This seems to be uniform across all surveillance technology. The purported convenience is so laughably minor that it's almost a parody.

Like Alexa - people are willing to have a Big Brother-esque speaker inside their homes for the convenience of playing some music? Is that all it takes?

Here's my workaround: my smart speaker is tied to the lightswitch. It's only on when I'm in that room and if Google can somehow make use of the fact I stream a podcast or the local NPR station while bathing and shaving more power to them.

Australia is great at this, see the new “Phone use while driving cameras”, insane.

Also, my Tesla is filming constantly while I drive, so that's a much bigger deal.

For example in Japan the car navigation system can only be used while the car is in park. This would be more effective then using cameras which will only be semi-perfect and still people will try use their phone anyway.

There are thousands of speed cameras in Australia, people still speed all the time and time from high speed crashes.

But at the end of the day it's a cultural thing— this is the same America that rejects any form of common sense gun control because liberty is more important than kids not shooting themselves in their own homes.

And why must all the data enabling the convenience be ripped away from my exclusive control and sent back to some centralized store?

Even Google's devices chief, Rick Osterloh, says people using his product should warn guests that their conversations are being recorded. To his credit, he even does so(!):

https://www.komando.com/security-privacy/google-exec-warn-yo...

> “Does the owner of a home need to disclose to a guest? I would and do when someone enters into my home, and it’s probably something that the products themselves should try to indicate,” Osterloh said.

Osterloh hits on the truly insidious thing about about microphones -- they never indicate when they are listening and sending your data out of your control. (Camera LEDs also certainly cannot be trusted, but I digress).

To be clear, again, I have full empathy for anyone needing the conveniences this technology promises. I have zero empathy for the companies, "officials", and "authorities" who claim that they must exfiltrate my data so that it can be used for adding convenience, or security, or safety or whatever. It is unnecessary. Smart, creative engineers have proven they can do pretty amazing things with data processed locally, with no exfiltration required. Let them do their job, and let my personal data stay under my exclusive control.

I used to attribute this laziness to incompetence, but the advertising industry has proven over and over and over (decades!) that they are openly and unrepentantly hostile to users. They are malicious. I cannot and will never again trust them.

Why did you end up not declining them after all? (if I understand your "considered" wording correctly)

It's not a foregone conclusion that will happen.

Recent weeks has shown increased mainstream media covering privacy aspects - often through the lens of creepy Facebook/Google/Amazon.

So it's definitely possible there will be sufficient push back to stop this crap becoming too ubiquitous.

Think back to about a thousand years ago. That is less than 100 generations where for a long time, slavery and serfdom were common.

"Big Brother" is nothing more than a tool for the apex of the pyramid of human society. This is how "they" are able to get away with molesting hundreds of children while Joe who takes a drunken piss in the park at midnight is classified a sex offender for life.

So if you understand from _that_ perspective, it makes perfect sense. However, in contrast to every other time before, today the commoner "feels" like they are free. This changes the way they think and speak. The commoners don't feel inferior to the apex of humanity's pyramid. I expect if we get too far out of line, we'll be reminded.

I don't see a huge difference between a speaker that's designed to have an always-on mic listening for a code-word and we're just going to trust that it doesn't log anything unless it hears that codeword, and a phone that's designed to have the same, but has a software option to turn it off.

Either way, we're trusting that the device isn't abusing the fact that it has a mic.

More importantly, the difference is in intent. I don't intend to carry around a device that's always listening to me. Anyone with an Alexa device is intentionally inviting Amazon to listen to every word spoken in (part of) their home.

I carry around and iPhone where I've done my best to completely disable Siri so I expect it not to be listening. That's antithetical to the use-case of Alexa and similar devices.

For now. Or so we're told.

Unless a court order (or bribed employee) decides otherwise. ;)

A smart speaker I can live without all my life

It's not completely different but it's far from completely the same in my opinion.

In my experience a lot of people have privacy concerns over the speakers, and underestimate the smartphone.

People do underestimate the smartphone, but I feel the problem with smart speakers is even more pronounced. I mean, voice is the primary interface for a smart speaker.

No matter how many damn Google Assistant settings I disable in how many fractal menus, it STILL "helpfully" pops up if I say out loud "ok google"!

Like, "heyy I noticed you're trying to talk to me though I'm disabled, would you like to enable me?"

Stop spying on me you piece of malware.

And, still, I can install LineageOS or other privacy-respecting systems on my phone. We don't have any custom firmware for an Echo or Alexa yet (to the best of my knowledge.)

If you choose to disable Google Assistant completely, follow these steps:

    Open the Google app and select Menu (the three bars)
    go to Settings
    Google Assistant section click Settings > Phone and disable the Assistant option

Switch off Google Assistant (for entire custom domain) Click Search and Assistant. Tip: Scroll to see all services. ... Control who uses Search and Assistant in your organization

    At the left, select the organizational unit.
    Select On or Off.
    To keep the service turned on or off even when the service is turned on or off for the parent organizational unit, click Override.

But a smart speaker just plays some music and tells you the weather. It's not nearly enough utility to be worth the privacy risks.

And if you are worried about the companies lying about not recording 24/7 why do you trust them to disable the recording done by assistants on your phone?

It's good stuff to keep the partners sharp though, see if they spot the mistakes.

Fake education records... that's over the borderline for me, and definitely falls into scam territory.

I love this phrase

Here in the present we’re doing our neural networks with non-quantum simulated quantum networks that definitely don’t not not work.

That won't stop the fund managers from making out like bandits, the carry may be nil but the management fees will more than make up for that. Beware of investing in funds where the fund managers do not have substantial skin in the game.

I like to refer to funding and acquisitions in terms of Juiceros, equivalent to $120M. Instagram was purchased for about 8.3 Juiceros.

The last few international United Airlines flights I was on had IR LEDs just below the seat entertainment screen shining in my face the whole flight. I worked for an 3D camera company at the time and was pretty tuned in to IR (~850 nm) LED's dim red glow. There is no reason for them being there unless there are cameras looking at your face.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/united-airlines-covers-up-info...

Some of the Thales systems do have webcams.

Your future is now.

There must be some Japanese company that is pushing this technology hard.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Kotsu

I guess they think they can keep tailing the information to you until you can't seem to look away? Very creepy.

  All the governments and airports involved of course
  Star Bucks saw my credit card appear for the first time across HK and Japan, hopefully the last time
  JR Rail Companies, all of the train stations
  NaviTime, the transit app company
  Google would know pretty much everything about my trip, GMaps was very helpful.
  My Bank would have a bunch of data
  The 7/11s, Lawsons, FamilyMarts and their payment providers/banks
  My Bank knows everything I did
  Instagram probably has more location data than it should
  SoftBank wifi saw me travel across the continent, there was almost nowhere safe from a SoftBank SSID and I'm sure they keep track.

It must be my overactive imagination but I can see so many ways in which this data can be abused that there is no possible upside that I'm willing to trade for. Consent withdrawn and if the last taxi is outfitted with facial recognition software I'll be happy to walk.

You can get an extension/userstyle for your browser so that code blocks will not bother you anymore.

For instance:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.github.hidr...

And plenty of others.

The 'people behind HN' are fewer in number than you would likely guess and are working hard to keep the community on the rails, on top of being responsible for the development. It is not as though they are drowning in capacity.

HN is one of the most readable websites out there as of today and the degree of bitching about details such as these is infuriating, just look at the ad plastered animated bs you see elsewhere and then realize how trivial this particular gripe is.

Rendering is mostly a client side affair, you have all the control you need to make it look any way you want.

It’s Japan and sadly it’s become incredibly outdated technologically. I’m not sure many people realise this. I was shocked at what I saw quite frankly.

Similar to this, if not perhaps exactly this: http://hokkaidotaxi.com/category/sapporo-taxi-cab/

Engagement and sentiment in what they are watching would be another thing though

Regardless of how interesting I find them, meetings at work trigger something deep inside me that cause me to sleep. It’s like a biological switch has been flipped. Cavemen talking around a fire into the night, getting ready for the long rest for the day ahead...

Sometimes I fall into a fugue in which I am semi-aware and a dream fills in part of the speech of meetings. I hear the most bizarre things when that happens, and worst of all, it makes sense!

I don’t have any sleep issues aside from this.

Standing up sometimes helps but cannot always be done.

It's not just the interestingness, but the lack of engagement. When that meeting starts, your brain is likely shutting off the flow of orexin. That orexin may have been the only thing keeping you awake. You get bored or disengaged; you conk out.

I'd guess, just from hearing that short description, that you don't get much natural sunlight in your workplace, the meetings are happening just after lunchtime, between 1 and 4 PM, and that you have some amount of sleep disorder that would be almost trivially manageable if your medical insurance plan were more reasonable. You can't drive more than a few hours without getting sleepy. On planes, trains, or buses, you conk out almost immediately, and somehow wake up just before arriving at your destination. But you don't fall asleep during movies.

Schedule a visit with a sleep specialist in the first week of January, after your deductible resets, and get a sleep study done. If you get a prescription for a CPAP, or some other durable medical equipment, buy it outright, and send a copy of the receipt to your insurer. Do not rent. If you have been putting off any other medical treatments, get them done next year too. If you can't hit your deductible with a sleep study and CPAP on the books, you probably never will.

Falling asleep involuntarily in the middle of the day is not normal, regardless of the circumstances. Sleep problems can lead to heart problems, and preventable deaths.

I get this, though I know that it is in part because I don't get enough good sleep often (due to a mix of insomnia & bad sleep as symptoms of being a bit bi-polar, and life just being too darn busy) even at times when I am feeling well rested & wide awake it still happens.

A meeting room full of people, even the big "board room", tends to be warmer and cosier than our usual open-plan office which is definitely part of what causes the effect.

Also, the start of a meeting that I'm not running is a point where the brain shuts off a bit: I'm no longer concentrating on my work but there is nothing else to take my attention while waiting for others to file-/dial-in or the chair to get things started. Normally when I down tools it is to do something else, for instance my lunch-time march in the fresh air, rather than to just sit and stop for a moment in a warm room. Of course there is "networking" going on rather than it being completely dead time, but that isn't the same as concentrating on a work task or physically doing something.

Keeping relatively active helps, just like taking walks roughly every hour at minimum during work. If I'm absolutely going to sleep I'll stop paying attention and focus on my work, but then I'll miss opportunities to talk when needed.

I'll owe my career to anyone who can find a solution.

Hate meetings as I know I will be doing all the tricks to stay awake. Pinching my legs, rotating feet, shifting about, hoping my drink lasts...

Which is why I hate meetings that are longer than 15 minutes. Hardly any need to be any longer. If they do then they are workshops, not meetings.

I get quite frustrated and often walk out before they finish as often a possible solution and plan has been decided on quite quickly, then people realise they got another 45 minutes to go of the booked meeting so might as well discuss another subject or worse: guessing hypothetical responses to what might happen after the meeting.

No, let's just quickly do what we just all decided was the best plan. If that doesn't work, let's talk again. Most of the time it will work and we saved a lot of wasted time. And frustrations.

I don't actually hate meetings. I just hate long meetings. 1 hour is a long meeting.

1) I'm very sensitive of lack of sleep, and so I take having 8-hours or more of good sleep extremely seriously. 2) Most days I don't have any sudden sleep syndrome. 3) I've had cases of sudden extreme sleepiness for no particular reason since I was a child. The only thing in common I can think of in this cases is being indoors.

I never thought about it before, but I might have a case of narcolepsy or something similar.

1) Be engaged. Take notes, ask questions.

2) If #1 fails, see how long I can hold my breath in...

I didn't get the job offer :-)

I still like my coffee black and tasting like industrial waste.

I would get the worst headache on the weekends until I realized my body was expecting that second cup.

Now that you mention it, I don’t recall ever seeing a camera on an airplane before. I see them on busses and trains, airports and stations. But not in aircraft cabins. If they’re there, they must be better hidden than in other places.

E.g. cams being tested, from eleven years ago: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/06/more_on_airpl...

It's probably a financial decision, everything about modern commercial aircraft is designed around getting the cheapest tickets possible.

Facial recognition is already here and in some capacity being used for flight travel.

Many modern cars already have something like this to see if you're falling sleeping while behind the wheel and will start vibrating the seats and steering while sounding alarms to get you alert again.

That being said, it's definitely over engineered compared to a "are you still active" button on the screen.

This isn't about detection and isn't about triggering a sleep mode at all. It's not even about over-engineering for this particular function, because this particular function is not the point. What it's actually about is doing everything they can conceivably think of to monetize engagement tracking, while continuously pointing a camera at your face as you watch movies and adds.

It doesn't make my post a mistake for not accounting for every last thought you had about a different conversation. And if you need it to be clear, by over-engineered I do consider these unnecessary and unwanted.

Can you source this claim? Unless you are part of the engineering or monetization team of this project, I don't understand how you'd know this.

I flew on an Emirates A380 recently that had a front-facing camera in the IFE system. I'm not sure what its intended purpose was - perhaps to allow video calls?

I had no way to tell if it was in-use during the flight, but i assume there were already other cameras in the main passenger cabin with sufficient resolution to tell whether someone's eyes are open.

Also, I mean this in the most polite way possible, but unsolicited parenting advice is often not received as well as one might hope.

Unlike an intercom they're portable.

The main thing missing is voice or sound activated pick-up and hang-up, sometimes automatic loudspeaker mode.

I did install some speaker wires, but the times when I wanted to play music in one room and hear it in another are just about never.

Guess I'm just not finding any point to home automation. Even if I had installed a home automation system, the intervening years would have turned it into expensive obsolete junk anyway. I've heard of people, when they try to sell their homes, having to rip it all out and put in conventional wiring.

What did pay off was running Cat5 and RG6 cables in a star configuration. Wifi has improved greatly, but it's nothing like a wired connection for smooth, problem free operation.

I have speakers around my house, including on my deck, wired to a stereo receiver for music and I do use it. But Sonos didn't exist when I had the various renovations done when the wiring was added. If I were doing it today, I'd almost certainly just go with some sort of wireless system.

Fewer trips down the aisle, less time spent leaning over other passengers, etc.

If I were the PM on this project I probably would've used a standard menu of services (get a blanket, refill water bottle) in an app on the IFE display instead, but the principle is sound.

Or a blanket, or a gin tonic, or a cup of noodles between meal services on a 16-hour flight from Hong Kong to New York...

But after a short while the AI would carefully watch you while playing non-skippable ads to gauge how to maximize revenue per customer.

https://www.flyertalk.com/articles/seatback-cameras-designed...

Besides, all these electronic devices have a high environmental impact, for virtually no benefits. It makes you wonder how we're going to decrease our CO2 emissions...