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"Google Assistant" Experienced Users Here On Forteana Forum: We Need To Talk

Could be. But I don't like it.

It is becoming that if you don't use a smartphone for everything then you will not be able to do many things.

It's all 'too far, too fast'.

You have jumped from using cellphone to smartphone! I now suspect that you are an AI........
 
The setting I'm talking about is in your Google account, it's not device-specific.
Hmm...not that I can see. Tell me why?

Surely it's settings within the app, on your device? And it only affects that instance of the app. From your cited reference:
2019-09-14 15.07.19.png

My reasoning is that since such an action needs to be carried-out on a per-device basis, it's fairly moot as to whether it's a remotely-saved setting that affects the particular selected device instance, or a local setting that...locally...sets a chosen device audio access mode.

I'm going to guess it's the local latter (well...it is a fully-installed app) particularly because of the following rather-intriguing statement also extracted from your reference...especially the last sentence:
2019-09-14 15.08.30.png


Also...setting-aside the rather-contradictory statement for now (the last sentence of which maybe implies that audio is being cached when your device is offline) from a system design perspective, surely it must be possible to selectively (and reliably) deafen one or more devices, but not all of them....
Apologies, Forteana Forum: this may get a bit semi-technically detailed, for which I apologise
 
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I really don't think it's device specific. You're changing a setting in your Google account, I use more than one mobile device and if I change the setting on one, the edit syncs across all of them.

However....I don't use a dedicated voice assistant device, maybe that has it's own settings?
 
Nearly....it's worse than that, though.

The key point to take here is that my smartphone's acting as an independant input device, with a seperate (apparently-irrepressable) software instance of Google Assistant on a device which is being thought of as being just an administration/control tool rather than a voice conduit.

Let me put this another, simpler, way. All hardware smart-speakers appear to be fitted with a physical microphone mute switch. Conversely, no smartphones are similarly-equipped. So you're looking at your smart-speaker, thinking you've 'turned its ears off'....which you have, but entirely irrelevantly-so. Because there's a completely-seperate audio path via another independant Google Assistant instance, in your pocket.





This is NOT nearly as straightforward as it sounds (if it were, this thread wouldn't have been opened). The settings options vary between apparently-identical models smartphones with what would be expected to be the same software.

I suspect (no, hope, in my case) that what may be happening for users of some smartphones is that the exact combination of application software as installed is causing unwanted permissive effects. For example, my Samsung phone already had an application on it from new called "S Voice", and I am not sure I can safely remove that unused app....but it may be relevantly interfering with this effect.

Also (something anyone with a smartphone will relate to) there are numerous graphically-represented faders & level controls designed into the GUI for eg audio settings.

These attempt to make life simple for users of mobile devices, but in practise they all tend to blur the boundaries between what can be: 'Media Volume'/'Ringtone Volume'/'Source Volume'/'Audio Level'. I bet everyone here with a smartphone of any flavour has had occasional challenges in getting (and keeping) these controls set.

Another Achilles heel on smartphones is (I strongly suspect) the soft button that's intended to mute/unmute the smartphone's microphone *during phonecalls*. I am convinced that either clumsy coding (or application compatibility/conflict) means that sometimes the action of toggling the phone's mute-button to 'unmute' can reenable the local ambient audio pickup within a speech-to-text Google Assistant type of search app.

(I also do wonder whether the universal utility within smartphones to be able to 'cast' media content to localised smart-speakers via either Bluetooth or Wifi local loop is another unwitting conduit via which ambient live speech is being either occasionally routed, or, accidently enabled.

Similarly, if you ever use your smartphone to make voicecalls via eg Facebook Messenger, or other toll-free "wifi call apps" such as Zoiper, since this enables two-way audio path operation outwith the context of conventional mobile phonecalls, the action of so doing may collaterally-reactivate previously-disabled audio settings).





@Mythopoeika / @Analogue Boy - please re-read my rambling-but-consistent tale above.

I am trying to emphasise that the conduit for this unconsented accidental broadcast of intimate personal trivia (or corporate intel) is NOT necessarily one of these overt Google Assistant/Alexa smart-speaker 'upholstered rocks' that you've (perhaps justifiably) decided to exclude from your home.

I'm saying that the tenant in your household which may now be impassively-transducting your harmless daily prose could well just be your phone, your laptop, desktop or tablet computers.

Unless you've just got a silver Nokia brick from circa 2004, and still a WindowsXP door-stopper, there is a tangible technical potential for the contemporary replacements for these classic originals to be reporting your every creak and croak.

I'm not proposing paranoia. Or the Luddite flushing of phones and speakers down the toilet. Because the technology is omnipresent and useful. But we do need to be given proper handles for this, by technologists....that work.

I find it difficult from your post to understand the gist of your point.
Your phone is spying on you. Alexa is a spy your home.There’s a GPS tracking system in your phone right there. Alexa and other home service products exist simply to monitor your life, promote products and point them at you. Mention turning 50 and you’ll be inundated with pension investment plans etc. I can’t see why you’d find all this novel and unsettling. Some of us have been warning about this sort of stuff for years. This functionality is exactly what it is for.
 
My understanding of the problem is that she wants to control when it's on and when it's off, and hasn't been able to figure out how to gain that control, even by turning off those devices. Is this correct, Ermintruder?
But since I've never been in Ermintruder's shoes, and, since I won't let those things into my home, (at least, not to my knowledge, but I'm wondering about the IP provided modem now!!! :nails: ) I have no practical help to give except what I can glean from the internet.
 
I find it difficult from your post to understand the gist of your point.
Your phone is spying on you. Alexa is a spy your home.There’s a GPS tracking system in your phone right there. Alexa and other home service products exist simply to monitor your life, promote products and point them at you. Mention turning 50 and you’ll be inundated with pension investment plans etc. I can’t see why you’d find all this novel and unsettling. Some of us have been warning about this sort of stuff for years. This functionality is exactly what it is for.

Yes, exactly! It's called data mining, and it makes you the product. It currently makes more money than the oil industry. There's nothing strange about it, though it can make you paranoid. Everything you share with your electronic devices is fair game. I really don't see why people are surprised by this, it's common knowledge.
 
I use more than one mobile device and if I change the setting on one, the edit syncs across all of them

Well, that applies consistently to things like Google account bookmarks or reminders, I agree, but for the Google Assistant smart-speaker function it's clearly been designed to operate on an individual device-specific mode of 'Listening On'/'Listening Off'

This is central to my concerns: firstly, surely it is possible to turn off one (or more) of these selected devices individually OR all of them collectively? The settings options within the 'smart' devices certainly indicate that this is the case.

But my point is that even when you believe your personal environment is electively-isolated from being monitored (by comprehensive use of all relevant settings options) the Google Assistant voice system *still* doesn't appear to properly stop listening.

However....I don't use a dedicated voice assistant device, maybe that has it's own settings?

Ah. I do. That's another main crux in all of this.

Funnily-enough, I want smart-speakers in my environment to operate like smart-speakers when I chose for them to be active. And I absolutely do not want my smartphone to operate as an undeclared unconsented uncontrollable covert smart-speaker.


I find it difficult from your post to understand the gist of your point
I'm sorry that's the case @Analogue Boy, I did think it was perfectly clear. If you re-read the paragraph immediately above my quote from you, it should make sense to you.

And all I seek from this is the perfectly-reasonable expectation of granular, specific consents (or witholds) in respect of >spoken< content, within the earshot of smartified devices.

My understanding of the problem is that she wants to control when it's on and when it's off, and hasn't been able to figure out how to gain that control, even by turning off those devices.
That's a fair summary of the situation, other than the fact that I did (do) genuinely believe I had granular controls properly set, and, I'm definitely not a girl (Forum members that know me personally can testify to that: and I am an 'it'....for the purposes of the internet)


I won't let those things into my home

But therein sits one of the biggest problem. Such devices (nb I do mean controllable smart-speakers, not rebel smartphones that are listening even when told not to) are extremely useful. The use of voice control is a genuinely-useful asset, not a trivial toy access method. People who do not use them, due to vague personal security concerns are missing a big trick....the baby is being flushed-away with the bathwater.


I can’t see why you’d find all this novel and unsettling.
Are you genuinely not surprised that the phone in your pocket (quite seperately from any normal screen-based internet access, with all the unavoidable tracking cookies/personally-targetted advertising/browser history tracking AND making/receiving good-old phonecalls) could also be operating as an unelected voice-to-text semi-live monitoring device?

Why wouldn't you and I both find that unsettling?

Everything you share with your electronic devices is fair game
I think the element you're missing-out from your otherwise unavoidably-correct sentence is 'with meaningful consent'.

I'm still hopeful that I can conclusively prove to myself that my smart-speaker (which I bought to perform the function we know it can) fulfills its purpose, and that its only controlling device (my smartphone) performs just the utilities of being a phone, a computer, a media device...but *not* operate as an accidental smart-speaker. And I'll replace it (if I must) in order to achieve/prove that situation.
 
It is unsettling, can the speaker in my phone really activate on its own? Just like the camera?
I have heard about those smart speakers relaying info to people when the people who own them are unaware, there is a thread on here, isnt there?
 
People are using the term ‘speakers’. What you have in your home or pocket is also a microphone. There have been many articles on these picking conversation they weren’t meant to. And then recommending stuff they should buy.
 
People are using the term ‘speakers’. What you have in your home or pocket is also a microphone. There have been many articles on these picking conversation they weren’t meant to. And then recommending stuff they should buy.
That's a good point. A speaker can work as a microphone. [nods]
 
might you wish to consider taking part a little personal-but-collective experiment? This may be initially difficult for each of us to do, but try thinking of a previously-unresearched, or hitherto-unpurchased strangesomethingorother.
I introduced the idea of a trip to Morocco into our dinner-time conversation, knowing that my phone was in my pocket and listening for the "OK Google" activation phrase. Morocco is a place that never normally comes into focus for me or my nearest and dearest. So if I suddenly start seeing flights or hotels for the place, I will know shenanigans are taking place.
 
I think the element you're missing-out from your otherwise unavoidably-correct sentence is 'with meaningful consent'.

I'm still hopeful that I can conclusively prove to myself that my smart-speaker (which I bought to perform the function we know it can) fulfills its purpose, and that its only controlling device (my smartphone) performs just the utilities of being a phone, a computer, a media device...but *not* operate as an accidental smart-speaker. And I'll replace it (if I must) in order to achieve/prove that situation.

If you've agreed to the terms and conditions with all that small print nobody reads, you've agreed to have your data shared.
 
Are you genuinely not surprised that the phone in your pocket (quite seperately from any normal screen-based internet access, with all the unavoidable tracking cookies/personally-targetted advertising/browser history tracking AND making/receiving good-old phonecalls) could also be operating as an unelected voice-to-text semi-live monitoring device?

Why wouldn't you and I both find that unsettling?

Because we’ve been saying this for years. You had to be there when it was all happening. It’s too late to complain about it now. Things have moved on.
 
If you've agreed to the terms and conditions with all that small print nobody reads, you've agreed to have your data shared.

All of it. Anybody who thinks information on the internet or any internet device is private is deluding themselves.
 
Some interesting insights here - basically phones probably aren't spying on you, Assistants are. But of course it depends on your definition of 'spying'.


Why phones that secretly listen to us are a myth
By Joe Tidy
Cyber security reporter, BBC News
5 September 2019

Many people believe that their conversations are being listened to for advertisement targeting
A mobile security company has carried out a research investigation to address the popular conspiracy theory that tech giants are listening to conversations.

The internet is awash with posts and videos on social media where people claim to have proof that the likes of Facebook and Google are spying on users in order to serve hyper-targeted adverts.

Videos have gone viral in recent months showing people talking about products and then ads for those exact items appear online.

Now, cyber security-specialists at Wandera have emulated the online experiments and found no evidence that phones or apps were secretly listening.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49585682
 
And your contacts are also often roped in as well, don’t forget.

Yup, some app once offered me Techy (to whom I was married) as a 'Hot Single'! His photo had been harvested from a FT/Facebook friend's feed and presumably stripped of details and chucked in with all the others. She lives a long way off so perhaps there was an assumption that I wouldn't know him.

Neither my friend or I were in the market for Hot Singles, by the way, and Techy had better not be!

I was highly amused* but my friend was distressed ands apologetic. I understood that it wasn't her fault, just Facebook ripping data.

*I actually cried with laughter. Still have a screenshot somewhere.
 
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Unless the 'home assistant' is able to clean my home and prepare meals I have no use for it.
 
Knock Knock.

Opens door to find a pizza delivery man.

'I didn't order a pizza'

No ? Siri heard you say you were hungry and ordered you a hot shot. Buy the way, did you say you fancied a shag ? there is a rather nice girl in a short skirt walking up your path'.

INT21
 
I was sure I'd previously-posted here on The Forum about my first (fairly-recent) experiences with my 'Google Home Assistant Mini' (for clarity, I mean by this the badged-and-inhabited-by-Google physical smart speaker, independantly-connected to the internet, interacted with primarily via spoken commands/queries (between me/family, and the pseudopersonifed Google Search Engine).

For those unfamiliar with these little smart speakers, a Google Home Mini looks and feels like a squashed tennis ball wrapped in pastel-coloured felt, crossed with an 1980s Apple mouse, topped-off with four soft illustrative winking colourable LEDs.

Other smart speakers are available (eg Amazon Alexa, Echodot &c et cet)
View attachment 19995

But I need to speak here, on our forum, specifically, to some relatively-experienced and knowledgeable users of the Google Home Assistant service.

I've discovered (or THINK I've uncovered) a worrying aspect relating to how the system can operate. There are complex aspects of the system setup & permutations in each users' configuration that stop me from crying "foul!" too loudly. So I need some more experiential information, informed opinion and savvy perspectives (rabid speculation and false corollary can come in later, downthread)

But: I'm fairly-convinced that I've discovered my overall Google Assistant service doing something intrinsically-naughty. Very naughty, in fact. And I've accidently proven to myself (already) to a very-high standard of proof that I'm right in my suspicions.

Therefore; please: I'd ask for forum members who fit the following criteria to contribute to this thread (initially at least)

  • Users of physical Google Home Assistant or Google Home Assistant Mini, or Google Assistant smart speakers (hardware-embedded instances)
  • Users with a reasonable amount of experience in using the overall system (although the testimony of newbies is also going to be useful)
  • Users who are administering their home (or indeed perhaps even work) instances of Google Home Assistant via their Android phones or tablet computers. Users who are doing this via Apple devices (or maybe even via Windows-based personal computers) are less of a priority at present, for valid discriminatory reasons.
I have (I think) uncovered something either odd or nasty. Or both.

More explanatory exposition will follow, and, before I reveal my key evidential production in this inquiry....but I do need first a small circle of forum correspondants, because I need to be properly-challenged in all of my assumptions and (mis?)understandings. Or I need at least a couple of other contributors...

(Apologies, Forteana Forum: this may get a bit semi-technically detailed, for which I apologise. But it needs to be done: hmm....I think?)
My suggestion is to take your plastic and cloth doughnut outside and burn it with fire, then smash it with a big hammer, then bury it, bury it deep and never bring a spy bot into your house again, you've see 2001: a space oddesy right?
 
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