Funny Story True Story

General Privacy & Security
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A colleague at work told me a funny story about his use of a Google box. This box works like Alexa. You set the Google box somewhere in the room and when you say “hey Google”, it says something like “yes, how can I help you?”.

This coworker explained that they keep this box turned off most of the time because they value their privacy. Then one day after this coworker had turned the Google box off, he said “hey Google”. The box responded by saying something like “I can’t respond to you until you turn me on again”.

So damn! The thing listens to you all of the time, even when it is turned off. It just listens quietly after you turn it off. They definitely need some kill switches. I thought this story was funny because this coworker really didn’t know that the box was always listening over a period of several months, even after he turned it off. I can’t decide if I were in his place, whether to get angry or whether to be rolling on the floor laughing. Either way, it would be time for the sledge hammer.

Anyone else here have a similar story?

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When keeping a Trojan Horse in one’s house, one should tether it to a power strip that has an “Off” switch.

(And definitely run Pi-hole on one’s home network.)

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Also funny is how an iphone apparently shows some kind of indicator when the microphone is on, except what it really means is that the operating system has given mic access to some app. The mic is really always on regardless of any indicator, Apple is always listening and on some level everybody knows this since they can say “Siri” and it hears them.

It’s like Apple has convinced its users that it’s okay to have Apple itself integrated into everything you do and that Apple listens to everything, Apple sees everything, Apple knows everything about you, and what they mean by “privacy” is that Apple supposedly protects the user from all the dangerous apps. I’d like to tell them that Apple itself is much more dangerous than the apps. Apple has a ridiculous amount of control and power over its users.

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8 posts were split to a new topic: Can a Google phone ever be private?

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… not keep a Trojan Horse in one’s house !

I can’t imagine a situation where you would

a) care about privacy, and
b) keep one of these boxes in your house.

If you have to keep it hard-powered-off in order to meet your privacy needs then I wonder how much benefit you are getting from the box and whether it makes sense to spend any dollars buying the box in the first place.

As a hypothetical, if I won such a box as a prize, I think my best option would be to sell it in new condition and at least get some dollars for it.

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I would not participate in those giveaways/raffles/sweepstakes to begin with, and/or refuse to accept the prize, as I cannot justify selling or donating such a product to someone else.

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Google may indeed be hiding some secrets in the hardware: Google sues Indian employee over alleged leaks • The Register
:rofl:
(I’m only half joking here.)

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Unfortunately LinkedIn has an authwall that is difficult to circumvent, so I am unable to verify this “Microsoft OneDrive link containing Google secrets” or any other LinkedIn post for that matter.

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I wouldn’t visit that site intentionally, anyway.

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It seems Outline works against LinkedIn at the moment, so here is a screenshot of the post containing the Microsoft OneDrive link:

Screenshot 2024-11-28 at 14-53-56 Harshit Roy on LinkedIn Microsoft OneDrive
Screenshot 2024-11-28 at 14-53-56 Harshit Roy on LinkedIn Microsoft OneDrive1920×932 116 KB

Unfortunately the link itself does not work.

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Ah well, fair perspective, but not everyone cares about privacy. If they are going to buy a Trojan Box anyway, why not buy it from me? :wink:

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The Trojan Box has an Australian plug instead of a US plug.

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One of my co-workers (RIP) was once a supervisor at linkedin. It was an office joke that if one of them wanted a private conversation with another, one of them would point at the wall clock. It was a signal they should go to the parking lot.

The wall clock was an indicator it was listening and watching you.

(This would have been 10 to 15 years ago, when linkedin was a bit younger.)

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I guess it wouldn’t be too difficult to open the box, drill a small hole in the case, mount a slider switch to the inside of the case with the slider or toggle pointing out, and then wire one side of the power to the unit through the new switch. That way, “OFF” really means off.

I can already hear the unit screaming in self defence as you perform this operation saying “Help me, help me, You can’t do this. This violates your terms of service. You know that Google is going to find out about this”.

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Or simply unplug the device.

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I think this story is to be considered much worse than just this funny discovery that a Google box would listen to you even while pretending to be off.
I recognize here a new and worrisome symptom of the wrongdoing surveillance capitalism does to people’s perception of what privacy is in the age of ubiquitous surveillance. Because recently, there have been growing concerns among the population, so the new angle of attack for Bigtech is now to persuade people that they are indeed privacy-respecting champs! In other words privacy-washing campains. And obviously,it works, that’s what this story tells us:

Here is the confusion being instilled in our minds: Yes, you can buy me, because I respect your privacy and look: I have implemented an off state so that you can feel confortable that you can have a private conversation in your private living-room inside your private home!
And on Apple’s side: look! Inside our ecosystem we offer you the best privacy you can get (that is: from all other data-mongering monsters out there - but we can continue to spy on your every move for our own benefit…)
And now even Mozilla Firefox: Oh! Look: we want to monetize you, but don’t you worry, it’s our new Privacy-respecting-add-system so your privacy is safe and as a matter of fact, we are the flagship of privacy-respecting browsers…

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I agree. I wouldn’l let that box in to my house.

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Indeed! But you are on this forum. You are educated to the concept. You care about privacy and you have an expertise about this particular subject.
But my point is that the regular layman would easily fall to the trap and invite such privacy-invading device into their most private area, being convinced that their privacy is being duly respected - what a scam!

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Yes. In the past, there was a time when I used an Android phone. At some point when I was a more naive younger person, it did an automatic update to provide the “Hey Google” feature and pestered me to turn it on. As I recall, I had it turned on for a time, but began to feel an oppressive sense that Google was evil for some reason (as a result of the events in my life and the things that I learned). So, then there was a time that I decided to turn this feature off. After turning it off, maybe a half day or a day or so later, I held up the phone and said, “Hey Google, you’re turned off, right?”

In response, the Android screen lit up and said, I kid you not, “We hear you saying ‘Hey Google,’ would you like to turn the feature back on?”

So, a few years later, now I live in a world where:
(1) I am forced to use a Microsoft-written app for my job in order to log in
(2) The app is only available for “Android and iOS”
(3) This app cannot be used on Windows computers, despite TPM bollocks or supposed Windows 11 Android emulation or any other bollocks. There was a Windows version in the past according to some notes online, but Microsoft destroyed it and shut it down
(4) This app cannot be used on “Apple Silicon” despite the supposed capability of Apple Silicon bollocks to run iOS apps

Now, for my job, a company using almost entirely Linux was bought by a company using other things. Whether I have a Windows or Mac laptop provided by my job, the laptop is unable to log in. People tell me, “hey, man, look just get an Android and keep it in a drawer for when you need to log in.” But I would have to log in every day, so I would have to take that thing with me everywhere I go. [Also, it is absolutely laughable that Microsoft says the only secure way to log in is to not use Microsoft’s operating system, although I doubt anyone HERE needs convincing of that.]

To be honest, I am at a point where I am almost unable to conceive of why society was constructed in this manner other than for the purpose of creating a technology prison where I must always be in the presence of an always-on microphone. Porting the algorithm for a secure login to run on desktop computers is not difficult. I cannot conceive of a reason this would be difficult. The Android version of the app is written in Java. Java has its roots as a language built to run on any desktop platform.

There is only one answer that makes sense, if we assume the apathy of the IT/security staff where I work and that they are just doing what they are told - and that is that the people at the top telling IT/security what to do have a very solid interest in building a society where everyone has an always-on microphone within earshot. I did an experiment one time and I ran a microphone from the back room I sometimes visit in at a friend’s house, then we had conversions far away in the main living social room. The microphone audio, when later digitally modified to boost the quiet/distant recording, was very much sufficient to determine the words of what was being said. It’s not even difficult to just run an “Amplify” function on a sound wave file.

So it really only takes breaking the will of one person, in one room, per household. It’s so easy.

Edit/PS:

But it’s not funny. It’s not a joke. It’s morally wrong for anyone who wants to live in a free society. I say that knowing full well that with each of my key strokes, I exist in a space with at least 3 nearby Microsoft Windows computers, at least 3 nearby iOS devices, possibly at least 1 nearby Android device, at least 3 and maybe 4 nearby Apple Macintosh devices, and gosh knows what else. They probably can hear each key stroke. Maybe they can map each key sound distance to its location. But I’m using my Librem 14 as it sits on top of the closed lid of some other laptop from one of the oligarchy companies, like putting my butt on top of the staring eyeballs of George Orwell’s villains. Because I don’t control other people and so I can’t make the villains go away - but at this brief moment in history I was still allowed to sit here and call them villains - so I imagined I might as well, for my own amusement, even if I have already lost.

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The Villains will surely hang you for saying this; when they reach full power and rule society. Or do they already? Maybe yes, but they don’t have permission to physically harm you yet (although they already have permission to psychologically harm you…)

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