On the ubiquity of web-enabled microphones

Re:On the ubiquity of web-enabled microphones by svachalek on Wednesday January 28, 2015 @06:56PM (#8963405)

I think the proposals in the article are dead on arrival by reason of the very same ubiquity. Unless you happen to be in the sort of situation where you can ask everyone around you to put their phone in the freezer, you can bet there's someone near you who would never dream of physically turning off any part of their phone, and who has no idea what network security even is.

Beyond that we're moving towards a world where practically everything is connected to the network and takes voice control. Even if it isn't designed to relay voice over the internet it's going to be built with commodity multipurpose hardware that certainly has the capability, and you can bet that practically no one is going to bother making sure they're private.

I don't know what the answer is but I think we're reaching, if we're not there already, a threshold where ensuring the security of your own device is of moderate utility at best.

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Re:On the ubiquity of web-enabled microphones by jsprogrammer on Wednesday January 28, 2015 @08:56PM (#8963889)

Not to mention, turning off your recording device(s) could be a serious liability. Whistleblowers can typically only be successful if they can bring overwhelming evidence of their claims. Audio and video recording can capture pretty much all physical phenomena that would be relevant to a legal case. I'm sure you can imagine instances where people were physically and psychologically harmed solely (or in large part) because the abuser knew no one else knew what was happening at that time and location and never would.

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