3]. Google has not issued such a clear statement but has been reasonably open about changes in their policy on voice data [4]. After considering the issue from several angles, P. J. Vogt concluded that no such thing happens [5]. Even the paper you cite notes the total lack of evidence. Perhaps most notably, almost all of the popular media reporting that bears headlines saying that your phone is listening to your conversations, actually say no such thing when you read the article. Instead they are talking about analytics on voice assistant activations and, frequently, voice memos in Facebook Messenger. Amusingly I've run into two cases where popular press had to issue retractions or corrections after they said that smartphones were always-listening. The only serious sources I have ever seen assert that this is happening are Vice's Sam Nichols based on Dr. Henway. Henway makes some very specific claims to two different reporters but provides no explanation of how he came to that knowledge. To an almost comical extent, nearly all reporting in favor of this theory (that even claims to have a source) is based around the exact same quote from Henway, who has never published anything formal on the matter or even really elaborated beyond a single paragraph. Nichols only performs a very basic experiment and it is easy to come up with other ways he may have gotten the result he did - in fact, the experiment he performs is nearly identical to the ones performed by others that have failed to show results. Look, I'm not totally unreceptive to the idea that this is happening, but I don't like people repeating the assertion-as-fact that it is a widespread behavior when major tech companies that have denied it, and no real evidence has ever been amassed to show that it does happen. Just my opinion, but... well, just all of our opinions. Let's be careful about calling them facts. [1] https://www.wandera.com/phone-listening/ https://www.wandera.com/phone-listening/ [2] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/1415032/privacycon2019_elleen_pan.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/141... [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2017/10/31/facebook-ads-microphone/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2017/10/31/faceboo... [4] https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/5/21354805/google-email-audio-privacy-opt-in-human-reviewers-assistant https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/5/21354805/google-email-audi... [5] https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/z3hlwr https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/z3hlwr
Nextgrid 6y ago
I've reached a stage where my first action after installing an app is to do a packet capture and look at what the app talks to. Sadly in the majority of cases the app gets promptly uninstalled because it ends up talking to Facebook or similarly-malicious endpoints for no good reason (even paid healthcare or accounting apps do this). Doing this enough times I can mostly predict the result by just looking at the app and who's behind it so I no longer bother with apps and stick to the built-ins whenever possible.
- strogonoff 6y ago
  > my first action after installing an app is to do a packet capture and look at what the app talks to Can’t it talk to its own servers that then talk to Facebook, in which case packet capture is of not much use?
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    I agree, it's not a foolproof solution, but the presence/absence of various trackers in their app and website is usually a good predictor. Furthermore in the name of pragmatism I am not opposed to all ad targeting; some of it is indeed outside of my control. However, there's a difference between sending a name/email address combo once during signup and having the advertising SDK ping the advertiser every single time the app is interacted with (which is what the Facebook SDK does for example); the former only leaks "I use X service" once to the advertiser, the latter leaks a detailed trail of my usage patterns & IP addresses (can be used to correlate where I've been and who I'm hanging out with if their own phones are connected to the same Wi-Fi network and thus share the same IP).

strogonoff 6y ago

> When will it be that you cannot even say a word to a person in-person anymore because it lands in a weakly secured cloud by the microphone inside their smartwatch that runs a weather app that is run by crooks. I believe it can already be the case with Google’s (and possibly Facebook’s) apps on Android—at least in case of Google I witnessed real-life tests showing how saying something in presence of the phone causes related ads and content to be shown in feeds—but it’s scarier with less scrupulous app maintainers. Disclaimer: I am not claiming that Android API grants all apps unauthorized access to always-on mic. The device in question was configured to enable continuous listening by the owner. I am not claiming voice recordings are stored or used in nefarious ways.

mdpye 6y ago
Citations please. Not because I think you're definitely fear mongering, but because real evidence would be important to see.
- strogonoff 6y ago
  An owner of a Google-branded Android phone demonstrated it to me last year, it worked remarkably fast. IIRC, the example chosen was Google News. I can’t see how this is fear mongering. Device was not acting against owner’s will: that person specifically does not tighten relevant privacy settings and enables always-on mic because they see useful content suggestions as a feature. It is different from my outlook (and I take it yours too), but I think that point of view deserves the right to exist. The issue is that now when I am talking to someone like that in real life, I know I may be implicitly agreeing that Google would pick up my speech as well. It’s a clash similar to one between a person (e.g., my mom) who grants messenger apps full access to their phone’s address book for convenience, and their contact (e.g., myself) who does not want their information to be shared with Facebook et al. Addendum: a cursory search confirms this experience. — https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listening-and-its-not-paranoia https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listeni... — https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/your-smartphone-listening-or-coincidence/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/your-smartphone-listening-or-c... (2019) — https://www.quora.com/Does-Google-listen-to-my-conversations-to-push-ads-to-me https://www.quora.com/Does-Google-listen-to-my-conversations... (the first answer does not mention ads, but others share similar experience to what I saw) — Counterpoint: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49585682 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49585682 “phones that secretly listen to us are a myth” (2019). Notably, with all my respect for BBC, this article lacks a lot of context (did they turn off voice activation before testing? what were their privacy settings?), and to test devices listening they played commercials in presence of the phone rather than using voice (I have relatively high confidence that modern devices can easily distinguish between speech nearby and sound from a commercial before recording leaves the phone). Some sources claim that as of last year Google is changing the way their apps work. Not sure if they stop listening or stop showing relevant content. (I don’t personally own an Android phone, and even if I did I would have turned off virtual assistants & disabled always-on mic just as I do with my iPhone, so I wouldn’t be able to present first-hand proof.)
  - BoorishBears 6y ago
    This is fear mongering because you literally have no credible proof.
jcrawfordor 6y ago
If this were true, I think a single person, ever, would have been able to furnish evidence of how this actually works. Since complex voice-recognition (of other than the activation hotword) is done off-device, you will be able to see network traffic as a result of this occurring. That's quite simple to check for.
- strogonoff 6y ago
  > complex voice-recognition (of other than the activation hotword) is done off-device Wrong. It’s been feasible to do on-device for years[0][1]. > That's quite simple to check for. It’s also quite simple to check that it happens, if you have a Google phone. It’s been done in front of me last year[2]. It’s been demonstrated to happen by other people than me, so you don’t have to rely on my word here[3]. > a single person, ever, would have been able to furnish evidence of how this actually works. I don’t think it’s easy to show how this works under the hood, since speech can be recognized on device and devices communicate with remote services very verbosely over HTTPS (probably with certificates pinned to prevent MITM) making it non-trivial to distinguish that traffic from background network activity. Recognized speech data doesn’t have to be communicated in real-time, in fact it would make sense to wait and batch it with other requests for efficiency. (There’s a technical paper[4] that summarizes research in this direction as of 2019, and turns out it’s not trivial to definitely prove or disprove based on network activity.) [0] https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/03/an-all-neural-on-device-speech.html https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/03/an-all-neural-on-device-sp... [1] https://medium.com/better-programming/ios-speech-recognition-on-device-e9a54a4468b5 https://medium.com/better-programming/ios-speech-recognition... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25622659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25622659 [3] https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listening-and-its-not-paranoia https://www.vice.com/en/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listeni... [4] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-22479-0_6#Sec16 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-22479-0_...
  - jcrawfordor 6y ago
    While the technology is now somewhat accessible (as of 2019 in both cases you mention), this conspiracy theory dates back nearly to the introduction of smartphones. I have heard it as early as 2011. A number of other anecdotal experiments, such as one performed by myself, failed to show this behavior. A more tightly controlled but still informal experiment by a vaguely related security firm failed to find this behavior[1]. An academic effort by researchers at Northwestern failed to find this behavior [2]. This is by far the most thorough academic effort on the topic I have seen. Facebook has clearly denied it [3]. Google has not issued such a clear statement but has been reasonably open about changes in their policy on voice data [4]. After considering the issue from several angles, P. J. Vogt concluded that no such thing happens [5]. Even the paper you cite notes the total lack of evidence. Perhaps most notably, almost all of the popular media reporting that bears headlines saying that your phone is listening to your conversations, actually say no such thing when you read the article. Instead they are talking about analytics on voice assistant activations and, frequently, voice memos in Facebook Messenger. Amusingly I've run into two cases where popular press had to issue retractions or corrections after they said that smartphones were always-listening. The only serious sources I have ever seen assert that this is happening are Vice's Sam Nichols based on Dr. Henway. Henway makes some very specific claims to two different reporters but provides no explanation of how he came to that knowledge. To an almost comical extent, nearly all reporting in favor of this theory (that even claims to have a source) is based around the exact same quote from Henway, who has never published anything formal on the matter or even really elaborated beyond a single paragraph. Nichols only performs a very basic experiment and it is easy to come up with other ways he may have gotten the result he did - in fact, the experiment he performs is nearly identical to the ones performed by others that have failed to show results. Look, I'm not totally unreceptive to the idea that this is happening, but I don't like people repeating the assertion-as-fact that it is a widespread behavior when major tech companies that have denied it, and no real evidence has ever been amassed to show that it does happen. Just my opinion, but... well, just all of our opinions. Let's be careful about calling them facts. [1] https://www.wandera.com/phone-listening/ https://www.wandera.com/phone-listening/ [2] https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/1415032/privacycon2019_elleen_pan.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_events/141... [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2017/10/31/facebook-ads-microphone/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2017/10/31/faceboo... [4] https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/5/21354805/google-email-audio-privacy-opt-in-human-reviewers-assistant https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/5/21354805/google-email-audi... [5] https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/z3hlwr https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/z3hlwr

Nextgrid 6y ago

I've reached a stage where my first action after installing an app is to do a packet capture and look at what the app talks to. Sadly in the majority of cases the app gets promptly uninstalled because it ends up talking to Facebook or similarly-malicious endpoints for no good reason (even paid healthcare or accounting apps do this). Doing this enough times I can mostly predict the result by just looking at the app and who's behind it so I no longer bother with apps and stick to the built-ins whenever possible.

strogonoff 6y ago
> my first action after installing an app is to do a packet capture and look at what the app talks to Can’t it talk to its own servers that then talk to Facebook, in which case packet capture is of not much use?
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  I agree, it's not a foolproof solution, but the presence/absence of various trackers in their app and website is usually a good predictor. Furthermore in the name of pragmatism I am not opposed to all ad targeting; some of it is indeed outside of my control. However, there's a difference between sending a name/email address combo once during signup and having the advertising SDK ping the advertiser every single time the app is interacted with (which is what the Facebook SDK does for example); the former only leaks "I use X service" once to the advertiser, the latter leaks a detailed trail of my usage patterns & IP addresses (can be used to correlate where I've been and who I'm hanging out with if their own phones are connected to the same Wi-Fi network and thus share the same IP).