Poll: Xbone, kinect and privacy issues.

[Requia]

Given the current clusterfuck that is US rule of law, I would not be at all surprised if one of the secret courts issued an order for MS to use the Kinect to spy on a small group of people or individual. Broad base spying isn't practical though, it'd be *very* obvious to computer security professionals if the kinect was spying on them personally.

 

[Tanakh]

Only that kind of espionage is factually hard to discover and even harder to prove. Dozens of companies get away with stuff like this not to mention governments (which use said companies), MS is just taking it to the next level.

No, it's not "hard to discover" at all. You have access to the all the hardware and to each bit of data it downloads or uploads, discovering an undisclosed spying feature would just be a matter of time and a bit of effort.

That is why every big company that does sell metadata and do targeted adds does it on the open. Care to produce one of your dozens of examples? Because I don't think you can find even one company that has done "stuff like this" (ie. spying illegally and selling that data) because it's just not worth it, people will accept to give most of their data willingly if you ask the right way. So either the xbox will tell you about it or won't just do it, the other way is too risky to MS opening itself to massive lawsuit.

 

[faefrost]

Microsoft using the Kinect to spy on people is some conspiracy theory level bullshit.

Besides, couldn't the camera be defeated by a strategically placed blob of blu-tack?

Kind of an awesome idea though. Somewhere out there a spy agency is kicking themselves for not thinking of it earlier.

Not so much. Will MS be using it to "Spy" on people? To watch you wander the house in your underwear? To watch you in some perverse creepy manner? No probably not. But the Kinect is designed to watch your reactions to things. But clear and intentional, such as speech, or subtle emotional such as heart rate. It can track your eye movement and see the exact spot you are watching on screen. And look at MS's huge push away from "gaming" focus and towards the device as an entertainment centerpiece. (TV!) This is a hardware setup that looks like it was designed by and for the advertising world. It is a marketing metadata mill. An ad mans wet dream. Given MS's somewhat creepy patents of recent years (Sony's too), anyone who thinks that they do not fully realize this about their new system is deluded. This thing is designed to measure what you are watching, what you like and what you respond to on screen. Occam's Razor applies. It's the simplest cleanest explanation for the features, the requirements and the change in system focus.

Sorta like google? Most search engines? This website?

It seems to me people have relatively skewed fears. A persons whole google search history is more informative than how their heart beats when playing generic console game X.

I would be more concerned about the number of people who dont know why their passport since 2010ish has a rather large hard spot in the centre of it but alas Xbox is more important. Sorta like EA is the worst company.

Also when quoting him you negated a major aspect of what he asked. Could one not place something infront of said receiver? It would be like a grip for the controller and you could buy it an a fancy floral pattern or as a God of War symbol and suddenly OMNIPOTENT watcher is a paper weight.

One would have thought the nsa would use something more reliable like pfft monitoring internet communications, cell phones that never truly turn off, social media websites....

The major difference is Google is not doing a random survey of your environment. It is only able to track things that you very specifically enter into its services. The ability to watch you, your family and the room you sit in takes what Google does to a whole new level. (Granted Google is seeking to go there as well with the horrific Google Glass.)

 

[Xisin]

I think our, as a community, only option is to have incredibly freaky sexy time in front of the Kinect everyday. If I were to get an Xbone, which I'm not, that would be my strategy.

 

[faefrost]

I would be surprised if they didn't data mine it and sell that info to advertisers. Still it's the fact that the kinect is just plain shit that makes me not want it.

Alot of people have brought up privacy issues with kinect seeing how the Xbone won't work without it pluged in with even it's "off" mode is just a sleep mode which Microsoft has confirmed the voice reconition feature still works (ie the mic works too) and the whole prism thing. Now people have made the argument that nobody is going to sit through billions of hours of footage of nothing and only if they have a reason to look at you specifically, but here's the thing they don't have too.

Kinect is capable of reading bio-metrics and voice/facial recognition, what that means is kinect can do the bulk of the spying without humans ever watching or listening to anything. Personally I think it will be used to gather market data which will be then sold off to third parties more then anything government related but the possibilities as I see them are like this: Program kinect to listen for key words like ps4, pepsi, cola ect. and follow up words like plan to buy, hate, great ect. or even program it to start recording for a bit and save it to a partitioned space in the harddrive then send it to MS when the console next goes online and have someone filter through the remainder (still a lot of work but it just became logistically possible) or with the bio-metrics use it to gauge the effectiveness of ads either in the tv features or dashboard/xbl ads and use that data to make ads more effective.

Now some people might not see this as a problem since most of that information isn't personal in the least, to those who don't have a problem with it I have one question, why are you paying more for kinect to be MSes lab rat? They should pay you as a focus tester or something if they are going to do this not the other way around.

Ill bite since you say no one is reading your first post.

Firstly you are using improper wording. The kinect is a input device which does as stated. The software on the xbox itself does the actual processing of the data the kinect records. IE its software ie all they really needed was a sophisticated enough camera to get detailed imagery.

I also ask is not the current kinect capable of all that you state?( microphone wise as the higher resolution capture is only in the xbox1 version)?

Also I also quoted state law. which requires ALL party consent with written or recorded consent. It is not hard at all to monitor what data leaves your internet connection. Ofcourse other companies have done things like this and continue to do really, but what makes this so special?

You also dont take into account in your theory European privacy laws which are much more stringent. The EU is not afraid to punish Microsoft as they have shown numerous times. Heck Google has had a erase all data order in 24 hours limit placed on it in the last week.

Go back and look at those state laws and European Privacy laws. I think in most cases you will find that a service that you willfully subscribe to or choose to participate in may use your customer data to market to you and "improve their services to you". The Kinect will not be streaming video and voice recordings of you off into the night. What it will be doing is internally building Metadata on your "usage habits" in watching TV etc, and sending this Metadata back to the service provider MS. MS will then use said Metadata to market stuff to you. Even in Europe you get those things from Amazon and Netflix 'Because you liked this, we think you might like this" right? Well this is that to a much higher order of magnitude. MS can then sell targeted ad space on their services and command a much higher buy in than traditional marketing, because it is focused right at you. (Expect ads for cheap booze, cheap hookers and Iluvalpacas.com)

At least Google maintains the fiction of trading you something worthwhile for this degree of targeted scrutiny. Free Search Engine and Email services etc. In the case of MS you will be paying them $100 for a device you do not need, which brings no functional or practical benefit for you,a nd instead flips you from being the customer to the product being sold.

 

[doomed89]

No, it's not "hard to discover" at all. You have access to the all the hardware and to each bit of data it downloads or uploads, discovering an undisclosed spying feature would just be a matter of time and a bit of effort.

That is why every big company that does sell metadata and do targeted adds does it on the open. Care to produce one of your dozens of examples? Because I don't think you can find even one company that has done "stuff like this" (ie. spying illegally and selling that data) because it's just not worth it, people will accept to give most of their data willingly if you ask the right way. So either the xbox will tell you about it or won't just do it, the other way is too risky to MS opening itself to massive lawsuit.

Microsoft with everything else. Data-mining is something almost all companies do and yes it is a form of spying kinect just takes it to a different level and the fact that you aren't aware of any of this proves it is hard to discover and even harder to prove, unless you want to provide a source of a company getting caught doing it and getting punished for it.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

And there is a difference between prison and jail.

There is? Could you elaborate on that, please?

Jail is where the police hold you in custody after being arrested. Prison is where you go after being convicted and sentenced.

Not necessarily. Jails are short term holding, prisons are long term. But you can go to jail post sentence if its a short one, and you can go to prison while on trial if you don't make bail.

Ah fair enough.

 

[Arakasi]

I did, and it changes nothing. Microsoft may be stupid but they aren't that stupid.

Then you didn't understand it because it wouldn't even come close to using up your internet and it would be nearly impossible to tell if it was spying on you and how would using kinect to spy and gather market data be stupid?

Because it would violate their own privacy policies, many laws across many countries, and what they told the press. They'd have to be pretty fucking stupid to try it.

 

[Tanakh]

-snip-

No offence, but I would need a link to a reliable source to believe you about almost all companies spying and selling data illegally brah. I think you are confusing legal and user approved database building with spying.

Because it would violate their own privacy policies, many laws across many countries, and what they told the press. They'd have to be pretty fucking stupid to try it.

Worst of all, it would cost them way more in sues and rep that what they would gain. But paranoia is a human reflex, even though most of it is quite irrational.

 

[doomed89]

Because it would violate their own privacy policies, many laws across many countries, and what they told the press. They'd have to be pretty fucking stupid to try it.

No it wouldn't not legally, they can word things to get around them pretty easy, and they already do it with other devices as do dozens of other companies those laws don't protect people there are so many loop holes and the law lags so far behind technology is pathetic.

-snip-

No offence, but I would need a link to a reliable source to believe you about almost all companies spying and selling data illegally brah. I think you are confusing legal and user approved database building with spying.

Because it would violate their own privacy policies, many laws across many countries, and what they told the press. They'd have to be pretty fucking stupid to try it.

Worst of all, it would cost them way more in sues and rep that what they would gain. But paranoia is a human reflex, even though most of it is quite irrational.

Where did I say illegal? And data mining approve by hiding it in the TOS is spying. Again show me one company who has used a product they sold to gather information on people who got in major trouble for it? Why do you think kinect will be any different? The only difference with kinect is it's better at spying. Also tons of companies do it illegally too and almost never get caught and even when they do nobody cares and it's buried, where do you think all the spyware comes from? Seriously open your freaking eyes.

 

[doomed89]

Oh yeah I remember hearing something about kinects eye tracking automatically pausing if you look away, and I just realized they are probably planing to use that in ads and make it impossible to disable so you physically have to watch the commercials.

 

[Relnik]

Alot of people have brought up privacy issues with kinect seeing how the Xbone won't work without it pluged in with even it's "off" mode is just a sleep mode which Microsoft has confirmed the voice reconition feature still works (ie the mic works too) and the whole prism thing. Now people have made the argument that nobody is going to sit through billions of hours of footage of nothing and only if they have a reason to look at you specifically, but here's the thing they don't have too.

Kinect is capable of reading bio-metrics and voice/facial recognition, what that means is kinect can do the bulk of the spying without humans ever watching or listening to anything. Personally I think it will be used to gather market data which will be then sold off to third parties more then anything government related but the possibilities as I see them are like this: Program kinect to listen for key words like ps4, pepsi, cola ect. and follow up words like plan to buy, hate, great ect. or even program it to start recording for a bit and save it to a partitioned space in the harddrive then send it to MS when the console next goes online and have someone filter through the remainder (still a lot of work but it just became logistically possible) or with the bio-metrics use it to gauge the effectiveness of ads either in the tv features or dashboard/xbl ads and use that data to make ads more effective.

Now some people might not see this as a problem since most of that information isn't personal in the least, to those who don't have a problem with it I have one question, why are you paying more for kinect to be MSes lab rat? They should pay you as a focus tester or something if they are going to do this not the other way around.

here is a genius idea unplug it when you arent playing games its not like the damn thing has a battery

 

[theuprising]

Anyone worried about the Kinect yet are fine with the cameras on their phones and laptops have just gone full retard. And that's a whole lot of people.

 

[doomed89]

here is a genius idea unplug it when you arent playing games its not like the damn thing has a battery

They still have access to everything you do while you are using your xbox. Better idea don't buy one.

 

[Bellvedere]

No, I think the whole thing is ridiculous, and if it's not then it's already a lost cause.

Kinect is not the only device to be always on and connected to the internet. Any mobile/home phone can record audio and is generally always connected to a cellular network, it is with many people much more than a home console would be, and most people will use it to communicate or have it with them when communicating with others. MS has a phone OS, and Apple/Samsung/Nokia/Google/your telcos are hardly more morally virtuous than MS. If they were going to do it with kinnect, then there's much better ways they could already be doing it.

At any rate in order to disclose any gathered information to marketing (third party), they would need to inform the user they were doing so and have them agree to it in the ToS or a license agreement.

 

[doomed89]

No, I think the whole thing is ridiculous, and if it's not then it's already a lost cause.

Kinect is not the only device to be always on and connected to the internet. Any mobile/home phone can record audio and is generally always connected to a cellular network, it is with many people much more than a home console would be, and most people will use it to communicate or have it with them when communicating with others. MS has a phone OS, and Apple/Samsung/Nokia/Google/your telcos are hardly more morally virtuous than MS. If they were going to do it with kinnect, then there's much better ways they could already be doing it.

At any rate in order to disclose any gathered information to marketing (third party), they would need to inform the user they were doing so and have them agree to it in the ToS or a license agreement.

Kinect is the only device with built in voice recognition through it's own processor, access to a storage device and built with a closed system that has access to the internet. Phones don't have voice recognition built in, they are mainly made on 3rd party hardware and go through several carries even if they are on a single plan if they roam or something they enter another carrier and constantly uploading data through a phone would be extremely pricey for whoever is paying the bill and you'd get billions of hours of pocket shots and dead noise which you'd have to filter through by hand. So how exactly is a phone a better device for it? Not to mention there are far more laws involving phone taps then anything console or kinect related and like I already pointed out they can hide stuff in the TOS and word it vague and with kinect they don't even technically have to record you because of it's voice recognition feature.

 

[Arcade Hero X]

Personally I would be more put off with the idea that the kinect watches what I'm wearing, eating or talking about and then putting advertisements up on my dashboard. The kind of thing that happens on your PC where it throws ad's and pop ups about things relevant to what you searched.

Do not get me wrong this is pure speculation and have no reason to believe it is or possibly could do this but its not completely outside the realms of possibility.

 

[doomed89]

Personally I would be more put off with the idea that the kinect watches what I'm wearing, eating or talking about and then putting advertisements up on my dashboard. The kind of thing that happens on your PC where it throws ad's and pop ups about things relevant to what you searched.

Do not get me wrong this is pure speculation and have no reason to believe it is or possibly could do this but its not completely outside the realms of possibility.

Well there's no reason it couldn't scan for logo's on your clothes. Most people don't eat most of their meals in-front of a game system so that won't happen and I've already mention how kinect can be programmed to listen into conversations and listen for key words then either be programmed to listen for follow up words or start recording and pass it along to MS. Also another loop-hole I just thought of, kinect could be programmed to write down everything that you are saying in a document or whatever and send that to MS so they get the conversation without having to deal with recorded without permission laws. It's also faster to read through something then to listen to it.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I am not sure what they are using kinnect for probably as much as they think they can get away with, but I would be very surprised if it actually enhanced the gaming performance any.

Most people dont want kinnect or dont care about it at least everyone I have spoke to anyway. Microsoft should just get rid of it then drop the price of the console to under 300 pounds and make online play free.

 

[Arcade Hero X]

@doomed89

Yeah that was the kind of thing I was talking about, I mean they already have the patents for tech to tell how many people are in the room and they have face recognition so a static brand logo recognition wouldn't be that much of a stretch for them to incorporate.

Personally I feel like this is the direction modern marketing is going to take but I don't have to like it.