You never know who’s listening
Two people are always listening, Siri and Alexa. I decided for me, the luxury they bring is greater than them possibly eavesdropping, but then again I am not planning a murder.
There are many conspiracies about how our tech devices are always watching and listening, which is startling because they are. The most terrifying idea is that if they are sharing. The conversations we have, the camera feed from our laptops, everything that our devices see could potentially not be private.
For example, recently Apple had a little bug in an app that was a huge problem. The FaceTime app allowed someone to call, then get declined, but still see and hear through the other persons phone without their knowledge or consent. So if some creep who won’t leave you alone facetimed you but you declined he could have still watched and heard what was going on, whether you were just flipping through Instagram or getting changed.
Anyone could have used this eavesdropping bug even if they didn’t know a thing about technology or hacking.
The crazy thing about this bug is Apple didn’t discover it, a tech genus didn’t even figured it out, a 14-year-old boy discovered the bug and reported it. This situation is similar to webcam hacking.
Webcam hacking has been going on for years. People hack into cameras on devices and watch what is going on through their camera without that persons consent. Have you seen the hundreds of laptops with sticky notes covering the camera. They even sell slidable webcam covers all over the place.
Recently, I was chatting with a friend and we were wondering how old Donald Trump was. This was an open conversations in front of our phones. So I picked up my phone and typed in how… then the very first suggestion that popped up was “how old is Donald Trump?” Now he is the president I get it many people might be wondering the same thing, but right above the suggestion it said “siri knowledge”. We looked it up on a different device that wasn’t listening and it took all the way to the “how old is D” for google to suggest it. The same has happened many of times with other things. I could be talking about a food or a piece of clothes and then it ends up in my ads on Instagram. Let me tell you, they are always listening and remembering.
Ok now if we take technology and the capabilities it has and look at it in a positive light, this stuff is great. The convenience of your phone “reading your mind” by knowing what you are going to ask before you ask it. Or having your coffee order ready and suggested. Maybe even ordering something you can’t stop talking about but don’t have the time to actually order it. Oh and now your device knows you even better. But the scary part of all this is not how well our technology knows us, it is that technology is only technology. It is man made which means man knows how to outsmart it and collect all that sacred information we so freely gave to our devices.
According to an article by Vice, our devices are listening to us. An expert even says that all this is legal. Our devices don’t listen and record unless there is a trigger word like “hey siri” or “hello google”. BUT, our different applications are listening too. Instead of having specific trigger words, these applications have many different UNKNOWN trigger words. All the information is received in code so discovering exactly what this trigger words are is very difficult. The article also talks about the government like the FBI or CIA does have rights to the recorded information. This might only be detrimental to you if you are a journalist or a lawyer dealing with sensitive information. If not this information is only being used for finding ads to fit you. So they are listening.
Now on a creepy level, hacking is so common and generally so easy. One can find a youtube video to learn how to hack. Hacking is what I fear most. I don’t fear it because I hold top secret information, or because I am planning some attack the FBI should watch me on, I fear it because it is my private life. The fights I get into with guys, how I have a meeting with my councilor on Wednesday or the bikini pictures on my phone. I especially don’t want hackers looking into how I act when I am alone, when I change or when I sing and dance in my room. All of that is my private life and no I do not share everything on Instagram or Snapchat or even with my closest friends because it is private. So then why would I want a stranger coming into my private life.
Technology is so good and I love it so much. Every night I lay in bed with the lights still on. When I am ready, I say “Alexa turn the lights off” and she does. I say, “Alexa shuffle my playlist on Spotify” and she pays immediately. I then tell her to magically start playing out of a speaker that is across the room, one that she is not even connected to, and she does. When the music is too loud or too soft I say, “Alexa raise or lower the volume”. Then I tell her to set a sleep timer, and she goes off right after singing me to sleep. She literally does everything for me from the comfort of my bed. The fear of getting hacked doesn’t scare me enough to not have the luxuries my devices bring, but it does make me more cautious. I put my towel over my phone camera when I take a shower and I close my laptop every time I change, because you never know who is watching.
I think that in order to make technology consumers feel more comfortable with their devices they need to show us the evidence. They need to stop creeping us out by randomly listening to us when we say certain trigger words and having them pop up. They need to tell us what we said to make them show us the ads. They also need to be very transparent in how to disable those things. If you want to record a video of your cute dog to post on facebook and you allow the microphone to be used you allow it for your dog barking AND for them to eavesdrop. They need to make our privacy first priority and make sure that we are aware as to what we have allowed and what everything includes.
In conclusion, they are listening… everyone, Facebook people, the CIA, 52-year-old creeps, everyone. I’m ok with it because it makes my life easier, except for the creep, and I guess this is the future.
