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Facebook Wants to Hide Secret Inaudible Messages in TV Ads

posted by CoolHand on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:19PM   
from the just-a-lil-bit-of-spyin' dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyGuest52256

According to the patent, spotted by Metro, the system would use 'a non-human hearable digital sound' to activate your phone's microphone.

This noise, which could be a sound so high-pitched that humans cannot hear it, would contain a 'machine recognisable' set of Morse code-style beeps

Once your phone hears the trigger, it would begin to record 'ambient noise' in your home, such as the sound of your air conditioning unit, plumbing noises from your pipes and even your movements from one room to another.

Your phone would even listen in on 'distant human speech' and 'creaks from thermal contraction', according to the patent.

TV advertisers would use this data to determine whether you had muted your TV or moved to a different room when their promotional clip played.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5882587/Facebook-wants-hide-secret-inaudible-messages-TV-ads-force-phone-record-audio.html

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Original Submission

• Need a detectorNeed a detector (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:36PM (6 children)

  by sjames (2882) on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:36PM (#702125) Journal

  Next up, a little box that lights up when the signal is detected so you know when to put the phone in your back pocket and fart.

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• Re:Need a detectorRe:Need a detector (Score: 5, Funny) by edIII on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:45PM (2 children)

  by edIII (791) on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:45PM (#702132)

  Better yet, a detector app that hijacks the mic and plays a sound file of Howler monkeys losing their shit.

  --
  Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.

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  • Re:Need a detectorRe:Need a detector (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:56PM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:56PM (#702138) Journal

    The "gardians of walled guardens" may kick such apps out

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

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    • Re:Need a detector(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:16AM

      by Subsentient (1111) on Wednesday July 04 2018, @03:16AM (#702335) Homepage Journal

      Of course they will. They make sizable portions of their income from ads. They will restrict whatever freedoms they need to in order to secure their revenue stream.

      --
      "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti

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• Re:Need a detector(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:48PM

  by c0lo (156) on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:48PM (#702133) Journal

  Next up, a little box that lights up when the signal is detected so you know when to put the phone in your back pocket and fart.

  That's dumb. The effort of embedding the circuit in the phone cover and make it "fart" for me when the signal is detected is trivial.

  --
  https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  Parent

• Re:Need a detectorRe:Need a detector (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:58PM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 03 2018, @07:58PM (#702140)

  That's a start, but we can do better.

  How about grab and record the ultra-sounds and replay them at completely unrelated times. Think the advertisers would like to hear part of black-hat? or some noisy conference, maybe in a theater... basically find a bunch of people and get their phones to report bogus stats.

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  • Re:Need a detector(Score: 2, Funny) by Sulla on Tuesday July 03 2018, @08:13PM

    by Sulla (5173) on Tuesday July 03 2018, @08:13PM (#702144) Journal

    So we get the MPAA to fight our war for us?

    --
    Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam

    Parent