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Cox deletes ‘Active Listening’ ad pitch after boasting that it eavesdrops though our phones
(www.fastcompany.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Chance that it's just marketing people talking out of their asses again, but then again, we have a lot of cheap smart devices with dubious firmwares so it might be possible on those sketchy devices.
I mean, it’s possible on any device with a microphone that’s connected to the internet. But can people advertising a service just lie? That’s when the law actually works, when it’s a company hurting another company. So if false advertising laws were ever going to be enforced, it’d be against a claim like this. I don’t think they’d take the chance of the bad PR of this getting out and the potential suit if they weren’t able to do it when a different deep-pocketed entity took them to court over the false claims to get their business.
It’s fully possible, there’s no question about that. The government has been using cell phones to do this for a long time, as evidenced by the Snowden leaks. There were CIA “broken eagle” leaks (if I’m remembering that correctly) claiming any smart tv was a possible bug, but this was back when it seemed like there were unreasonable hurdles in the way for them to actually achieve it when, now, it’s all the more possible as we connect more “smart” devices that have become cheaper and cheaper. Have you read the privacy policy on all of the different smart device apps? Because I don’t use any of that IOT bullshit but i read the policy for my new ear buds last month and I ran those fuckers back to the store as fast as I could. The allowances have become genuinely insane.
So, it’s technically possible, we’ve become way more lax as products have become cheaper and more permissive with the permissions we allow them (have you noticed how everything needs access to your location now? Like…to use Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, I’m told I need to give it access to my location. What’s that shit?), and the privacy policies state they can have access to pretty much any information the product has the potential to gather.
So…are they doing it? I can’t be sure. But it is entirely technically possible and they’re asking permission to do it and there is widespread anecdotal evidence that it’s happening and they’re now claiming they’re doing it…so…at what point do we just have to accept that they’re doing it?