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from the and-who-thought-that-this-was-a-good-idea? dept.
The BBC has said that Samsung has issued a warning to its customers over their smart TVs, saying that people shouldn't talk about personal information in front them. When using the voice activation feature of the smart TV, it will listen to everything you say and may share that with Samsung and third parties.
This only came to light when The DailyBeast posted a new story pointing out part of the privacy policy...
"Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party"
Corynne McSherry, an IP lawyer for EFF, told The DailyBeast that the "third party" was probably the company providing speech-to-text conversion for Samsung. They also said: "If I were the customer, I might like to know who that third party was, and I’d definitely like to know whether my words were being transmitted in a secure form."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MrNemesis on Tuesday February 10 2015, @01:21PM
Given the hypegasm regarding the "internet of things" I think it'll be perhaps a year or two before consumer routers/wireless access points start coming with predefined SSIDs and keys that devices like "smart" fridges, meters, TVs, thermostats and all the rest of it will all connect to automatically. Non-internet enabled appliances will die an undignified death thanks to their lower profit margins and core functionality will likely require internet access rather than giving devices "connected bonuses".
The potential amount of money to be made by inserting all of this crap into peoples' homes and subsequently flogging the data to advertisers/insurers is huge. I have shares in several major manufacturers of aluminium foil I think it's only a matter of time. Are there any linux distros or appliances out there that specialise in MITM/snooping this sort of stuff? It looks like it's going to be of increasing importance to paranoid loners like me what with all the black boxes demanding internet access these days.
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday February 10 2015, @02:39PM
I wonder if this trend toward greater and greater invasion of privacy and seizing control over people won't incite a reaction. Will it spur people to launch open source hardware movements and accelerate the adoption of 3D printing?
I know I personally have been so aggravated by the invasion of centralized control lately that I find myself watching instructables on how to make my own methane digester so I don't have to pay a gas company any more; on how to build mesh networks so that we might one day be free of TWC; on how to grow veggies in hydroponics so I don't have to pay an arm and a leg for food anymore; etc. I can't be alone in that. I am a reasonably paranoid guy, but I am far from a denizen of the long tail in that respect.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 10 2015, @08:35PM
Well then, I'll make sure to put together a router with no wireless - you know, the classical old computer with two net cards - my house is Cat6 wired already.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday February 11 2015, @02:41AM
Doesn't matter because your stuff will connect to your neighbor instead. Make use of some 2.4 GHz small spectrum"very energetic pulse"..
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 11 2015, @03:25AM
Barring this, an Al-foil wrapped around the antenna should do (if not necessarily blocking the signal, it'll modify the impedance/capacitance enough to throw the emitted EM out of band).
(yes, there's always the possibility of a DIY flux compression generator EM-pulse [wikipedia.org] - I hope it qualifies for "very energetic pulse" - grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday February 10 2015, @08:36PM
I understand what you are saying, and I cannot honestly say that you are wrong, but to whose internet will these devices connect? Not to mine. They will not have the password for the WiFi, and I'm damned if I'm going to be wiring them up. Who would pay for the data being sent? Again, not me! And if they just connect to the first available WiFi then they could well connect to a completely different household than the one in which they are located.
The manufacturers may be having hot flushes about how much data they think that they will be getting - but it won't be getting it from me!
(Score: 2) by MrNemesis on Tuesday February 10 2015, @09:26PM
Similarly I understand what you're saying. These things won't be connecting to my internet or your internet because we're aware and we're educated in the ways of blocking this kind of thing. I'm thinking of the sort of people that accept whatever router and whatever setting their ISP graces them with, the sort of router where the ISP might say to GadgetCorp "sure, pay us $5 per router and we'll make sure all of your Gadgets can connect through our routers without any user intervention".
Even amongst my geeky friends, many of whom are capable of building their own routers (with blackjack and hookers) from toilet rolls and sticky-backed plastic, only about 30% of them actually don't use the ISP-supplied router. True, we have less shenanigans about that in the UK (here it's generally "free" as opposed to explicitly rented as I understand they are in the US) but the way to making mass-market sensorship commonplace is through people like that. And when these 95% of people "have accepted" incessant surveillance people like you and I will be looked at as even weirder and more eye-rollingly paranoid than we are already. "What do you mean my Z-Eye isn't allowed to connect to your internet?! What's wrong with it?"
It'll all be a moot point eventually of course, because each of those "internet of things" devices will eventually come with its own GSM chip and aerial once power and bandwidth are no longer a constraint.
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."