Anything for pancakes

found on eBaum's World

We give out our passwords for candy bars so why not give up our privacy for pancakes, right?

I don't know about you, but that doesn't really sound like a fair trade to me. Maybe it's just because I already know how to make my own pancakes.

Zuckerberg laughed on his private island where no one could hear him

found on Izismile

Are your devices listening? Yes, especially if there is any voice assistance technology in them, because it's almost certainly not in them but rather in the cloud where real humans also listen in for training purposes.

Try not to scare the shit out of the robber

found on Imgur

I know what you're thinking - Why shouldn't you scare the shit out of the robber? The answer is quite simple. Robot vacuums and shit are a very bad combination

The Internet Of Awkward

attribution withheld for the sake of privacy

I'm sure this was mortifying when it happened, and I'm sure it's happened to more than just this one person. It's bad enough to learn that those devices are always listening and that actual people have been listening to the recordings, but to having it call your father in the middle of an intimate moment.

And just think, the advice to keep these devices out of the bedroom may not help if you're really loud.

Breaking Into a Smart Home With A Laser - Smarter Every Day

Watch on YouTube

This demonstration is great for a couple of reasons. It demonstrates a complex security vulnerability in a way that ordinary people can connect with, but it's also careful not to hype up the threat and gives some solid recommendations on countermeasures.

Maybe we should ask Alexa

from here

The number of things they're sticking Alexa into is getting a bit creepy, if you ask me.

I guess other people must find it creepy too, since there's now a proposal to label everything that has mics or cameras in them.

You might want to keep them out of your bedroom

from here

This is something that probably bears repeating A LOT. Those smart speakers and smart phones and smart watches and other devices that obey your commands aren't simply computers, there are also people listening in to help the computers improve. All the major brands (Amazon's Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple's Siri) of digital assistants are made of people, at least in part.

And honestly "Digital assistants are made of people" seems like it could make a pretty good catch phrase.

You've just been Alexized

from here and here

Do you understand the (lack of) privacy rights as I have read them to you?

Alexa is always listening and Amazon keeps the recordings forever. How free do you feel now?

I figure if pervasive surveillance is like imprisonment then there should be an analog to the Miranda rights that get read to who are arrested and about to be imprisoned.

Oh, it's not a secret, it's just "undisclosed"

from here

As surveillance capitalism becomes more and more obvious, the application of old malware tricks in supposedly legit products becomes more and more apparent. No one would buy those eavesdropping IoT devices if they knew about the eavesdropping - which is the same basic approach trojan horse programs take (you wouldn't run it if you knew what it actually did instead or in addition to it's advertised behaviour).

And because no one would buy those eavesdropping IoT devices if they knew about it, technology vendors have to protect their ability to keep that sort of things secret. They're fighting for the right to turn their products into trojan horses.