4 ms·

The article raises a good point, but in a hamfisted and clickbaity way. The underlying story is that there is no story: the author recorded a sensitive convers

The article raises a good point, but in a hamfisted and clickbaity way. The underlying story is that there is no story: the author recorded a sensitive conversation and sent it to Otter. Otter sent him a survey in response and referenced the title of the recording. The author grew concerned that his recordings had been shared with China. Otter scrambled to respond, and eventually reassured the author that his recordings had never been shared with any foreign governments or law enforcement agencies. The underlying point, that using transcription services puts journalists' sources at risk, is well taken. But the story unfairly tries to make it sound like Otter has a problem, when the author is really just using Otter as a vehicle for their story.

0898 5y ago
“Scrambled to respond” is rather generous, I’d say. It took Otter.ai three months to confirm the email was genuine - having initially said that it wasn’t.
- toyg 5y ago
  No, having said it was and then shortly after that it wasn't, and then eventually after 3 months that indeed it was. It feels like, after the first candid response, somebody higher up went "oops, this looks bad, deny everything!", and eventually retracted it because the guy wouldn't give up. Looks like the sort of misunderstanding that Pied Piper might find themselves into, to be charitable.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bigcat123 5y ago
sho_hn 5y ago
I think the article is extremely interesting: As I kept reading, it eventually dawned on me that what had disturbed the author and gotten their attention at all was really just that a customer survey used the same title they had used when saving the interview recording file. The title was the name of their informant, and I think they were shocked Otter played an informant's name back at them. It seems like they never before considered the implications of using the service and sending interview contents off-device at all. If this is representative of the trade, I think as tech we have a lot of education left to do for everyone's safety. And if it is, good on the author for making it transparent. I feel like they learned a lot researching the article and basically put their own inadequacies on display for public scrutiny, which many others may not do. Consider this next time you update your company's Privacy Policy and wonder if it's understandable, to who, can be discovered at all, etc. Do your users understand what of their data you have and how you use it?
- gowld 5y ago
  This is why AI should be on-device.
  - sho_hn 5y ago
    Sure. But it's not a crime to build a service that isn't fit for use with every type of data. I think it's OK if I build a service you upload some data to and that does some processing, as long as I make sure you understand what data I get and what I can do with it, so you can decide what data you don't want to give me (or the people who buy me out, or the people who can subpoena me). And I think creating (or mandating) that transparency is probably a precept for offering an alternative product that runs on-device and doesn't have the same trust limitations - because the value prop has to be understood to make it a business. This article may inadvertently bring about a market for "safe translation app for journalists". We need the public to start thinking in these categories if we want a product landscape with both.
    - chrisweekly 5y ago
      +1 Insightful Also, when you wrote "precept", did you mean "prerequisite"?
      - sho_hn 5y ago
        I did!
    - omnicognate 5y ago
      It obviously isn't and shouldn't be illegal to run such a service, and I don't agree with the idea that all data analysis should be done on the local device. But I don't think "your data never leaves the phone" is something that only journalists and people with similar strong privacy requirements would or should value. All other things being equal, I would always prefer an app that keeps my data local, on principle. The difference being a journalist would make is that I would enforce it, and really journalists should know how to do that. They should be disabling network access, both cellular and wifi (which you can do on Android but I'm not sure you can on iOS) for any app they enter sensitive information into.
bell-cot 5y ago
The underlying story is that, in a world where Snowden's revelations were nearly 9 years ago, and stories like "$GigaCorp was hacked, umpteen million customers' personal information stolen" are a very regular thing, reporters are still utter simpletons about security, and should not be trusted with any secret hotter than the location of Santa Claus's North Pole workshop. Quick Poll: Is there anyone here (on HN) who thinks that the details of Otter's privacy policy are relevant to whether or not an interested A-list national intelligence community accessed the author's data on Otter? [/cynic]
EGreg 5y ago
Why does Siri send your stuff to a server to be decoded? It should have been onboard computing. It was possible to do that even a decade ago with OpenEars and be good enough for most queries with 95% confidence.
- upwardbound 5y ago
  As of iOS 15 Apple does do Siri processing on-device. Source: https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/7/22522993/apple-siri-on-device-speech-recognition-no-internet-wwdc https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/7/22522993/apple-siri-on-dev...

0898 5y ago

“Scrambled to respond” is rather generous, I’d say. It took Otter.ai three months to confirm the email was genuine - having initially said that it wasn’t.

toyg 5y ago
No, having said it was and then shortly after that it wasn't, and then eventually after 3 months that indeed it was. It feels like, after the first candid response, somebody higher up went "oops, this looks bad, deny everything!", and eventually retracted it because the guy wouldn't give up. Looks like the sort of misunderstanding that Pied Piper might find themselves into, to be charitable.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bigcat123 5y ago

sho_hn 5y ago

I think the article is extremely interesting: As I kept reading, it eventually dawned on me that what had disturbed the author and gotten their attention at all was really just that a customer survey used the same title they had used when saving the interview recording file. The title was the name of their informant, and I think they were shocked Otter played an informant's name back at them. It seems like they never before considered the implications of using the service and sending interview contents off-device at all. If this is representative of the trade, I think as tech we have a lot of education left to do for everyone's safety. And if it is, good on the author for making it transparent. I feel like they learned a lot researching the article and basically put their own inadequacies on display for public scrutiny, which many others may not do. Consider this next time you update your company's Privacy Policy and wonder if it's understandable, to who, can be discovered at all, etc. Do your users understand what of their data you have and how you use it?

gowld 5y ago
This is why AI should be on-device.
- sho_hn 5y ago
  Sure. But it's not a crime to build a service that isn't fit for use with every type of data. I think it's OK if I build a service you upload some data to and that does some processing, as long as I make sure you understand what data I get and what I can do with it, so you can decide what data you don't want to give me (or the people who buy me out, or the people who can subpoena me). And I think creating (or mandating) that transparency is probably a precept for offering an alternative product that runs on-device and doesn't have the same trust limitations - because the value prop has to be understood to make it a business. This article may inadvertently bring about a market for "safe translation app for journalists". We need the public to start thinking in these categories if we want a product landscape with both.
  - chrisweekly 5y ago
    +1 Insightful Also, when you wrote "precept", did you mean "prerequisite"?
    - sho_hn 5y ago
      I did!
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    It obviously isn't and shouldn't be illegal to run such a service, and I don't agree with the idea that all data analysis should be done on the local device. But I don't think "your data never leaves the phone" is something that only journalists and people with similar strong privacy requirements would or should value. All other things being equal, I would always prefer an app that keeps my data local, on principle. The difference being a journalist would make is that I would enforce it, and really journalists should know how to do that. They should be disabling network access, both cellular and wifi (which you can do on Android but I'm not sure you can on iOS) for any app they enter sensitive information into.

bell-cot 5y ago

The underlying story is that, in a world where Snowden's revelations were nearly 9 years ago, and stories like "$GigaCorp was hacked, umpteen million customers' personal information stolen" are a very regular thing, reporters are still utter simpletons about security, and should not be trusted with any secret hotter than the location of Santa Claus's North Pole workshop. Quick Poll: Is there anyone here (on HN) who thinks that the details of Otter's privacy policy are relevant to whether or not an interested A-list national intelligence community accessed the author's data on Otter? [/cynic]

EGreg 5y ago

Why does Siri send your stuff to a server to be decoded? It should have been onboard computing. It was possible to do that even a decade ago with OpenEars and be good enough for most queries with 95% confidence.

upwardbound 5y ago
As of iOS 15 Apple does do Siri processing on-device. Source: https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/7/22522993/apple-siri-on-device-speech-recognition-no-internet-wwdc https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/7/22522993/apple-siri-on-dev...