7 ms·

I wasn't particularly disturbed by this article until I got to the following passage regarding the "Voice Command" feature: "Please be aware that if your spoke

I wasn't particularly disturbed by this article until I got to the following passage regarding the "Voice Command" feature: "Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party." I don't think there is a prison horrible enough to send these people to. There is NO legitimate reason that an always-on audio feed from your home should be sent to third parties. People shouldn't even be allowed to opt-in to something like that. No one would EVER knowingly allow this, regardless of the functionality it enabled. I cannot envision a circumstance in which this "feature" was not put in at the direct request of law enforcement. I am extremely disappointed that he did not name the manufacturer of this TV in the article (unless he made it all up to get clicks). If this is legitimate, he needs to post the manufacturer's name and they need be boycotted, immediately, forever. Consumers need to adopt a scorched earth strategy with companies like this.

qbrass 12y ago
Who said it was always on? They can't guarantee what you or anyone in range of the microphone will say while giving the TV a command, which gets sent off to be processed. That's enough to warrant the warning.
- SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
  As with laptop webcams, it probably not so much that it's always on, but that it can be turned on at any time without you knowing.
  - cowabunga 12y ago
    Which is why I unplugged the microphone and webcam on mine (Lenovo X201).
  - justcommenting 12y ago
    if video but not audio surveillance freaks you out, a little piece of black electrical tape goes a long way. that includes your phone's front-facing camera..
    - SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
      blu-tack works fine on the laptop too.
- downandout 12y ago
  You are correct, but if you can turn it on by voice, then it constantly has to be listening when plugged in. The problem isn't that it accepts voice commands. It's that the microphone data is processed remotely, and there is no way to control when it listens.
enobrev 12y ago
Google led me to Samsung. Under the "Voice Recognition" section [1] Voice Recognition You can control your SmartTV, and use many of its features, with voice commands. If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition. If you do not enable Voice Recognition, you will not be able to use interactive voice recognition features, although you may be able to control your TV using certain predefined voice commands. While Samsung will not collect your spoken word, Samsung may still collect associated texts and other usage data so that we can evaluate the performance of the feature and improve it. You may disable Voice Recognition data collection at any time by visiting the “settings” menu. However, this may prevent you from using all of the Voice Recognition features." 1: http://www.samsung.com/hk_en/info/privacy-SmartTV.html http://www.samsung.com/hk_en/info/privacy-SmartTV.html
- imgabe 12y ago
  Isn't that exactly how Google's voice recognition works? And Siri's too I assume? Your phone doesn't have the processing power to do speech-to-text on the fly, so it sends it to a server to do it. I don't see a vast government conspiracy behind this. If they can make the TV a bit cheaper by putting in a less powerful processor and taking advantage of the always present high speed Internet connection, of course they would do that.
  - downandout 12y ago
    Yes, phones do this too. But the massive difference is that you have to consciously bring up Siri and you know when it's listening and when it's not. The TV appears to be constantly listening for audio commands and is sending whatever it hears upstream for processing. Someone in these comments said that you can turn the TV on through a voice command, which means that it is listening even when it is off and merely plugged in.
aruggirello 12y ago
Ironically, "Why I’m Scared to Turn This Thing On" should be "Why I’m Scared to Connect This Thing to AC", really. Samsung Smart TV's have this feature, so you can turn them on by voice. My wife's parents, sister and brother each have one.
facepalm 12y ago
I suppose the reason for sending all audio to a server could be that the TV is not powerful enough for voice recognition, it needs the cloud for that?
- spacefight 12y ago
  That's hardly an argument to shit on your customers privacy.
  - res0nat0r 12y ago
    Even your iPhone when you ask Siri questions sends your data to be processed in the cloud. People are buying a TV because they want a TV, not a mini computer. Why would TV manufacturers want to jack up the price of their product with non-essential TV components to have onboard voice recognition?
    - marcosdumay 12y ago
      They are already jacking of the price with nonessential components by creating a smart TV. Why shouldn't they jack it a couple more dollars (because that's really the difference) to have on that responds quickly?
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
- 72deluxe 12y ago
  If they'd improve the software and stop dishing out underpowered processors in TVs, that'd help. I have an LG that's a few years old and there's nothing "smart" about it. It should have been sold as "slowTV" instead of "smartTV". I am saddened that the data needs to fly off to the other side of the world, particularly when dictation and speaking to a device can be done offline: see Dragon Naturally Speaking, Apple offline dictation on OSX, and a Nokia from 15 years ago that would respond to simple voice commands like BLUETOOOOOOTH (yes, you had to shout it), plus the dumb Bluetooth interface in my car that I have to stop and speak to in order to pair devices with it etc.
higherpurpose 12y ago
The TV looks like a Samsung.
- brokentone 12y ago
  Stock image.
jabjoe 12y ago
No. Government needs to have laws against this. We can't leave it up to ignorant and fickle consumers. This is a failure of the system of law, thus government. Consumer action is no substitute. Voting with wallets is not equal in anyway to voting. And never should be. We shouldn't be trying to herd consumers to punish companies, we should be asking governments to do their job.
- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  I don't really agree – I'm very nervous about the idea of government banning technologies. If I want to provide a real-time audio feed from my home to Samsung, then that is my choice to make. If government is to do anything here, it's to make sure that there's a minimum standard of notification which is required for these devices. Maybe something like an explicit opt-in for any feature which transmits data to third parties. That's something I could get behind. But banning it? No way.
  - DSingularity 12y ago
    Yeah sure I agree. But this is a problem. Pretending like it isn't is basically cognitive dissonance. Why? These companies consistently refuse to secure their sevices to maximize profit. The problem is they live in a completely self centered world where profit must be maximized. This is why this results in less secure devices by design. This is why you need regulation. You leave it to the companies, they will almost always decide based on profit. Even if it results in a totally insecure product. See:http://iss.oy.ne.ro/Aether http://iss.oy.ne.ro/Aether
  - aragot 12y ago
    In Europe we don't really believe in "it is your choice you make" (on other topics) because there are so many factors which prevent you from making this choice freely. For example the choice of accepting Samsung's TOS could be bundled with the choice of flatsharing with someone. Or being a guest of someone. If you need to refuse attending a party because you've made the choice of disagreeing with Samsung's TOS, you're forced. It is a classic feature of commercial products: Bundle the choice with something much bigger (such as: socializing) so people don't really have the choice of saying no. Worth saying that if phones were invented under a European jurisdiction, they'd be full of infinite more or less relevant option lists. Ironically that's probably why they weren't born there.
nl 12y ago
There is a YC company (Wit.ai) building systems to enable this for 'internet of things' devices. Voice makes a good interface for these devices, but I do agree that privacy is a concern.
minusSeven 12y ago
Anyway similar data is being collected from your mobile and your computer, TV wasn't on the list but now it is. I guess if you want more features the smart tv provides this is something you have to get accustomed to.
nbrogi 12y ago
...so you want your TV to be so powerful to automagically turn speech into text and process it, in possibly a dozen languages? All similar services work like this. IMHO, from an IT point of view there is nothing weird about how his TV operates. What's weird, is buying a smart TV and then complaining it's smart, or about the things it has to do to be smart. I mean, your answering machine keeps confidential messages because it needs to play them back to you. Now, you're connecting that to the Internet—probably not a good idea, but what is the big deal? Otherwise it would be a "regular" TV.
flavor8 12y ago
Any popular internet connected always-on voice recognition device is going to be taken advantage of by future overly-ambitious intelligence gathering initiatives, period. It really doesn't matter substantively whether they upload the data to be processed in the cloud or not - typical home networks (see: Belkin routers) are not exactly fort knox. If you haven't seen Laura Poitras' profile of William Binney recently, watch it again: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/the-national-security-agencys-domestic-spying-program.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/the-national-secur... When this came out (pre Snowden), many techies pooh-poohed the suggestion that phones could be turned into remote microphones. In hindsight everything he says has either been verified or is quite plausible. So why make it easier for a future big brother by building (let alone buying) internet devices with voice recognition? While they may be cool at a technology level, given the current political path we're building the infrastructure for a future dystopian society.
- jessaustin 12y ago
  This is one reason why we'll all be better off when our cell phones are disintermediated. That is, we will have one or more wireless modem devices, and one or more voice communication devices, and they will be connected through a personal network. With that setup, we'll be able to proxy the voice comms to keep it under control even if it's vulnerable to hacks.
opendais 12y ago
> I cannot envision a circumstance in which this "feature" was not put in at the direct request of law enforcement. I can. In an eCommerce app we were thinking of building, we wanted voice search and voice "buy" so that people only had to tap images of what they wanted. We weren't planning to give them an option either. It was scrapped because of a lack of budget and it seemed like the gimmick wouldn't be enough for anyone to care. The technical limitations of the TV market makes sending the audio data to a 3rd party [e.g. Google's voice recognition servers] a necessity. That said, I fully expect this feature is capable of remote activation for "tech support" purposes and that it can be enabled at the request of law enforcement. But honestly, if you are getting pissed off about the TV over law enforcement concerns...they can do the same damned thing with your cell phone. Are you keeping it inside a fridge or something? No?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Yizahi 12y ago
There is no need for any names in the article, it is Shamesung, obviously. I'm already boycotting all stuff clearly branded as Shamesung for a year or two, not a problem for now. Not that other companies are shining knights of good, but sammy has already fallen below any acceptable thresholds for me.
DennisP 12y ago
So we finally have Orwell's telescreens, and we're paying our own money to install them in our houses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen
NDizzle 12y ago
Doesn't this apply directly to the Xbox One as well? "Xbox On" will turn that on.

qbrass 12y ago

Who said it was always on? They can't guarantee what you or anyone in range of the microphone will say while giving the TV a command, which gets sent off to be processed. That's enough to warrant the warning.

SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
As with laptop webcams, it probably not so much that it's always on, but that it can be turned on at any time without you knowing.
- cowabunga 12y ago
  Which is why I unplugged the microphone and webcam on mine (Lenovo X201).
- justcommenting 12y ago
  if video but not audio surveillance freaks you out, a little piece of black electrical tape goes a long way. that includes your phone's front-facing camera..
  - SideburnsOfDoom 12y ago
    blu-tack works fine on the laptop too.
downandout 12y ago
You are correct, but if you can turn it on by voice, then it constantly has to be listening when plugged in. The problem isn't that it accepts voice commands. It's that the microphone data is processed remotely, and there is no way to control when it listens.

enobrev 12y ago

Google led me to Samsung. Under the "Voice Recognition" section [1] Voice Recognition You can control your SmartTV, and use many of its features, with voice commands. If you enable Voice Recognition, you can interact with your Smart TV using your voice. To provide you the Voice Recognition feature, some voice commands may be transmitted (along with information about your device, including device identifiers) to a third-party service that converts speech to text or to the extent necessary to provide the Voice Recognition features to you. In addition, Samsung may collect and your device may capture voice commands and associated texts so that we can provide you with Voice Recognition features and evaluate and improve the features. Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition. If you do not enable Voice Recognition, you will not be able to use interactive voice recognition features, although you may be able to control your TV using certain predefined voice commands. While Samsung will not collect your spoken word, Samsung may still collect associated texts and other usage data so that we can evaluate the performance of the feature and improve it. You may disable Voice Recognition data collection at any time by visiting the “settings” menu. However, this may prevent you from using all of the Voice Recognition features." 1: http://www.samsung.com/hk_en/info/privacy-SmartTV.html http://www.samsung.com/hk_en/info/privacy-SmartTV.html

imgabe 12y ago
Isn't that exactly how Google's voice recognition works? And Siri's too I assume? Your phone doesn't have the processing power to do speech-to-text on the fly, so it sends it to a server to do it. I don't see a vast government conspiracy behind this. If they can make the TV a bit cheaper by putting in a less powerful processor and taking advantage of the always present high speed Internet connection, of course they would do that.
- downandout 12y ago
  Yes, phones do this too. But the massive difference is that you have to consciously bring up Siri and you know when it's listening and when it's not. The TV appears to be constantly listening for audio commands and is sending whatever it hears upstream for processing. Someone in these comments said that you can turn the TV on through a voice command, which means that it is listening even when it is off and merely plugged in.

aruggirello 12y ago

Ironically, "Why I’m Scared to Turn This Thing On" should be "Why I’m Scared to Connect This Thing to AC", really. Samsung Smart TV's have this feature, so you can turn them on by voice. My wife's parents, sister and brother each have one.

facepalm 12y ago

I suppose the reason for sending all audio to a server could be that the TV is not powerful enough for voice recognition, it needs the cloud for that?

spacefight 12y ago
That's hardly an argument to shit on your customers privacy.
- res0nat0r 12y ago
  Even your iPhone when you ask Siri questions sends your data to be processed in the cloud. People are buying a TV because they want a TV, not a mini computer. Why would TV manufacturers want to jack up the price of their product with non-essential TV components to have onboard voice recognition?
  - marcosdumay 12y ago
    They are already jacking of the price with nonessential components by creating a smart TV. Why shouldn't they jack it a couple more dollars (because that's really the difference) to have on that responds quickly?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
72deluxe 12y ago
If they'd improve the software and stop dishing out underpowered processors in TVs, that'd help. I have an LG that's a few years old and there's nothing "smart" about it. It should have been sold as "slowTV" instead of "smartTV". I am saddened that the data needs to fly off to the other side of the world, particularly when dictation and speaking to a device can be done offline: see Dragon Naturally Speaking, Apple offline dictation on OSX, and a Nokia from 15 years ago that would respond to simple voice commands like BLUETOOOOOOTH (yes, you had to shout it), plus the dumb Bluetooth interface in my car that I have to stop and speak to in order to pair devices with it etc.

higherpurpose 12y ago

The TV looks like a Samsung.

brokentone 12y ago
Stock image.

jabjoe 12y ago

No. Government needs to have laws against this. We can't leave it up to ignorant and fickle consumers. This is a failure of the system of law, thus government. Consumer action is no substitute. Voting with wallets is not equal in anyway to voting. And never should be. We shouldn't be trying to herd consumers to punish companies, we should be asking governments to do their job.

matthewmacleod 12y ago
I don't really agree – I'm very nervous about the idea of government banning technologies. If I want to provide a real-time audio feed from my home to Samsung, then that is my choice to make. If government is to do anything here, it's to make sure that there's a minimum standard of notification which is required for these devices. Maybe something like an explicit opt-in for any feature which transmits data to third parties. That's something I could get behind. But banning it? No way.
- DSingularity 12y ago
  Yeah sure I agree. But this is a problem. Pretending like it isn't is basically cognitive dissonance. Why? These companies consistently refuse to secure their sevices to maximize profit. The problem is they live in a completely self centered world where profit must be maximized. This is why this results in less secure devices by design. This is why you need regulation. You leave it to the companies, they will almost always decide based on profit. Even if it results in a totally insecure product. See:http://iss.oy.ne.ro/Aether http://iss.oy.ne.ro/Aether
- aragot 12y ago
  In Europe we don't really believe in "it is your choice you make" (on other topics) because there are so many factors which prevent you from making this choice freely. For example the choice of accepting Samsung's TOS could be bundled with the choice of flatsharing with someone. Or being a guest of someone. If you need to refuse attending a party because you've made the choice of disagreeing with Samsung's TOS, you're forced. It is a classic feature of commercial products: Bundle the choice with something much bigger (such as: socializing) so people don't really have the choice of saying no. Worth saying that if phones were invented under a European jurisdiction, they'd be full of infinite more or less relevant option lists. Ironically that's probably why they weren't born there.

nl 12y ago

There is a YC company (Wit.ai) building systems to enable this for 'internet of things' devices. Voice makes a good interface for these devices, but I do agree that privacy is a concern.

minusSeven 12y ago

Anyway similar data is being collected from your mobile and your computer, TV wasn't on the list but now it is. I guess if you want more features the smart tv provides this is something you have to get accustomed to.

nbrogi 12y ago

...so you want your TV to be so powerful to automagically turn speech into text and process it, in possibly a dozen languages? All similar services work like this. IMHO, from an IT point of view there is nothing weird about how his TV operates. What's weird, is buying a smart TV and then complaining it's smart, or about the things it has to do to be smart. I mean, your answering machine keeps confidential messages because it needs to play them back to you. Now, you're connecting that to the Internet—probably not a good idea, but what is the big deal? Otherwise it would be a "regular" TV.

flavor8 12y ago

Any popular internet connected always-on voice recognition device is going to be taken advantage of by future overly-ambitious intelligence gathering initiatives, period. It really doesn't matter substantively whether they upload the data to be processed in the cloud or not - typical home networks (see: Belkin routers) are not exactly fort knox. If you haven't seen Laura Poitras' profile of William Binney recently, watch it again: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/the-national-security-agencys-domestic-spying-program.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/opinion/the-national-secur... When this came out (pre Snowden), many techies pooh-poohed the suggestion that phones could be turned into remote microphones. In hindsight everything he says has either been verified or is quite plausible. So why make it easier for a future big brother by building (let alone buying) internet devices with voice recognition? While they may be cool at a technology level, given the current political path we're building the infrastructure for a future dystopian society.

jessaustin 12y ago
This is one reason why we'll all be better off when our cell phones are disintermediated. That is, we will have one or more wireless modem devices, and one or more voice communication devices, and they will be connected through a personal network. With that setup, we'll be able to proxy the voice comms to keep it under control even if it's vulnerable to hacks.

opendais 12y ago

> I cannot envision a circumstance in which this "feature" was not put in at the direct request of law enforcement. I can. In an eCommerce app we were thinking of building, we wanted voice search and voice "buy" so that people only had to tap images of what they wanted. We weren't planning to give them an option either. It was scrapped because of a lack of budget and it seemed like the gimmick wouldn't be enough for anyone to care. The technical limitations of the TV market makes sending the audio data to a 3rd party [e.g. Google's voice recognition servers] a necessity. That said, I fully expect this feature is capable of remote activation for "tech support" purposes and that it can be enabled at the request of law enforcement. But honestly, if you are getting pissed off about the TV over law enforcement concerns...they can do the same damned thing with your cell phone. Are you keeping it inside a fridge or something? No?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Yizahi 12y ago

There is no need for any names in the article, it is Shamesung, obviously. I'm already boycotting all stuff clearly branded as Shamesung for a year or two, not a problem for now. Not that other companies are shining knights of good, but sammy has already fallen below any acceptable thresholds for me.

DennisP 12y ago

So we finally have Orwell's telescreens, and we're paying our own money to install them in our houses. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen

NDizzle 12y ago

Doesn't this apply directly to the Xbox One as well? "Xbox On" will turn that on.