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Hm. I'm not as convinced as @simon that phones aren't spying on users through their microphone inputs, but at minimum I definitely think that the companies trivially *could*. https://lobste.rs/s/zkboyo/i_still_don_t_think_companies_serve_you_ads#c_82n0i8
Also having had enough conversations with @profdiggity about the horrors of spying on phones their research lab has uncovered I definitely think this kind of thing is highly possible.
@cwebber @simon I'm biased because I've the exact same main reference for this than Simon (the Reply All podcast episode from back in the days), but I find the more plausible explanation to be way more shocking than the theory of active listening. Advertisers, in all likelihood, don't even *need* to listen to us. And that's horrifying. (But yes, they could if it were cost effective to do so. It probably isn't.)
@zacchiro @simon I agree enough in that I think users tend to feed such companies so much information already that they probably don't have to. But the many avenues of information being fed might not be understood by all users; microphones are one that's clear and straightforward.
I think if anything, we should be raising the profile of just how much people *are* being spied upon, rather than dismiss a concern that's plausible but unknown. That seems more important to me personally.
@simon @cwebber @zacchiro Yeah, this is very much true. There are a *very* small number of people for whom "my phone is listening to what I say" is a reasonable threat model, and those folks already know who they are. For everyone else it's just a combination of fantastically bad statistical understanding and a depressingly deep (and, unfortunately, earned) distrust of complex systems and the orgs that run them.
@wordshaper @simon @zacchiro Glad we generally agree there. Though in general, I do think phones today *are* dystopian surveilance machines, whether or not they use the microphone for it. I would still like to see phone OS directions that don't resemble the user freedom nightmare that users have become accustomed to.
The particular reason I pushed back on the "technical feasibility" part of your post though: it could also mis-teach readers that the NSA, domestic spy apps, etc aren't spying
@cwebber @simon @zacchiro This is one of those spots where it's kinda funny to see people's utterly weird threat modeling in action.
Them: "Oh, no, that app may be tracking me!"
Me: "My good dude, your phone is literally registering your location every seven seconds with the cell network and you posted "how to bomb" on Reddit. Wordle maybe having your location data is the least of your issues"
@wordshaper @cwebber @zacchiro elsewhere someone asked me why Mark Zuckerberg unplugs his microphone, and I replied that he is a legitimate target of state-level attackers with access to zero day vulnerabilities
@zacchiro @cwebber @simon Yeah, the actuality of "Your phone isn't listening to you; it's tracking where you are physically at all times, correlates who you spend time with, and has a large number of your purchases tracked via third party aggregates from credit card companies and the like". Your friend just bought a fancy new Oral-B toothbrush, and they come over to your house and tell you about it? You'd have gotten the same advertisement whether they told you about it or not.
@zacchiro @cwebber @simon None of this requires the technical elements of your phone listening to you. "Don't worry, It's way worse than you think" isn't reassuring, but is important to note: even if you destroyed the microphone in your phone, you're still part of a surveillence capitalism panopticon that would See All!