wtf? smart tv's - they're watching you

So, first thing this morning wifey and I are standing at the dining room table dressing kittys cancer lesions and I notice the red Netflix logo displayed on the tv screen.

Me - "Did you get a Netflix account or something?"

Wifey - "No, why is the tv on?"

Me -"I didn't turn it on. You did."

Wifey (glaring) - "I did not turn the tv on!"

Buy this time there's a screen wide ad prompting us to get a Netflix account(?).

Very creepy. Wonder if this came as part of the update I couldn't work around and had to accept?

Also, as an Open Box purchase there's still some guy named "Wing" and his u-tube favorites loaded haven't bothered to figure out how to delete.

Maybe he's watching us?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsntlJZ9h1U

I received a Google Mini as a Xmas present from a business relation. We had fun for a while asking it stupid questions. Then at some point when I was changing a privacy setting in my Google account, I discovered it had stored everything the Mini had recorded. There were entire conversations I had with my wife, conference calls I did for work, etc. I destroyed the Mini and threw it in the garbage.

Wheretf can I find a complete selection of widths in hook and loop on the roll in this city?

Dressew! That's where!

Posted by: [email protected]

I received a Google Mini as a Xmas present from a business relation. We had fun for a while asking it stupid questions. Then at some point when I was changing a privacy setting in my Google account, I discovered it had stored everything the Mini had recorded. There were entire conversations I had with my wife, conference calls I did for work, etc. I destroyed the Mini and threw it in the garbage.

I have a Google Home that I check regularly and it has never had anything but commands that someone has given it.  Did you guys say "Hey Google" a lot around the house randomly?  Personally, I find the 24/7 location data from your phone a greater concern but I am not about to destroy my phone.

My cousin in the states has the Amazon Alexa voice command thing. You have willingly put the whole world into your home listening in to what you are doing.

Forget that.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3276271/privacy/alexa-stop-eavesdropping-and-sending-recorded-conversations-to-other-people.html

If you guys are seriously concerned about keeping Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft away from your personal lives you are going to have to do a lot more than avoid using Google Home, Cortana, or Alexa.   Personally, I am more concerned with a third party accessing my data than Google employees listening to my wife and I discussing dinner plans, but even that is tough to avoid.  IMO, our biggest privacy concern is our phone.  Without taking steps to avoid it, we all probably have apps selling data like our contacts and location to third parties.  We also all have microphones connected to the internet without Google Home or Alexa that could be used in far worse ways if someone clever enough wanted to spy on you.  Soon there will be cameras recording our every move on street corners and in police cruisers identifying us with face recognition and license plate scanning.  

I think our only hope will be decentralizing and encrypting everything.  Once we have our own personal AIs we can avoid handing out all of our data, but until then it is accept losing privacy or be a Luddite and live in the bush.

Posted by: chupacabra

....or live in the bush.

*smiles and laughs to myself*

Posted by: chupacabra

Did you guys say "Hey Google" a lot around the house randomly?  Personally, I find the 24/7 location data from your phone a greater concern but I am not about to destroy my phone.

Yes, all recordings mentioned "google" (no "hey" needed though) but that happens a lot actually, especially in my work, and it also picked up some false positives. Perhaps the speech recognition gets better over time but I didn't wait for that. No doubt Google has a million other ways to track me but 24/7 sound recording in my home reminded me too much of 1984.

I'm not as glued to my smartphone as most people and don't always have it on me, and at least it gives me some control over which apps can access which services.

But yeah, pretty much impossible to avoid being tracked and profiled these days. The new European privacy laws may give us back a tiny bit of control but it's probably a drop in the ocean.

I looked it up afterwards and apparently, the Google Mini was having "problems" and recording when it wasn't supposed to.  That might explain why your was so interested in you.  :)

In more double edge sword dilemmas, the new right to be forgotten laws in Europe have led to a rush of politicians using the new law to erase their shady pasts from online news.  This is why we can't have nice things.

Posted by: syncro

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Posted by: tungsten

So, first thing this morning wifey and I are standing at the dining room table dressing kittys cancer lesions and I notice the red Netflix logo displayed on the tv screen.

Me - "Did you get a Netflix account or something?"

Wifey - "No, why is the tv on?"

Me -"I didn't turn it on. You did."

Wifey (glaring) - "I did not turn the tv on!"

Buy this time there's a screen wide ad prompting us to get a Netflix account(?).

Very creepy. Wonder if this came as part of the update I couldn't work around and had to accept?

Also, as an Open Box purchase there's still some guy named "Wing" and his u-tube favorites loaded haven't bothered to figure out how to delete.

Maybe he's watching us?

Two days ago my Sony bluetooth speaker turned on by itself and stated it was searching for a signal. Weird, it was definitely off and no one was near it.

I'm surprised nobody's caught on to the obvious conclusion here.

Aliens.  It's aliens.