• Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      I highly doubt phones are always listening.

      But, they already are.

      Some people like the option where they just say “Hey Google” (or whatever) and then the phone talks back to them, so they’re always listening so they can hear that initiation sequence. This old article from Vice describes what I’m speaking of.

      Personally I’d like the ability to turn that feature off, so I have to explicitly enable the microphone to have Google listen to what I’m saying.

      Anti Commercial-AI license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

            • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              5 months ago

              You don’t know the difference between someone saying a microphone is always on (hot) for processing a wake word vs saying the microphone is always on (hot) for data collection.

              No, I’m very aware of the distinction, my career was as a computer programmer, and have worked with hardware as well, and I’m very aware of technology, and have an Android certification.

              You were just assuming one thing that I was saying, when I was actually saying a general thing.

              The mic is hot by default. It has to listen for the activation sequence.

              What I’m suggesting is that while that mic is hot it’s also gathering other data and storing it locally, and then it sends it off in a batch with other traffic later on, so it’s not detectable from someone who’s monitoring network traffic from the device.

              Temporally, you’re assuming that all eavesdropping is transmitted in real time, where I am not.

              Anti Commercial-AI license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)