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posted by janrinok on Friday June 19 2015, @11:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-forget,-who-are-the-good-guys-now? dept.

Google added to Chromium 43.x a new add-on called "Chrome Hotword Shared Module" without source code. At first run, it is automatically downloaded and installed without any prompt. After this installation [it] is only available at chrome://voicesearch/ and is not shown in the extensions menu and by default the user is not able to disable or uninstall it. This add-on can record audio any time since is linked to the Ok Google feature ( https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2940021?hl=en [support.google.com] ).

Sources: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=500922 and http://www.ghacks.net/2015/06/19/googles-in-hot-water-after-dropping-binary-code-in-chromium-for-linux/


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Snospar on Saturday June 20 2015, @01:01AM

    by Snospar (5366) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 20 2015, @01:01AM (#198507)

    I guess this is all just innocently tied to their "voice-to-text" engine and we've nothing to worry about. Right?

    Or is this a drop from the NSA that somebody tipped off the reporters about?

    I thought Chromium was GPL. GPL enough for Debian. How does this kind of nonsense fit with this?

    Too late. Too xxxxx. Good night.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by K_benzoate on Saturday June 20 2015, @01:20AM

    by K_benzoate (5036) on Saturday June 20 2015, @01:20AM (#198508)

    It's probably simpler than that. Google doesn't care about Open Source philosophy, and certainly not about privacy. They think this is a cool feature that we all should be using, so they push it out. It also pulls in more data for Google, which is their "prime directive".

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    • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by Nerdfest on Saturday June 20 2015, @01:55AM

      by Nerdfest (80) on Saturday June 20 2015, @01:55AM (#198516)

      I think Google cares about privacy more than almost any other company, as their business model depends on it. If your 'private' data ever gets out it's very bad for them in multiple ways. More data is something they most definitely want though, and this is a comp;letely unacceptable way of doing it. They can stuff a closed binary in Chrome if they want, but certainly not Chromium.

      As for the comment above, mentioning providing information to the NSA without being bound by law to do it, I believe you're thinking of Microsoft.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by K_benzoate on Saturday June 20 2015, @02:03AM

        by K_benzoate (5036) on Saturday June 20 2015, @02:03AM (#198519)

        Google has a very close relationship with the US Government, through Eric Schmidt--much closer than is required by law. When Google Met Wikileaks [wikileaks.org] should be required reading for anyone trying to get their thinking straight about the US tech companies, privacy, and the surveillance state.

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        • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday June 20 2015, @02:50AM

          by Nerdfest (80) on Saturday June 20 2015, @02:50AM (#198531)

          I've actually read that article before, and don't really think the title matches the content of the article.

          • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday June 20 2015, @01:49PM

            by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 20 2015, @01:49PM (#198662) Journal

            I think it matches the title of both of the sources referred to at the bottom of TFA. The previous link is for those who do not know what Google OK is.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2015, @11:06PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 20 2015, @11:06PM (#198821)

    Its BSD mainly. Its not quite that simple, but for all practical purposes you can think of it as such. Google can do what ever they want with it (but so can you: if you don't like the free shit they give you, forking is a valid option).