The other day I met up with an ex-colleague from somewhere I used to work. At one point she told me about an ultra running race called the Barklay Loops, and Jasmine Parris, the first woman to complete it. I’m not that interested in ultra running, and I’d never heard of this before. After our lunch I didn’t think any more about it, but a day or so later on my YouTube “Home” page there was a film about Jasmin and the race she completed. How does that work? There are no other ultra running suggestions, and I’ve never Googled for information about this race. Maybe I should wear a tinfoil hat, but how did this happen?
They definitely do 'listen'. Had this happen many times.
Your friend has been spending considerable time looking at stuff online about the event. Their phone and your phone were in the same location for a significant period. Google, etc. has determined you're 'friends' and is serving up content it thinks you'd enjoy because they have been interested in it.
Your friend has been spending considerable time looking at stuff online about the event. Their phone and your phone were in the same location for a significant period. Google, etc. has determined you're 'friends' and is serving up content it thinks you'd enjoy because they have been interested in it.
This.
They definitely do 'listen'. Had this happen many times.
Definitely not that.
Cougar will say no. I will say yes.
I've had a similar thing happen where, briefly, randomly, a group of us sitting in a pub talked about Charlie Brown and the Peanuts cartoons. It was a passing conversation for about five minutes, over and done. No-one Googled anything about it at the time and I can pretty much guarantee that no-one Googled anything about it afterwards.
Next day, there's Peanuts stuff in my Google feed. Uh-huh, deffo not listening.
briefly, randomly, a group of us sitting in a pub talked about Charlie Brown and the Peanuts cartoons. It was a passing conversation for about five minutes, over and done
I expect you spoke about many other things that didn't appear in any online suggestions, so why would it choose Peanuts?
Pubs and Peanuts go together.
Yeah I've had similar.
Got told on here that it's definitely not listening, but I am completely sure it is listening.
In my case it was discussing an internal database name at work which happens to share the same name as a clothing retailer (the dB has nothing to do with the retailer - I also did not do any searching for the name of the dB or retailer and pretty sure people I was discussing with didn't search either.)
The next day I get an ad for the clothing retailer....hmm.
As above though, location services can be used to proxy-spam you with stuff from people you spend significant time with.
My sister swore this was happening recently. So we sat around with our phones having a long discussion about giraffes. Have we been inundated with posts about giraffes? No.
In my case it was discussing an internal database name at work which happens to share the same name as a clothing retailer (the dB has nothing to do with the retailer - I also did not do any searching for the name of the dB or retailer and pretty sure people I was discussing with didn't search either.)
You called your database Top Shop?
How does that work?
Sort of co-incidence, but also at the same time not. If you have any sort of YouTube/Insta history, and you've watched DH race highlights, mountain-biking POV, maybe climbing or other 'outdoorsy' type stuff, then it'll serve you a video about this event. - My YouTube feed did the same thing this morning when I was idly browsing over my coffee, and I've seen clips on Insta all week. I'll bet that's also where your colleague found out about it as well.
I expect you spoke about many other things that didn't appear in any online suggestions, so why would it choose Peanuts?
It was a pub conversation so I'd imagine that most of it was incomprehensible bollocks and even AI has it's computational limits 🙂
My sister swore this was happening recently. So we sat around with our phones having a long discussion about giraffes. Have we been inundated with posts about giraffes? No.
But is anyone likely to sling you an advert in relation to giraffes? Or do giraffes have a particularly strong social media presence that needs pushing?
There's always and angle in trying to sell you stuff directly, or get you onto a platform where they can then sell you stuff.
so why would it choose Peanuts?
To promote the new Peanuts film? There isn't a "Whose round is it" film coming out 🙂
a group of us sitting in a pub talked about Charlie Brown and the Peanuts cartoons. It was a passing conversation for about five minutes, over and done. No-one Googled anything about it at the time and I can pretty much guarantee that no-one Googled anything about it afterwards.
Next day, there's Peanuts stuff in my Google feed.
the obvious answer (which you seem to have discounted for some reason in favour of tin foil hat stuff) is that one of you, inspired by the convo, did go home and Google loads of Peanuts stuff.
But is anyone likely to sling you an advert in relation to giraffes?
there are these things called zoos now 🤔
Years ago when I used to use Instagram it was 100% MTB's and racing cars for me.
Then we started watching Seinfeld every night on Netflix because we'd never seen it before. Within a few days my Instagram explore page is full of Seinfeld memes.
We did the same again, this time with the original 1960's Star Trek. Same again, Star Trek memes and Trekky accounts everywhere.
Switched off Instagram's permission to use the microphone and it stopped happening.
My sister swore this was happening recently. So we sat around with our phones having a long discussion about giraffes. Have we been inundated with posts about giraffes? No.
Probably because there aren't many companies paying to advertise Giraffe's for sale. Try the same again for Dryrobes or Rooftents or something.
Yes, that expensive smartphone you bought/leased listens to everything all the time, even when it's off. If it didn't, it couldn't hear you say "Hey Siri / Alexa" etc.
Apple say they don't eavesdrop for marketing reasons, but they allow 3rd party app to do so, so if you give permission (it's often in the details when you download it) it will listen to everything it can and use that data to tailor ads for you and collate data for anyone who wants to pay for it, for any reason.
With smartphones, and it's doesn't matter which, you are both the consumer and the product.
Here's an idea - next time try having a discussion about which tin foil is best for making hats and see what turns up on your phone.
Your friend has been spending considerable time looking at stuff online about the event. Their phone and your phone were in the same location for a significant period. Google, etc. has determined you're 'friends' and is serving up content it thinks you'd enjoy because they have been interested in it.
Most likely this, as others have said. The ability that Meta apps and others have to x-reference user locations, contacts, online history and other demographic data to predict what will get your attention next is not to be underestimated.
I turned off permissions for all apps apart from location for mapping while using the app. It means I can't just send images on whatsapp or similar without turning on permissions briefly but .. *Partridge shrug*. It's a snag that helps me think whether I could be doing something more useful or valuable like looking out of a window and watching the clouds, or talking to someone, or posting on a longer-form forum via an adblock filtered browser : )
Turning a smart phone into a mostly dumb phone with occasional ability to convert temporarily to smart is something I should have done years ago.
Cougar will say no. I will say yes.
Then you will be wrong. Obviously. HTH. 😁
It's simple, really. Let me give an example. You know all the crackpot conspiracies about the Moon landings being a hoax? We can sit around for hours debunking things like waving flags or explaining how photography works, but the crux of it all was that "the world is watching." The USSR tracked Apollo 11 (almost?) all the way to the moon - this was at the height of the Cold War remember, which was the reason Apollo existed at all. If the mission was a fake Russia would have called them out, they'd have been all over it like a tramp on hot chips. China was paying attention, every amateur astronomer in the world was transfixed, someone would have noticed. And even if by some miracle they did get away with it they'd certainly have been busted by now. As recently as five years ago, India did a drive-by of the Moon and took photos of the Apollo 11 and 12 landing sites complete with LM descent stages and (at A12) footprints.
This is the same principle. We can do a deep-dive into how it's possible that Facebook knows you were talking about Snoopy or whatever, with a sidetrack into how coincidences and confirmation bias work, but it's not necessary. Because there are very clever people actively looking for this sort of stuff. The world is still watching. It would be a career-changing find for someone to discover that Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon/Musk/Beyoncé etc is secretly listening to conversations and sending data back home, and it would be blindingly obvious with little more than a cursory glance at network traffic.
At which point, it makes no absolutely sense for them to do so. The chances of getting caught are incredibly high, the consequences would be bankruptcy levels of catastrophic. And for what? Tracking is already all over everything, never has a company been more appropriately named than Meta. Yet seemingly a company is prepared to risk everything, to collate absolutely insane volumes of data from everyone's mobile devices, dedicate compute power that would make A.I. blush to process all that voice data into something machine-understandable, in order to... suggest a video on YouTube? 👀 Pass the tinfoil when you've done.
More like some algorithms on your phones collided, had an interaction, and came up with running as being a possible interest. No effort at all to throw it out to you the next day. It would take a fair bit of effort to listen in 24hrs a day for very little reward.
I'm pretty certain that phones listen to us, following what happened last week for me.
Driving down the M6, sat-nav (using Android Auto) says to stay in the left lane and enter slip road.
On the slip road it then starts to give instructions on where to go at the roundabout, but stops halfway through and just 'beeps' once.
Mrs P says "What happened there?"
I reply "I have no idea."
"Me neither" responds the sat-nav 😱😱😱
I never use voice activated commands, Gemini or other VC AI on my phone or in the car.
More importantly, Barkley Marathons are fascinating and Jasmin Paris is an absolute superhero. Well worth reading up on both, even if you have no current interest in either.
On the slip road it then starts to give instructions on where to go at the roundabout, but stops halfway through and just 'beeps' once.
Most modern cars have a voice command / press to talk button on the steering wheel. You probably pressed it by accident.
It would be a career-changing find for someone to discover that Google/Microsoft/Apple/Amazon/Musk/Beyoncé etc is secretly listening to conversations
I'd love to go for a pint and a bag of chips with Beyoncé.
I SAID I'D LOVE TO GO FOR A PINT AND A BAG OF CHIPS WITH BEYONCÉ
Aside: Apollo photos I mentioned.
That is very cool.
im going with the "Defo do" crowd. Far too many times now friends and I have had things we've not looked at that all of a sudden become a "thing" due to something someone said. More recently -and we still hope it's coincidence, but, my organisation got a VERY clever spam email about bonuses and changes to remuneration etc -this was <12 hours after a company wide TEAMS call that was transcripted. Everything about the mail looked legit..
Theyre watching and listnening i tell thee...
Those are different things.
The Snowdon comment is talking about actively targeting individual high-value targets. The NSA is, well, the NSA, they're (cough allegedly) operating at an infrastructure level and they're not trying to advertise a Charlie Brown movie.
There is little doubt that any of this stuff is possible at a technical level. There's been plenty of instances of cheap smart devices from distant lands having serious privacy concerns, for which I would recommend googling Ken Munro. Here's a talk I was actually at, I'll remove the embed as it's somewhat NSFW:
More importantly, Barkley Marathons are fascinating and Jasmin Paris is an absolute superhero. Well worth reading up on both, even if you have no current interest in either.
Yes I did watch the film and it was quite inspirational, so some benefit to being eavesdropped by Tim Cook.
Those are different things.
The Snowdon comment is talking about actively targeting individual high-value targets. The NSA is, well, the NSA, they're (cough allegedly) operating at an infrastructure level and they're not trying to advertise a Charlie Brown movie.
There is little doubt that any of this stuff is possible at a technical level. There's been plenty of instances of cheap smart devices from distant lands having serious privacy concerns, for which I would recommend googling Ken Munro. Here's a talk I was actually at, I'll remove the embed as it's somewhat NSFW:
It's quite an interesting thing, and the technicals of it all are well beyond me. But I don't doubt our electronic devices are listening to us...
I'll go sit in my corner with my tinfoil hat on... haha!
I may be a bit of a fossil, but a week or so ago I was getting into the car to go and visit my daughter, when my phone sent a notification from Maps asking if i wanted to navigate to her address. It took me a couple of seconds to sus out that I put an entry in my phone calendar that I was going to help her decorate, and had recently saved her address from a dropped pin in my favourites folder. I was initially a bit freaked out, but then realised just how powerful this tech is. The phone had paired with the car, checked the calendar, interpreted the calendar entry with my daughter's name, associated her name with the address I'd saved and decided it could be helpful by telling me how to get there. I went from slightly freaked out to quite impressed. The only issue was that it wanted to open the iphone maps not Google maps, which I prefer!
@Cougar, your posts were excellent. Very interesting to read, thanks for taking the time to post.
@Scapegoat my "WTF" moment was heading for a flight. I'd booked the seats then received an email confirmation. Gmail added the flights to my Calendar. So far, so meh. However, when I checked my Calendar on the day, the flight time had been altered because the flight had been delayed and Google was actually tracking all that in real time.
@johnhe Aw, thank you.
@Scapegoat Yeah, the integration is pretty slick. I can use voice commands to say "navigate to Dave's" and it'll pluck Dave's address out of my Contacts list. I haven't set any of that up, but (with apologies to Paul Hibbert) It Just Works.
This may or may not be a useful tip as I don't know how common it is, but in our Seat there's a Voice button on the steering wheel. Clicking it invokes the car's own voice control which is about as whelming as you'd expect, but long-pressing diverts it straight to Android Auto (in my case, I assume Apple is the same).
My big tinfoil moment was when my (at the time) 6 month old son was playing with a toy drum beside me - shortly afterwards Facebook is giving me drum adverts. The toy came from a second hand shop as a chance purchase (ie no googling involved), and he doesn't have a phone so that rules out the sharing interests part. It was early in the morning, so there had been no correspondence regarding said drum and, iirc, no correspondence on the matter had ever happened. If anyone wants to give me a sensible reason for the adverts appearing then I'd be happy to see it
Even if we assume you are indeed being spied on, going from a 6-month old ****ting things with sticks to advertising drum kits is a flight of fantasy.
Sensible reason 1: your partner googled it.
Sensible reason 2: coincidences happen and they are highly memorable because they're startling. How many times has your kid been playing with things and that hasn't happened?
Cougar is wrong
I have well random conversations all the time about stuff that exists only in my head and has never been physically entered anywhere online by myself or anyone I know. Conversations which have often taken place absolutely nowhere near any other device at all. Content on insta/til tok can be scarily accurately relevant to the pish I've been talking about.
It's not a coincidence. I don't have a partner and no one else I know randomly googles random things I've not yet said to them.
Our phones 100% do listen to us. But I for one couldn't care less
Sorry, are you saying you talk to yourself or that they're reading your thoughts?
Sorry, are you saying you talk to yourself or that they're reading your thoughts?
Brings a new meaning to “I think………. therefore I receive an Amazon delivery”
Don't be sorry for not comprehending basic written text. Many adults struggle.
Be sorry for being a relentless overbearing know it all bore forcefully and repetitively pushing your own personal views across as fact with rudeness and arrogance.
I genuinely didn't know what you were talking about.
But, y'know, you do you if you want to take that tack.
Well, that’s the most bizarre coincidence yet. I’ve just read a few of the last posts and this popped up in my feed…..
Back to my earlier comment, bearing in mind I have to physically go out of my way to hit the talk button on the centre of my quite old car's steering wheel, occasionally (once or twice a month) while listening to podcasts when driving my phone will respond to something said in the podcast as if it had been asked a question. This happens most often with The Rest Is History for some reason.
My phone is in the central console, plugged into Android Auto, my hands on the top half of the wheel, nowhere near any of the phone controls.
It is definitely listening.
My Missus hasn´t twigged just how terrible FaceBook is still and keeps exclaiming her suprise when some ad turns up in her feed for something she only mentioned in passing within earshot of her rectangle of distractions.
I´ve given up mansplaining just how Marky Mark Zuckalicious is mining her online activities for his own nefarious purposes, and I´d rather not explain all the ways Palantir could (and one day probably will) destroy her life. Perhaps ignorance really is bliss...
My phone is in the central console, plugged into Android Auto, my hands on the top half of the wheel, nowhere near any of the phone controls.
It is definitely listening.
Yes it's listening all the time for the trigger phase for whatever assistant your phone has. That's not what this thread is about.
If you really wish to find out if your phone/Alexa/google is listening to you then discuss ways of knocking off Zuckerberg/Theil/Andreessen/Karp/Musk and every other tech w-anchor, let us know if you eventually get a knock at the door
Don't be sorry for not comprehending basic written text. Many adults struggle.
Be sorry for being a relentless overbearing know it all bore forcefully and repetitively pushing your own personal views across as fact with rudeness and arrogance.
cougar actually knows a lot about this stuff
pushing your own personal views across as fact
This.
Unless anyone here actually has access to the codebase or design documentation of all the various apps
and/or wants to go and trawl through all of the ts and cs when you install the app and are asked to consent
And/or have 3rd party research into open sourced apps that proves it....
then this is all just speculation and personal observations. That applies to everyone posting here (including me)
Regarding the OPs Barkley Marathons example - this year’s event took place at the weekend. Many other people will have been searching for it, which means Google are more likely to suggest it to everyone, especially those who have an interest in outdoorsy stuff.
The tech companies know a lot about us and are pretty good a predicting what we and our friends are into. But there’s a confirmation bias here - probably hundreds of other topics will have been shown to you that didn’t match what you’ve been talking about. The Barkley marathons thing was a good, but lucky guess - many other guesses were made that didn’t chime with you
you could also not use Google. Use secure(ish) browsers and refuse cookies. I get very few adverts and no targetted ones
cougar actually knows a lot about this stuff
No. That's the thing. He really doesn't. He just has very strong opinions and likes to try and sound as if he knows more about certain subjects than others. Attempting to belittle anyone sharing their own personal experience if it doesn't align with his opinion. Even when he himself has no personal experience. Really isn't cool.
I'd doubt whether he has ever even used tiktok. Nevermind ever been a regular user. But he will no doubt still have an overbearing opinion of the platform.
A forum bore of the highest order.
Beg to differ. there is a huge differnce between extrapolating from a large knowledge base to an opinion plucked from the depth f the internet
This.I have people who work with me who have access to a lot of it. As alluded to up there, the 3rd party apps are the scary bits. Pretty much the wild west unless you lock the access/permissions down at device level.Unless anyone here actually has access to the codebase or design documentation of all the various apps
and/or wants to go and trawl through all of the ts and cs when you install the app and are asked to consent
And/or have 3rd party research into open sourced apps that proves it....
then this is all just speculation and personal observations. That applies to everyone posting here (including me)
Google, Alexa, Siri do not listen except for the trigger phrase, or anything that has the same sound as the trigger phrase. I can't call my kids one of their pet names as it sounds too much like "Hey Google". I also spent about 2 years working on the integration of Android Automotive, every time someone said the word "Google" on an audio call, the google nest in my office woke up...
I’m with Cougar
When i read up on this there are 2 simple repeatable experiments you can perform on this.
They both envolve setting up 2 identical phones in the same way.
Experiment one
One phone was left in a room for 24 hours with a taped conversation about cats playing. The other wasn’t. They then checked both phones for cat and pet adverts. No difference
The other involves one phone in a room with voices and the other and one in a quite environment and comparing the data upload rates. Again no difference
If a journalist could, in a weekend, could prove Apple was listening they would have a scoop
At my wedding i invited 2 female guests. They had both attended the same cambridge college for the same three years without meeting (that’s quite hard to do). They both loved horses. They both arrived with their rock climbing boy friends. They were both wearing dresses made from silk bought from the same shop in Kathmandu.
Brings a new meaning to “I think………. therefore I receive an Amazon delivery”
Be sorry for being a relentless overbearing know it all bore forcefully and repetitively pushing your own personal views across as fact with rudeness and arrogance.
Sez a free member, who’s only been on here for 18 months and has posted 156 times. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen any of your posts, but judging by the ones here, I haven’t missed much, you come across as an opinionated jackass who knows little about anything, unlike Cougar, whose background is very much in the areas we’re talking about.
Get back to us, son, when you’ve got an education.
Just to cheer you all up and round up some threads, more humans have been to the moon than have completed the Barkley Marathons
... if you believe what "they" all tell you
Get back to us, son, when you’ve got an education.
Patronising comment of the year award goes to........but you do have 33752 posts (swoon....) and I see you are a full member so perhaps we should only listen and read posts from such illuminati
No. That's the thing. He really doesn't. He just has very strong opinions and likes to try and sound as if he knows more about certain subjects than others. Attempting to belittle anyone sharing their own personal experience if it doesn't align with his opinion. Even when he himself has no personal experience. Really isn't cool.
I'd doubt whether he has ever even used tiktok. Nevermind ever been a regular user. But he will no doubt still have an overbearing opinion of the platform.
A forum bore of the highest order.
You say that like I'm wrong. 😁
I tend to be abrupt, I'll give you that. But when I don't know something for sure I do at least try to remember to say so. But there's only so many caveats and disclaimers I can add to every post and for some evidently it's still not enough.
On this particular topic though I do have a high degree of confidence given that I used to do it for a living.
Oh, and,
You're right, I've never been on TikTok, other than following the occasional link posted by others. I don't have an opinion on it - or rather, I don't have an informed opinion on it - because how could I on something I don't use? If you've been here long enough to form such an opinion of me then you'll see that I regularly push back on people running their mouth off about things they gave up being interested in 10-20 years ago.
My ill-informed opinion is that I've yet to see any short-form video service that makes me think "yeah, I want some of that" regardless of platform. The format seems to me to be a magnet for clickbait nonsense including on YouTube and I watch YouTube a lot. Again, I've spent a good degree of time arguing about content control vs delivery medium (which ultimately bit me on the arse when it comes to Twitter).
Quite what relevance that has to anything here I cannot fathom.
I'm not listening to you Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Going back to the OP, if no one has yet said it, that film is worth watching.
Anyway, we were told this week by IT at work that we must turn off smart speakers when working from home due to a risk of them picking up confidential information. All mine will pick up is a regular chant of "For ****s sake"
We are waiting for IT to confirm if this risk extends to work issued smart phones
I could wear it whilst drinking tea from my “If you think I’m awesome now wait until you see my speadsheet mug”
Pubs and Peanuts go together.
Just dont eat the ones free at the bar.
Not everyone washes their hands after visiting the toilet.
Going back to the OP, if no one has yet said it, that film is worth watching
Yes I watched it. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg or whoever suggested it.
All mine will pick up is a regular chant of "For ****s sake"
🤣🤣🤣🤣 likewise
At the same time is your workplace encouraging the ‘use’ of ‘AI’ - LLMs?
I await the point where some leakage from ‘secure’ LLM instances to the general pool is identified.
I’m disappointed, I only seem to get the shit version of targeted advertising where when I buy something, ‘they’ bomb me with adverts and content for another one of that thing for weeks after.
.
Anyway, we were told this week by IT at work that we must turn off smart speakers when working from home due to a risk of them picking up confidential information.
Yes we had that before I finished working, a colleague reported alexa or something picking up on a phone call she was having, we also had not being allowed to take some Chinese made vehicles to certain sites.
I was served up the berklay marathon video earlier this evening BEFORE reading this thread.
Anyone else had the same recomendation?
This will probably sound a bit tinfiol hatty, but tthe way things are ggoing it looks like business or some large conglomerates are poised to take over completely.
Information is the new gold. Your information, your friends, family, what they do, what they buy, what they want.
You enter any site these days and the whole cookie thing is not just a cookie to keep you linked to a site for ease of navigation, but now a case of you are signing up for them to create what they are calling a wallet.
Basically a file all about you, and as above everyone you've ever known.
Nobody really reads the t+c's though while for example the daily mail might say in their t+c's that you can opt out, or they dont information gather, you can bet your last quid that those 300 'trusted parties' certainly do.
The next bit is a little scary.
Reform are a company, and they want to run the country like a company,with them as CEO, and its not just reform, but even more so in the US.
Business is set to control your life. If you are ill or disabled, then the computer says no
We seem to be rapidly moving back towards the feudal system, but instead of kings, lords, barons etc, it will be some faceless company managers deciding whether you are a bad investment or not.
In the US, their medical system means some 1/4 of a million Americans go bankrupt each year because they cannot afford the costs to get better, and in many cases people are just sent home to die of whatever ails them, because they are no longer a safe investment.
Maybe we should take a leaf out of Putins book and start throwing unruly oligarchs out of high windows 🤣
This will probably sound a bit tinfiol hatty, but tthe way things are ggoing it looks like business or some large conglomerates are poised to take over completely.
Not at all, from birth to death we are sold out
Unless you live like my mates on 5 acres of Galloway scrub/hillside who live entirely off the grid.
As for your cookies?, if I can’t opt out entirely, including from the hidden vendor options - yes you stw - then I don’t bother with the website at all
Anyway, we were told this week by IT at work that we must turn off smart speakers when working from home due to a risk of them picking up confidential information. All mine will pick up is a regular chant of "For ****s sake"This is more dependent on the third party apps you have installed. Or saying something that has the same sound as the trigger phrase. As i've said before, working *with* android implementations and directly with google, the number of times my nest has woken up during a conference call is ridiculous. Until i moved it into another room!We are waiting for IT to confirm if this risk extends to work issued smart phones
At the same time is your workplace encouraging the ‘use’ of ‘AI’ - LLMs?
I await the point where some leakage from ‘secure’ LLM instances to the general pool is identified.
Because our corner of the workplace deals with sensitive R&D matters, we are only supposed to use the limited, internal only and fully secure version of CoPilot.
Because I am also distrustful of even that, I do my work the old fashioned way.