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Whistleblower says Apple is violating privacy

I just wish they would hold off on listening to me until a time where their robots could understand the data.

For now it's just spying and nothing in my life is improved through automation or recommendations.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
lol.. this is about the fact Apple has people review SIRI recordings right?

That's how all voice based software works; human beings have to go over recordings to massage the machine learning datasets so they can improve voice/sentence/etc. recognition.

That whistleblower basically shut down an entire contracting agency, good stuff.
 
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Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
It's from people activating siri and not realizing it or a sound nearby that causes Siri to activate. From all the total siri conversations, about 1% of them are reviewed at random by real people. The one problem with Apple is that you can't completely opt out.

ALWAYS LISTENING is some thumbnail scare monger BS. It's "always listening", but it is just listening for "Hey SIri" but it isn't always listening and recording your conversations all the time. If you really don't like this you have the option of turning Siri off.
 
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IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
It's from people activating siri and not realizing it or a sound nearby that causes Siri to activate. From all the total siri conversations, about 1% of them are reviewed at random by real people. The one problem with Apple is that you can't completely opt out.

Always listening is some thumbnail scare monger BS. He can say he's right that legally it is "always listening", but it is just listening for "Hey SIri" but it isn't always listening and recording your conversations all the time.
They added opt out last year I thought?

And it's opt-out by default now.

edit: Yeah just checked, never touched the setting and I'm opted out. I also have "Hey Siri" turned off.. which IIRC you also have to turn on.
 
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poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
We have had this for every company that uses voice recognition. It's the equivilent of freaking out that you can butt dial someone.
 

Nester99

Member
It's from people activating siri and not realizing it or a sound nearby that causes Siri to activate. From all the total siri conversations, about 1% of them are reviewed at random by real people. The one problem with Apple is that you can't completely opt out.

ALWAYS LISTENING is some thumbnail scare monger BS. It's "always listening", but it is just listening for "Hey SIri" but it isn't always listening and recording your conversations all the time. If you really don't like this you have the option of turning Siri off.


Imagine the staff you would need to be "always listening" to the over 1 Billion iPhone users.
Imagine the process to actual collect, organize and store that data......
 

Zenaku

Member
Imagine the staff you would need to be "always listening" to the over 1 Billion iPhone users.
Imagine the process to actual collect, organize and store that data......
Why would you need people to sift through the data when you already have a system in place that can identify specific keywords in speech, and flag up the conversation for review?

Siri could easily send any conversation that mentions "bomb", "maga" or "wuflu" if it were programmed in that way. Whether or not Siri, Alexa or the like have that capability I doubt their parent companies intend for its use, as getting caught would cost them everything, but people are stupid and such a system would get abused if it existed.

Short of Apple and Amazon releasing source code we'll never be 100% sure how our data is handled.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Why would you need people to sift through the data when you already have a system in place that can identify specific keywords in speech, and flag up the conversation for review?

Siri could easily send any conversation that mentions "bomb", "maga" or "wuflu" if it were programmed in that way. Whether or not Siri, Alexa or the like have that capability I doubt their parent companies intend for its use, as getting caught would cost them everything, but people are stupid and such a system would get abused if it existed.

Short of Apple and Amazon releasing source code we'll never be 100% sure how our data is handled.

You are completely misunderstanding the purpose of the recordings and people listening to them.

- It's a random sampling of recordings crowd sourced from millions of people with different accents, speech patterns, etc.
- The recording is sent for review, along with what Siri THOUGHT was being said
- A human listens, and verifies whether Siri got it right or wrong
- This data is then fed back into the system to improve accuracy (the machine learning algorithm now has another data point to consider)

That's HOW the system that understands speech is built and improved over time. The computer is always just guessing, and doesn't KNOW if it got it right, hence why a human has to verify it. But once it's told it's right, the machine learning model takes into account that data to improve it's guesses.

Eventually once you have enough data points there is less of a need to sample data, but without these massive crowd sourced samples voice recognition software was never very good.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
Any apple staff that is forced to listen to the private shit i do prolly has PTSD by now 🤣
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Apple is the most privacy friendly company around. I actually work for a company that is daily snooping on 300M business employees, and the kind of shit we have to do to get around Apple’s safeguards is a lot of effort, but worth it since most business people use iPhones.
With Android you have no privacy whatsoever unless you use some non-Chrome browser that is hardcore on privacy.


I° don't know about Apple, but Discord is totally true and you can test it whenever you want.

It’s not on Discord’s DNA to sell your data. I interviewed for them a while ago and got a look at their roadmap. Nothing in there was about selling your data or spying on it. I have some great friends at the company. They make their money off Nitro, and are happy just growing their user base atm.
 
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Zenaku

Member
You are completely misunderstanding the purpose of the recordings and people listening to them.

- It's a random sampling of recordings crowd sourced from millions of people with different accents, speech patterns, etc.
- The recording is sent for review, along with what Siri THOUGHT was being said
- A human listens, and verifies whether Siri got it right or wrong
- This data is then fed back into the system to improve accuracy (the machine learning algorithm now has another data point to consider)

That's HOW the system that understands speech is built and improved over time. The computer is always just guessing, and doesn't KNOW if it got it right, hence why a human has to verify it. But once it's told it's right, the machine learning model takes into account that data to improve it's guesses.

Eventually once you have enough data points there is less of a need to sample data, but without these massive crowd sourced samples voice recognition software was never very good.
I know how the system works, and what the intent behind it is. I was saying that the system could be programmed to send audio that contains specific words, if they wanted to.

I don't believe the systems are set up like that though, as they would be abused if they were, but people will be paranoid regardless.
 

thief183

Member
Apple is the most privacy friendly company around. I actually work for a company that is daily snooping on 300M business employees, and the kind of shit we have to do to get around Apple’s safeguards is a lot of effort, but worth it since most business people use iPhones.
With Android you have no privacy whatsoever unless you use some non-Chrome browser that is hardcore on privacy.




It’s not on Discord’s DNA to sell your data. I interviewed for them a while ago and got a look at their roadmap. Nothing in there was about selling your data or spying on it. I have some great friends at the company. They make their money off Nitro, and are happy just growing their user base atm.

I had to flash my phone with a "without google rom" and I'm using Duck duck go browser on my phone.

About Discord, Ilike it and use it on any game I play but we did a test talking about fake vaginas for a while and the day after facebook was trying to sell me fake vaginas.... I obviusely deleted facebook (really deleted cause in Europe you can ask for a total cancellation of your profile, after the Huge class action a couple of years ago).
As I said, I use discord, but they should check TeamSpeack and add some of the good stuff from there. (for example the ability to use different button to "push to talk" to different ppl in the same room)
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
I had to flash my phone with a "without google rom" and I'm using Duck duck go browser on my phone.

About Discord, Ilike it and use it on any game I play but we did a test talking about fake vaginas for a while and the day after facebook was trying to sell me fake vaginas.... I obviusely deleted facebook (really deleted cause in Europe you can ask for a total cancellation of your profile, after the Huge class action a couple of years ago).
As I said, I use discord, but they should check TeamSpeack and add some of the good stuff from there. (for example the ability to use different button to "push to talk" to different ppl in the same room)
That’s how look alike targeting works. The fact you got ads for flesh lights right after you spoke about them on Discord is not a coincidence, but it has nothing to do with Discord. We, people doing ad-tech, look at your online behavioral patterns from multiple data points to identify what products you are most interested in for the sake of advertising. If most flesh light customers browse the web at 3am, are found on x, y, and z sites, and you exhibited the same pattern, then you will get the same ads.
Basically the idea was already in your mind. The model knows you better than you know yourself in some cases.
 
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jts

...hate me...
Ceiling_Cat_by_SleepySnitter.jpg
 

mortal

Banned
People have pretty much become indifferent about the value of their privacy and personal data.
If people really gave a shit, the patriot act wouldn't have passed with such little backlash, and the nanny state of the UK wouldn't be tolerated.
 
Cool they have enough staff and opt in customers to train such ML and AI models. It does not have to be on by default for the masses at all.

There is huge data mining and insights from mass recordings beyond just training these systems, the companies know it too.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Cool they have enough staff and opt in customers to train such ML and AI models. It does not have to be on by default for the masses at all.

There is huge data mining and insights from mass recordings beyond just training these systems, the companies know it too.

It’s been off by default since last August.
 
F

Foamy

Unconfirmed Member
Well yeah..... the company has had gay CEO's forever. They're the biggest gossip queens on the planet. Of course they're going to eavesdrop.
 

Super Mario

Banned
It's funny to hear people talk about "privacy" then proceed to use credit cards, cell phones, internet, and social media. Even posting about their personal lives, photos, etc. What does "privacy" even mean? That your data goes no where? That's funny if you think Apple was basically a paper shredder of your info because their marketing department told you about their "privacy". Jokes aside, people actually think the employees are actually watching them, and that they give a shit about your life.
 

Mistake

Member
It's funny to hear people talk about "privacy" then proceed to use credit cards, cell phones, internet, and social media. Even posting about their personal lives, photos, etc. What does "privacy" even mean? That your data goes no where? That's funny if you think Apple was basically a paper shredder of your info because their marketing department told you about their "privacy". Jokes aside, people actually think the employees are actually watching them, and that they give a shit about your life.
people just keep signing away their freedoms because it’s buried under fine print they can’t be bothered to read, or pushed through policies using “fear” or “safety” as an excuse. On one hand you’re right, what does privacy mean, and who cares? On the other hand, you have these things being used in malicious ways like China does. Social credit, preventing people from traveling, using profiles, tracking, etc. Some of which did start in the US, if you talk to people in credit bureaus or other financial institutions, you’d see how this can affect your life and even deny you finance you’d otherwise have a right to.

I always found it funny how I come from a family that will argue over two cents, but now I’m kind of glad I did.
 
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haxan7

Banned
There’s a ‘watching pussy’ joke in there, but I’ll be damned if I can come up with one.
Ceiling pussy is a sadist and can only experience pleasure from knowing that by staying in the ceiling it’s depriving others of pleasure. Hehe
 
F

Foamy

Unconfirmed Member
I remember reading 20 years ago about how we would be tracked and bombarded with targeted ads. There's huge money in it for whomever gathers the information on each individual habits and preferences.
 
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