One of the reasons why I like my desktop PC so much is that both webcam and mic sit in a drawer and are only plugged in for when I actually need to use them.
Android at least has the setting in developer options to disable sensors, which includes gyroscope, camera, mic and gps, I believe.
But core system services still have permission to override this setting. Which makes sense, you don’t want your dialer app to break when calling emergency services.
But it does make me think, is Androids’ sandboxing of an app enough to prevent it from abusing this possibility?
So is it willful ignorance on your part then? Or have you some explanation for not paying attention to the myriad avenues of data collection and exploitation for the last fifteen years?
To use a very old example which pales in comparison to things which are possible now, here's a story from 2012 wherein Target's marketing efforts outed a pregnant teenager to her family with targeted coupons. Luckily her family was supportive in this case, however it's not hard to imagine real harm being done if the circumstances were different.
“[...] we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”
So to bring this to a slightly more relevant topic for 2023: are you really okay with mass surveillance being used to uncover and prosecute women who have been forced to travel out of states with abortion bans to seek lifesaving medical care? Just because you don't have to worry about it personally?
This is just one of many, many examples of the abuse of data collection in the modern day. Before you try and discard this post as an alleged strawman (or some shit) I encourage you to actually open your eyes and look, because these entities are not nameless, many of them are household names. Your "spooky bedtime stories" argument is an absolute farce and I honestly would prefer you to be trolling than genuinely this ignorant.
Holy shit, you pull in a massive edge case from 10+ years ago that has nothing to do with the topic at hand? Thank you for really driving home that you can’t name a consumer device that uses this tech.
Eh. Gotta let them dig the hole long enough to eliminate all doubt, plus pushing back on their nonsense is potentially valuable to third party readers later. Thanks for looking out, though.
What if they don’t have time? What if they don’t want to read a 10 page EULA? It is their choice, but they most likely don’t know what they are accepting. You know what this means therefore you have the power to do something against this (if it is reasonable).
Android natively sandboxes, so that’s already done. When you’re already running Graphene there’s no reason to further move them to other users, or profiles.
The obvious issue is you’re still pushing data to data miners regardless, whether it’s in your name or not, it’s just as valuable to them.
First, KOSA would pressure platforms to install filters that would wipe the net of anything deemed “inappropriate” for minors. This = instructing platforms to censor, plain and simple. Places that already use content filters have restricted important information about suicide prevention and LGBTQ+ support groups, and KOSA would spread this kind of censorship to every corner of the internet. It’s no surprise that anti-rights zealots are excited about KOSA: it would let them shut down websites that cover topics like race, gender, and sexuality.
Second, KOSA would ramp up the online surveillance of all internet users by expanding the use of age verification and parental monitoring tools. Not only are these tools needlessly invasive, they’re a massive safety risk for young people who could be trying to escape domestic violence and abuse.
I (charitably) think the fact is that they may also have misunderstood Cyberpunk to be more about hacking than it actually is, and are using "spy" despite a lot of CP2077 not being necessarily about remote hacking cameras at all.
Almost every OS nowadays has some form of microphone detection right? So if this was on, you would be aware of it? And to jump ahead, even google is incentivised to prevent this company listening in, as they are direct competitor.
I wonder if this company is just trying to fleece advertisers with a made up tech? The “Claim your exclusive territory before your competitor” feels like the high pressure tactics that other scams use?
I might go disable the microphone in my TV remote anyway :/
OSes have protections built in, yup, but that’s no guarantee. we like hardware switches because there’s physically no way that the mic/cam can be in use: software is always 1 bug or exploit away from not doing what it’s supposed to
Yup, for sure, but while a nation state can risk exploitting a zero day to turn on your microphone, an ad tech company certainly can’t. As soon as it get patched they’d be ruined.
Minimal risk for them. The state of monitoring as a whole is such that they can use such an 0-day for a couple of years before anybody notices it. It’s far more likely that the vulnerability is noticed and patched without anyone even realizing that it’s been actively exploited.
They are literally publically claiming that they have a zero day (or at least a zero day level capability). Google/Apple would be all over it trying to fix it. Cyber security researchers would be all over it as well.
NSA can get away with using 0 days for years because they keep quiet about them, and dont use them frivilously.
Lol you are the only person with a brain in this thread. This entire service they’re advertising sounds like a scam.
People really think these apps are bypassing the Android OS protections that show the microphone icon when the mic is listening?
And what apps are widespread enough that it can capture a wide enough range of people to target the things their customers would want while also not getting discovered or someone working for the app disclosing it?
I highly doubt they’re worried about less than the 1% not seeing the obvious meaning of what they said. They’re marketing to the masses, which would very much know and pick up on the “I spy” thing.
That just expands the question: do they not know about other countries?
Many of us have certain connotations with google, and while we know the game in our native language, it’s not the first thing we think about when thinking “Google says: I spy”.
Probably why they published it in English and not your native language so you wouldn’t be confused and think they meant it that way. Too bad somebody will always go the extra step to be offended.
Sorry, I disagree, I don’t make the assumption that they’re considering a statistically insignificant group of people that hate them, or possibly countless other countries when using a well know saying in their marketing.
Are you assuming that Google, which, as far as I’m aware, is an international company providing service to a multilingual userbase, has less than 1% non-native English speaking users?
I mean, I don’t care much how Google advertises itself, even companies I do like sometimes make an unlucky promotion and that’s fine, but I do find the arguments in this comment thread to make some wild assumptions.
What seems like a wild assumption is that an ad in one language would be designed with what another language might think of the ad in mind. Why would a Chinese person care about a Mexican ad for Coca-Cola? You’ve found something to enjoy being upset at.
Are you assuming that Google, which, as far as I’m aware, is an international company providing service to a multilingual userbase, has less than 1% non-native English speaking users?
I’m assuming nothing, nor did I ever say their English speaking data sources are less than 1%. That would be the privacy crowd that would be the ones to take simple marketing using a well known term and go into paranoia about it.
However, if I were to assume anything, it would be that an ad in English, would be geard towards English speakers, not others.
Thx for showing me that. I had no idea. Still to me, someone who lives on the other side of the world opposite of America, to see the phrase “I spy… Do you…” From Google felt a lot like, well, my post says it all.
I tried it, and then it wouldn’t load any previous history or emails so I contacted support to try and see if I did something wrong during setup.
Labelled it as trouble with “outlook” because it’s… The “new” outlook, no?
They went through and tried to diagnose my issue for awhile before telling me they couldn’t do anything because the Outlook (new) isn’t actually outlook it’s relabeled windows mail and I setup my ticket wrong.
So how are you supposed to differentiate outlook vs outlook (new) when they are supposedly completely separate programs?
Unfortunately my senator is the traitorous Sinema, so she’s worse than useless. Just got an email from her rationalizing this power grab today after writing her and asking she not support it a few months back. 🙄
Go to reddit, pick a username from the front page, use that. Any searching into your use of it will lead to that front page post and its reposts on click mills.
if you’re willing to go advanced for a bit of extra convenience, then install a mobile browser that has proxy support and proxify that web browser then dedicate the browser to the web version of whatever service you want to use.
Random nicknames are not recommended, they are unique identifiers, it is better to use nicknames of famous people or movies, video games, etc., because it makes it difficult to find them on the web, especially if different ones are used on each site.
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