I've turned it off for everything aside from my Xbox One which I find myself trusting for some reason.
http://youtu.be/arsAs9pGrBk?t=52s
I don't know for sure that the tigger word is processed locally on SmartTVs too, but it's likely because Samsung said: 'voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search', so you have to request it's happening probably with the trigger word. And technically it would not make too much sense to constantly stream audio from every SmartTV because the trigger word recognition is a simple enough task to do it locally and also the continuous stream would consume lot of bandwidth for the users and probably for the servers too.
But it's still very concerning that we have more and more devices with microphones and internet connections and in the case of SmartTVs proprietary OS with questionable security.
The funny thing is that ever since Xbox one I have gotten so used to voice commands for playing/pausing/muting videos that I ended up building one on raspberry pi to control the tv, lights and other devices.
Apparently it's an option in the US (but not the default?).
Considering it wasn't even available in Germany for quite a while, I wouldn't be surprised if there are legal requirements surrounding this feature.
I think it's really poor reporting (but not unsurprising) that the BBC hasn't mentioned other devices that have similar issues.
Same situation with 'Ok, Google'.
Initially, the 'Ok, Google' phrase was limited to certain phones that had the audio processing chip in them. I don't know if this is still the case.
For the Smart TV, How do you hardware disable the smart TV microphone? I'm searching online but don't see directions yet. Can you do it without opening the TV outer case?
Here's an article on how to block it using your router but I don't think this would defeat malware. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/lg-smart-tv-hdtv-doctorbeet...
Interested to hear ideas & opinions from HN.
If something in my house was continuously transmitting a stream of audio, I'd notice. Very, very eventually, but I would notice. There's enough of us out there that this sort of thing is harder to sneak by than you might first guess. Home networks are easy to sniff because they're so empty, whereas my work network is a constant stream of mDNS, DHCP, and all sorts of other broadcast traffic to step through before I can see anything interesting.
(Also, yes, I'm eliding details like wired vs. wireless sniffing, etc. And I'm not talking about the router, though evidence online suggests there's a set of people periodically sniffing the router<->internet, too. And yes, clever clogs could try to time things to when people may not be looking, etc. The point is that the traffic is not as unwatched as you may think, not that the watchers are perfect.)
You use software that you trust.
Yes, that restricts options severely... I mostly use software whose source is public and anything closed is handled as suspicious (for example, Cyanogenmod's Privacy Guard comes handy to fence applications in - but something as basic as looking at networks traffic is a good basic check).
You'd think the fact that a smartphone stays in your pocket would be more alarming. The things have multiple cameras, microphones, GPS tracking devices, and a whole myriad of personal information stored on them.
They're even rectangular screens!
Someone needs to write an article that refers to smartphones in the context of "telescreens" and describe what they do matter-of-factly so we can snap out of it...
Imagine every American being in the vicinity of a remote-controllable intercept device with a microphone, camera and GPS tracker 24 hours each day.
But don't worry, you have nothing to hide, right? Can't let the terrorists win.
Unless you tunnel all your data traffic they'll also get copies of that and may sell pseudo-anonymous website usage statistics to one of the web metrics businesses. In some countries they also intercept and modify web content that you might view.
And what can you do about the baseband radio processor and its code? Nothing. Assuming you have a tunnel in operation, the phone could still be collecting and quietly sharing metadata and you'd never know.
Any suggestions?
It is possible that someone will make an MIT licensed version (and could do so legally in some countries that aren't the US), but it would be technically illegal to distribute in the US.
Its not very accurate, but if you limit it to a small set of keywords, you are going to be fine.
I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with the trend of personal and home devices becoming surveillance machines, there's a lot wrong, but Samsung in this case is an example of how you do it properly if you have to do it (it's a feature that apparently has to work the way it works).
No taking it very seriously would mean refusing to implement this feature unless you can do it without sending audio recorded in the room over the Net.
I don't think it would be hard at all for NSA/GHCQ to tap into a feed like this, Samsung/3rd party willing or not.
I just checked and "hey Siri" is recognised offline.
