singular_me
12th February 2015, 11:25 AM
how bad can it get... indeed
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It's not just smart TVs. Your home is full of gadgets that spy on you: How internet giants are collecting your personal data through their high-tech devices
11 February 2015
There is no doubt that many viewers find voice recognition a welcome addition, but its darker side was revealed this week when a hawk-eyed U.S. journalist found the following sentence in Samsung’s surely misnamed ‘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 through your use of voice recognition.’
The TV itself is programmed to understand certain phrases, such as ‘turn on’, but it can also record everything else that is said in the room.
The idea that your most private conversations could be shared with anyone whom the unaccountable Samsung sees fit is highly disturbing to say the least.
And it’s not just television sets. It emerged yesterday that millions of Britons are being spied on by Microsoft’s voice-activated Xbox games consoles, which can listen in to everything around them.
In its privacy policy, Microsoft states that it is ‘only interested in your voice commands to Xbox, which we capture along with any ambient background noise. If you give Microsoft permission, we record commands whether you are online or offline’.
The company says it stores this data and, under its privacy policy, states that it can share it with ‘affiliates and vendors’.
However, despite Microsoft’s assurances that the data is safe, one has only to look at how Xbox’s Live Platform servers were brought down by hackers on Christmas Day to realise that our data is far from secure.
These spies in our living rooms are chillingly comparable to a passage in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which every home in George Orwell’s terrifying vision of a constantly monitored future is equipped with an all-seeing ‘telescreen’.
‘There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment,’ wrote Orwell in the book that was published in 1949.
And, just like those fictional ‘telescreens’, many smart TV sets today don’t just have ears, but they also have eyes, in the form of cameras used for facial recognition, which are designed to allow only specific people to watch the set.
Facial recognition is a technology that seems to improve constantly: for example, the software can recognise individuals by comparing the lengths between specific points on their faces — such as the distances between our ears, or between our eyes and mouth.
In its privacy policy, Samsung states that images of your face are not sent over the internet, but why should we take such claims on trust? Likewise, even if we turn off the voice recognition function, how can we be sure they are not recording what we say anyway.
Just look at the recent case of a smart TV sold by South Korean tech giant LG, which continued to monitor users’ viewing habits, even when they had disabled the relevant feature.....
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2950081/It-s-not-just-smart-TVs-home-gadgets-spy-internet-giants-collecting-personal-data-high-tech-devices.html#ixzz3RYW4SZDW
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Stopping a Smart TV From Eavesdropping On You Could Be a Felony
Feb. 10 2015 1:55 PM
Most smart TVs’ core operating systems are based on the open-source software Linux. According to Linux’s license, companies are supposed to provide customers with a copy of the source code and the ability to install a modified version. But many smart TVs have violated that license.
To make matters worse, high-level users who want to take their smart TVs apart to see how they work or to attempt to disable or modify the underlying software—for example, to disable the eavesdropping software, or make modifications to make captions easier to read for the visually impaired—could face felony charges under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
That’s because most smart TVs on the market have taken technological measures to prevent users from accessing or modifying firmware in order to prevent illegal copying and distribution of copyrighted material. But users could technically face felony charges for circumventing lockdown restrictions—even if the modifications they’re trying to make are legal under copyright law.’
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/02/10/samsung_s_smarttv_disabling_its_eavesdropping_coul d_violate_dmca.html
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It's not just smart TVs. Your home is full of gadgets that spy on you: How internet giants are collecting your personal data through their high-tech devices
11 February 2015
There is no doubt that many viewers find voice recognition a welcome addition, but its darker side was revealed this week when a hawk-eyed U.S. journalist found the following sentence in Samsung’s surely misnamed ‘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 through your use of voice recognition.’
The TV itself is programmed to understand certain phrases, such as ‘turn on’, but it can also record everything else that is said in the room.
The idea that your most private conversations could be shared with anyone whom the unaccountable Samsung sees fit is highly disturbing to say the least.
And it’s not just television sets. It emerged yesterday that millions of Britons are being spied on by Microsoft’s voice-activated Xbox games consoles, which can listen in to everything around them.
In its privacy policy, Microsoft states that it is ‘only interested in your voice commands to Xbox, which we capture along with any ambient background noise. If you give Microsoft permission, we record commands whether you are online or offline’.
The company says it stores this data and, under its privacy policy, states that it can share it with ‘affiliates and vendors’.
However, despite Microsoft’s assurances that the data is safe, one has only to look at how Xbox’s Live Platform servers were brought down by hackers on Christmas Day to realise that our data is far from secure.
These spies in our living rooms are chillingly comparable to a passage in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which every home in George Orwell’s terrifying vision of a constantly monitored future is equipped with an all-seeing ‘telescreen’.
‘There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment,’ wrote Orwell in the book that was published in 1949.
And, just like those fictional ‘telescreens’, many smart TV sets today don’t just have ears, but they also have eyes, in the form of cameras used for facial recognition, which are designed to allow only specific people to watch the set.
Facial recognition is a technology that seems to improve constantly: for example, the software can recognise individuals by comparing the lengths between specific points on their faces — such as the distances between our ears, or between our eyes and mouth.
In its privacy policy, Samsung states that images of your face are not sent over the internet, but why should we take such claims on trust? Likewise, even if we turn off the voice recognition function, how can we be sure they are not recording what we say anyway.
Just look at the recent case of a smart TV sold by South Korean tech giant LG, which continued to monitor users’ viewing habits, even when they had disabled the relevant feature.....
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2950081/It-s-not-just-smart-TVs-home-gadgets-spy-internet-giants-collecting-personal-data-high-tech-devices.html#ixzz3RYW4SZDW
------------------------
Stopping a Smart TV From Eavesdropping On You Could Be a Felony
Feb. 10 2015 1:55 PM
Most smart TVs’ core operating systems are based on the open-source software Linux. According to Linux’s license, companies are supposed to provide customers with a copy of the source code and the ability to install a modified version. But many smart TVs have violated that license.
To make matters worse, high-level users who want to take their smart TVs apart to see how they work or to attempt to disable or modify the underlying software—for example, to disable the eavesdropping software, or make modifications to make captions easier to read for the visually impaired—could face felony charges under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
That’s because most smart TVs on the market have taken technological measures to prevent users from accessing or modifying firmware in order to prevent illegal copying and distribution of copyrighted material. But users could technically face felony charges for circumventing lockdown restrictions—even if the modifications they’re trying to make are legal under copyright law.’
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/02/10/samsung_s_smarttv_disabling_its_eavesdropping_coul d_violate_dmca.html