Eh, I dunno. I remember making exactly those points 20 years ago, but I think it’s pretty feasible now. There are open source NNs that look like they can do this locally on mediocre phones. And if the output is garbage quality, that’s ok, it just has to be good enough to sell some ads. I think it’s largely feasible, although I’m sure it’s inflated by startups looking to impress clients and investors.
Feel free to Wireshark your smart devices and confirm what I’ve said yourself. The most efficient way to do this is the pixels that already exist on almost every site.
On-device NNs use insane amounts of processing, even on “high-end” phones. You would notice if there was a always-on NN running on your device, this is also something you can try for yourself.
And what exactly am I looking for in wireshark? A few KB of encrypted text data occasionally sent to who-knows-where? Mixed in among a flood of other tracking bullshit and general wasteful bloat? Yeah lemme go check real quick.
Computationally, we’ve had low-quallity speech to text on home PCs for like 30 years, and we’ve had OK-quality NN implementations for like 15 years. Yes it would be a bit wasteful, but a trimmed-down NN could easily hide among the general bloat of modern software.
Yes it would be kind of a clunky and impractical way to collect data compared to other methods, but it’s definitely plausible that an adtech startup could hack together a semi-functional version of this and then slap it in a slide deck. It would let them say “AI” more times during their pitch.
You can filter by device. Leave your suspect device connected to your network for a few days, filter by destination and review. Also keep an eye on CPU usage.
If your devices have a ton of random outgoing network requests you’re already being tracked in a myriad of other ways and need to lock your shit down.
I’ve done this before, there’s not as much network bloat as you might think.
it sounds like you have enough knowledge to know it’s almost impossible for an individual to assert it absolutely 100% isn’t happening.
imo if you make an honest effort to break the technical problem down you will arrive at a different conclusion - or in the very least not be nearly so bold as to allow this to be an emotional peeve.
consider forgetting the propaganda the media has subjected you to, and most importantly forget whether you do or don’t want it to be true. approach the problem from a purely technical perspective while considering these companies can hire hundreds of very smart people from a variety of subdisciplines. recall these companies have virtually bottomless greed and almost exactly 0 morals.
The Internet and smartphones are not mystical devices.
Whether they’re mystical or not is an entirely different conversation ;p
This is something you can independently confirm yourself very easily…
you are vastly understating how non-trivial this task is. or you are allowing your emotional desires to cloud your technical analysis.
teams of experts put in months at a time to assess only a fraction of the required scope. these experts are putting in so much time while admitting they couldn’t achieve full coverage despite having financial backing & well trained teams. it’s reasonably unlikely so many experts would dedicate so much time & resources if its such an easy thing to independently confirm.
if Camdat and ganymede were sitting with one of their nontechnical friends, and their friend says “hey my stock smart device which i only use with facebook and a few things seemed like it eavesdropped on my voice about <common product/brand>”. and they swear they didn’t reveal it via some other channel etc. blah blah we’ve all heard it many times.
if you, Camdat listed all the reasons why the same phenomena can likely be attributed to a variety of other surveillance and correlation methods, some of which are arguably at least as scary. i would likely agree with every single thing you said.
imo its wiser to leave it at that, rather than making the assertion its absolutely not happening, or getting frustrated with them for even wondering.
Eh, I dunno. I remember making exactly those points 20 years ago, but I think it’s pretty feasible now. There are open source NNs that look like they can do this locally on mediocre phones. And if the output is garbage quality, that’s ok, it just has to be good enough to sell some ads. I think it’s largely feasible, although I’m sure it’s inflated by startups looking to impress clients and investors.
Feel free to Wireshark your smart devices and confirm what I’ve said yourself. The most efficient way to do this is the pixels that already exist on almost every site.
On-device NNs use insane amounts of processing, even on “high-end” phones. You would notice if there was a always-on NN running on your device, this is also something you can try for yourself.
And what exactly am I looking for in wireshark? A few KB of encrypted text data occasionally sent to who-knows-where? Mixed in among a flood of other tracking bullshit and general wasteful bloat? Yeah lemme go check real quick.
Computationally, we’ve had low-quallity speech to text on home PCs for like 30 years, and we’ve had OK-quality NN implementations for like 15 years. Yes it would be a bit wasteful, but a trimmed-down NN could easily hide among the general bloat of modern software.
Yes it would be kind of a clunky and impractical way to collect data compared to other methods, but it’s definitely plausible that an adtech startup could hack together a semi-functional version of this and then slap it in a slide deck. It would let them say “AI” more times during their pitch.
You can filter by device. Leave your suspect device connected to your network for a few days, filter by destination and review. Also keep an eye on CPU usage.
If your devices have a ton of random outgoing network requests you’re already being tracked in a myriad of other ways and need to lock your shit down.
I’ve done this before, there’s not as much network bloat as you might think.
it sounds like you have enough knowledge to know it’s almost impossible for an individual to assert it absolutely 100% isn’t happening.
imo if you make an honest effort to break the technical problem down you will arrive at a different conclusion - or in the very least not be nearly so bold as to allow this to be an emotional peeve.
consider forgetting the propaganda the media has subjected you to, and most importantly forget whether you do or don’t want it to be true. approach the problem from a purely technical perspective while considering these companies can hire hundreds of very smart people from a variety of subdisciplines. recall these companies have virtually bottomless greed and almost exactly 0 morals.
The Internet and smartphones are not mystical devices. This is something you can independently confirm yourself very easily.
I have the knowledge necessary to say this 100% does not occur on devices that I own.
Whether they’re mystical or not is an entirely different conversation ;p
you are vastly understating how non-trivial this task is. or you are allowing your emotional desires to cloud your technical analysis.
teams of experts put in months at a time to assess only a fraction of the required scope. these experts are putting in so much time while admitting they couldn’t achieve full coverage despite having financial backing & well trained teams. it’s reasonably unlikely so many experts would dedicate so much time & resources if its such an easy thing to independently confirm.
if Camdat and ganymede were sitting with one of their nontechnical friends, and their friend says “hey my stock smart device which i only use with facebook and a few things seemed like it eavesdropped on my voice about <common product/brand>”. and they swear they didn’t reveal it via some other channel etc. blah blah we’ve all heard it many times.
if you, Camdat listed all the reasons why the same phenomena can likely be attributed to a variety of other surveillance and correlation methods, some of which are arguably at least as scary. i would likely agree with every single thing you said.
imo its wiser to leave it at that, rather than making the assertion its absolutely not happening, or getting frustrated with them for even wondering.
Your posts in this thread have been very helpful! thank you!