Conspiracy Theory Confirmed: Researcher Shows How Phones Show Ads Based on Conversations It Hears

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Conspiracy Theory Confirmed: Researcher Shows How Phones Show Ads Based on Conversations It Hears
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<p>For years, smartphone users have been growing increasingly suspicious &nbsp;that their devices are listening to them to feed them advertisements &nbsp;and to “enhance their experience” on third-party apps. Companies like &nbsp;Google and Facebook have consistently denied these claims, saying that &nbsp;targeted ads and messages are merely a coincidence, and that data for &nbsp;these services are taken in other ways.&nbsp;</p>
<p>However, earlier this year during the Cambridge Analytica scandal we &nbsp;began to see some of the first hints that our phones may actually be &nbsp;listening to us. Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie says that they have probably been listening all along. During an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5g6IJm7YJQ">appearance</a> before the UK parliament, Wylie said, <em>“There’s &nbsp;audio that could be useful just in terms of, are you in an office &nbsp;environment, are you outside, are you watching TV, what are you doing &nbsp;right now?”</em>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Since the scandal, experts who have studied this possibility began revealing their surprising results. In a recent <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/wjbzzy/your-phone-is-listening-and-its-not-paranoia?utm_campaign=global&amp;utm_source=vicefbanz">interview</a> &nbsp;with Vice, Dr. Peter Hannay, the senior security consultant for the &nbsp;cybersecurity firm Asterisk, explained how third-party apps exploit a &nbsp;loophole to gather the voice data from your phone.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Hannay said that while your microphone is always on, your voice data &nbsp;is only sent out to other parties if you say specific trigger words such &nbsp;as “Hey Siri” or “OK Google,” but there is a catch. Third-party apps &nbsp;often ask to gain access to voice data in their user agreements to &nbsp;“enhance the experience” of their products.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>“From time to time, snippets of audio do go back to [other apps &nbsp;like Facebook’s] servers but there’s no official understanding what the &nbsp;triggers for that are. Whether it’s timing or location-based or usage of &nbsp;certain functions, [apps] are certainly pulling those microphone &nbsp;permissions and using those periodically. All the internals of the &nbsp;applications send this data in encrypted form, so it’s very difficult to &nbsp;define the exact trigger,”</em> Hannay said.&nbsp;</p>
<p>While this process is becoming more obvious by the day, many tech &nbsp;companies continue to deny that they are engaged with this practice, and &nbsp;since all of the outgoing information is encrypted there is no way of &nbsp;telling exactly which information they are getting and how they are &nbsp;using it.&nbsp;</p>
<p><em>“Seeing Google are open about it, I would personally assume the &nbsp;other companies are doing the same.&nbsp;Really, there’s no reason they &nbsp;wouldn’t be. It makes good sense from a marketing standpoint, and their &nbsp;end-user agreements and the law both allow it, so I would assume they’re &nbsp;doing it, but there’s no way to be sure.”</em> Hannay said.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Vice reporters then conducted their own experiment, saying random &nbsp;phrases into their phones and then seeing advertisements affiliated with &nbsp;those terms pop up in their news feeds. You can try this experiment at &nbsp;home yourself, and it is highly likely that you have experienced results &nbsp;like this by accident.&nbsp;</p>
<p>In April, I experienced something like this when a friend visited my &nbsp;house from the west coast. I picked him up from the Baltimore-Washington &nbsp;airport and during a conversation about his flight, he told me that he &nbsp;had a layover in Charlotte, North Carolina, and mentioned that they had a &nbsp;nice airport. The following morning I woke up with these messages on my phone:&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="https://thefreethoughtproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/30728937_10214929177856799_3425081887862484038_n.jpg"/></p>
<p>&nbsp;Oddly enough, I &nbsp;have never been to Charlotte, North Carolina, never really thought &nbsp;about the place, and have never typed anything about that place into &nbsp;Google or Facebook. But sure enough, after having a conversation about &nbsp;the airport in Charlotte, my phone thought I was interested.&nbsp;</p>
<p>As of right now, there is no way to avoid this spying, aside from &nbsp;being extremely careful about the apps that you sign up for, and &nbsp;actually reading their user agreements—or getting rid of your cell phone &nbsp;altogether, which could be counterproductive if you use it for &nbsp;business.&nbsp;</p>
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