Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations

Re:Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations by 50656E6973 on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @11:22AM (#20402832)

>This is only creepy if you don't understand how the software works.

No, its only creepy if you're not sure whether or not conversations had in the "privacy" of your own home are being listened to by a faceless person

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Re:Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations by d1zzy on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @04:25PM (#20406145)

I thought only samples of audio from speech that is addressed to the Home device (starts with "OK Google...") is sent to humans. That by definition makes it not a conversation in the privacy of your home, it's a conversation with the assistant just like having a phone conversation with someone else in the privacy of your home implies that someone else has access to the conversation.

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Re:Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations by nicky0 on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @11:35AM (#20402964)

1) We are not talking about private conversations. We are talking about interactions between the device and its user.

2) Barring some horrible accident or deformity, the person probably has a face.

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Re:Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations by RosanaAnaDana on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @06:06PM (#20407101)

>2) Barring some horrible accident or deformity, the person probably has a face.

Spoken like a true ML expert.

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Re:Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations by RosanaAnaDana on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @11:30AM (#20402913)

I mean. I don't have an always on system in my home. You don't have to use these services.

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Re:Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations by behringer on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @11:39AM (#20402997)

The devices have a mute switch and can be configured to beep when they begin recording. Really this is just a bunch of fear mongering going on.

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Re:Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations by einr on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @12:35PM (#20403607)

The devices have a mute switch

Why would I trust that this does anything at all?

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Re:Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations by fwip on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @12:40PM (#20403673)

Because you can check. Open it up, see what it does. Use Wireshark to inspect traffic.

More importantly, anyone can check, and many people have. Imagine the scoop that "the mute switch does nothing" would be for a tech journalist.

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Re:Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations by 50656E6973 on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @04:22PM (#20406120)

>Because you can check. Open it up, see what it does. Use Wireshark to inspect traffic.

99.9% of users are incapable of doing this.

>Imagine the scoop that "the mute switch does nothing" would be for a tech journalist.

Google has already been caught doing this type of thing with location data:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/13/google-keeps-a-history-of-...

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Re:Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations by einr on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @01:05PM (#20403930)

Here is a Google Home teardown:

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Google+Home+Teardown/72684

You will note that the mute button is not a physical switch that cuts the signal from the microphone, but a soft button. It will probably do what it claims most of the time, but if Google for whatever reason wanted to secretly unmute it remotely, I have no doubt they could.

Wireshark? Sure, but what am I even looking for? They could be holding on to recordings in storage to send them later when the device is unmuted again. They could be embedding audio in encrypted form into other innocuous-looking packets -- I doubt a device like this is quiet on the network even when muted.

Until all the software is open source and auditable and the switch verifiably breaks the physical signal path to the mic, a device like this can never be trusted.

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Re:Google employees are listening to Google Home conversations by behringer on Wednesday July 10, 2019 @01:53PM (#20404484)

> if Google for whatever reason wanted to secretly unmute it remotely, I have no doubt they could.

Many things can happen in a hypothetical future, what does that have to do with today's reality?

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