News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Google is nerfing all Home Minis because mine spied on everything I said. Parent comment

Re:Google is nerfing all Home Minis because mine spied on ev... by lisper on Wednesday October 11, 2017 @10:47AM (#15450189)
Sure, but it's possible that the thing that Google never intended to happen was for the device to fail in such a blatantly obvious way. It does not rule out the possibility that Google intended for the device to (also) be able listen in a less blatantly obvious way.

This story from today's Washington Post is relevant:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15449826

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google is nerfing all Home Minis because mine spied on ev... by andreime on Wednesday October 11, 2017 @10:56AM (#15450267)
Is this really an argument? I could just say there's no proof that google intended for the device to act as NSA proxy, and you could say there's no proof that ....
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google is nerfing all Home Minis because mine spied on ev... by lisper on Wednesday October 11, 2017 @11:27AM (#15450518)
> there's no proof that google intended for the device to act as NSA proxy

Of course there isn't. This is the problem with surveillance: inherent in its nature is the fact that if it is done competently, its existence is indistinguishable from its absence.

Note that I'm not saying that Google is acting in bad faith. What I'm saying is that the following is fallacious reasoning:

1. This incident turned out not to be a case of bad-faith surveillance.

2. Therefore, Google never engages in bad-faith surveillance.

This is called the "hasty generalization" fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization

[ Parent | on HN ]