9
Our phones DO listen to our voices 24x7
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2024
9 points (53.1% liked)
Privacy
32492 readers
365 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
First off, if you're concerned about phone privacy, consider a custom OS for your phone that respects privacy such as GrapheneOS.
It's easy to figure out that your device isn't listening to a constant audio stream 24/7, since that would drain battery and send a lot of noticeable data over the network. However, it is entirely possible to listen for certain keywords as you mentioned, and send them encrypted with another seemingly legitimate packet. There's no way to be 100% certain, but it is possible in theory without draining too much battery.
The steps you took are good, making sure that apps don't have any permissions they don't need. Privacy is a spectrum, so it's not "all or nothing". As I mentioned before, if you're seriously concerned about mobile privacy and want a solution, you can get a custom operating system that can remove any privacy invasive elements. GrapheneOS also allows you to disable the camera and microphone system-wide (although this functionality is present on some other Android builds).
If it eases you any, a lot of these advertisements happen to be coincidence and trigger confirmation bias. It could be that those ads happened to show up by coincidence, or that advertisers managed predicted your interests, or that you got tracked by some other means while downloading the movie. The possibilities are nearly endless.
You should install Rethink and see how much garbage your phone constantly transmits and receives. And this is not even a kernel-level firewall, so who knows how much data Google actually exfiltrates...
I don't know about a constant audio stream, nor about keywords, but I noticed that Google Keyboard sends out some data every time you type anything. It's not even that subtle.
If anything, I love GrapheneOS for its "Network" permission toggle. It's nice knowing that my keyboard (or any other unnecessary apps) can't phone home.
GrapheneOS is certainly on my wishlist too, but Pixels are quite pricey. I guess Rethink is the poor man's version. Just a per-app firewall.
Maybe Divest/Lineage could be an option instead. Although you have to choose a device wisely (and even among supported ones, some have trouble unlocking the bootloader), there is a chance you'd find a suitable cheaper one.
Personally no regrets spending $300 on a Pixel 7a but still painful to hand over this much.