Samsung Warning Over ‘Listening’ TV

 Information, Political  Comments Off on Samsung Warning Over ‘Listening’ TV
Feb 092015
 

Big brother marches on!

Samsung is warning that personal or sensitive information could be captured by a Smart TV and shared with Samsung or third parties.

Samsung Warning Over 'Listening' TV

Samsung is warning customers to avoid discussing personal information in front of their smart television set.

The warning applies to TV viewers who control their Samsung Smart TV using its voice activation feature.

Such TV sets ‘listen’ to every conversation held in front of them and may share any details they hear with Samsung or third parties, it said.

Privacy campaigners said the technology smacked of the telescreens, in George Orwell’s 1984, which spied on citizens.

Data sharing

The warning came to light via a story in online news magazine the Daily Beast which published an excerpt of a section of Samsung’s privacy policy for its net-connected Smart TV sets.

The policy explains that the TV set will be listening to people in the same room to try to spot when commands are issued. It goes on to warn: “If your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party.”

Corynne McSherry, an intellectual property lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) which campaigns on digital rights issues, told the Daily Beast that the third party was probably the company providing speech-to-text conversion for Samsung.

She added: “If I were the customer, I might like to know who that third party was, and I’d definitely like to know whether my words were being transmitted in a secure form.”

Soon after, an activist for the EFF circulated the policy statement on Twitter comparing it to George Orwell’s description of the telescreens in his novel 1984 that listen to what people say in their homes.

In response to the widespread sharing of its policy statement, Samsung has issued a statement to clarify how voice activation works.

It said the privacy policy was an attempt to be transparent with owners in order to help them make informed choices about whether to use some features on its Smart TV sets, adding that it took consumer privacy “very seriously”.

Samsung said: “If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search. At that time, the voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV.”

It added that it did not retain voice data or sell the audio being captured. Smart-TV owners would always know if voice activation was turned on because a microphone icon would be visible on the screen, it said.

The third-party handling the translation from speech to text has not been named.

Samsung is not the first maker of a smart, net-connected TV to run into problems with the data the set collects. In late 2013, a UK IT consultant found his LG TV was gathering information about his viewing habits.

Publicity about the issue led LG to create a software update which ensured data collection was turned off for those who did not want to share information.

Source…

 

Joke Of The Day: Who’s Dog Is Better

 Jokes  Comments Off on Joke Of The Day: Who’s Dog Is Better
Jan 142015
 
Rubber Chicken Four men were bragging about how smart their dogs were. One was an engineer, the second man was an accountant, the third was a chemist, and the fourth was a government worker.

To show off, the engineer called to his dog, “T-Square” do your stuff!”

T-Square trotted over to a desk, took out some paper and a pen and promptly drew a square, circle and triangle.

Everyone agreed that was pretty smart.

But, the accountant said his dog could do better. He called to his dog and said, “Spreadsheet, do your stuff.”

Spreadsheet went into the kitchen and returned with a dozen cookies. He then divided them into 4 equal piles of 3 cookies each.

Everyone agreed that was good.

But the chemist said his dog could do better.

He called to his dog and said, “Measure, do your stuff.”

Measure got up, walked over to the fridge, took out a quart of milk, got a 10 oz. glass from the cup-board and poured exactly 8 oz. without spilling a drop.

Everyone agreed that was pretty impressive.

The three men turned to the government worker and said, “What can your dog do?”

The government worker called to his dog and said, “Coffee Break, do your stuff.”

Coffee Break jumped to his feet, ate the cookies, drank the milk, took a crap on the paper, had sex with the other three dogs, claimed he injured his back while doing so, filed a grievance report for unsafe working conditions, put in for worker’s compensation and then went home for the rest of the day on sick leave.

They ALL agreed, that dog was brilliant!

 

 

 Older Entries  Newer Entries