[BoorishBears]

You won't find one because it doesn't exist.

As a person who's made a living the last few years working in the guts of Android on embedded devices, there are so many holes in this way too common myth that phones are listening all the time.

You don't even need to dive into the technical aspect of it, what on earth is the risk reward here?!

Risk: Forever break the trust people have in your devices, this isn't some grey area intrusive tracking that would just get swept under the rug...

Reward: Get noisy info about people's interests when you literally own the device that contains more information about than their own short term memory does!

It's nonsensical, and there's no way that Google could do this that wouldn't already have been caught.

I mean is the theory that all Google devices do it and somehow no OEM has realized their microphone is getting accessed? (Because even with the lowest level access on the device, modern microphones are not so unsophisticated, there's no universal way to access it in a way a manufacturer wouldn't catch onto sooner or later

Or Google did this but only on phones they own or something?

It's nonsense.

[strogonoff]

> You won't find one because it doesn't exist.

There is no proof it happens, and no proof it doesn’t happen, because it’s non-trivial to detect based on network activity. The only evidence is observing content relevant to what was being spoken about being suggested across apps.

> Risk: Forever break the trust people have in your devices, this isn't some grey area intrusive tracking that would just get swept under the rug...

Reward: get people to love your services for relevant suggestions. Believe it or not, there are people outside the extra privacy-conscious bubble who do not at all mind their devices listening.

> Or Google did this but only on phones they own or something?

I am pretty sure this depends on software. I have seen this demonstrated on a Google-branded phone with a Google app.

[BoorishBears]

> Reward: get people to love your services for relevant suggestions. Believe it or not, there are people outside the extra privacy-conscious bubble who do not at all mind their devices listening.

Like I already pointed out this is nonsense.

Always on listening even with perfect parsing would INCREDIBLY noisy. There are a million and one reasons for a term to come up in speech. The simplest conversation could surface hundreds of targeting terms.

Meanwhile they literally own the device and the services most people use. They have your search, they have your email, they have social graphs. They can literally make inferences before you even think to talk about them with other people! (and we've seen this happen before with things like disease and pregnancy reveals)

We're at the point where most people's cell phones hold more personal data than they could even recall on demand.

So why on earth would they go and muddy all that easily weighted data with noisy data like everything you say, literally every other form of interaction is already giving them better more concise information about you...

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> There is no proof it happens, and no proof it doesn’t happen, because it’s non-trivial to detect based on network activity. The only evidence is observing content relevant to what was being spoken about being suggested across apps.

I can't believe people are entertaining this kind of stuff on HN.

You make an unreasonable claim... then act like because you yourself can't prove your unreasonable claim it should be entertained? What?

That's not how that works. You have no actual proof for your unreasonable claim... then that's it. It ends there. The burden doesn't suddenly fall on others to prove the contrary!

Come back with even a modicum of proof. Literally any real proof other than anecdotes where the ad companies who literally have almost all the data in your life anyways are able to come up with topics you're interested in... and maybe someone will entertain this.

And no, talking about something and getting an ad for it after is not proof any more than having a leaf fall on your head while you stand under in a mid-autumn forest right after you whispered "gravity" is proof that the forest is listening to your words.

[strogonoff]

Go back and reread, I have started this thread with a proof I personally witnessed. Prove it doesn’t happen.