Amazon sharing your internet without consent

Don't bother

From 1st January 2021, the Unifi Video NVR will no longer be offered or supported, More specifically: No software or hardware revisions will be released, including for web UI and mobile applications.Dec 15, 2020

If I am not mistaken the NVR is their local only hardware box.

I do not think they have discontinued the Unifi Video Linux server software package. Probably only a matter of time though.

Turns out you are right.

I've been super busy over the last two years and just haven't been able to keep up with the news.

They are discontinuing the entire Unifi Video ecosystem in favor of their newer cloud based and dedicated hardware Unifi Protect product line.

That is profoundly stupid. Don't they realize that the ONLY reason so many of their customers bought their products is because they could run them on their own hardware? What's next, removing the ability to use Unifi AP's with your own local server? It's like they are morphing into Meraki, and in the process trying to kill their own business.

I still have some unifi cameras in unopened boxes I was planning on using to expand my network. Looks like I am going to ahve to sell or trash all my Unifi stuff and start over, if there even is an alternative out there these days. This really pisses me off. I have spent quite a bit of money on their camera hardware which is suddenly completely useless to me.

Looks like a software package called Blue Iris can read video streams from the Unifi cameras, so all is not lost, but it requires a $69 license, and will only run on Windows, which is a problem for my environment. ZoneMinder might be another option, but from everything I ahve read it is very poorly documented and really difficult to set up...
 
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I would know it real quick if they were. That’s why I have stuff that monitors the traffic in and out. Lol
Ah yes, you're able to decrypt otherwise impossible to decrypt packets.


Kinda funny to see all the corp apologists here. "ThEY wOnT dO aNyThInG Bad"
Every other day all big tech is accused of collecting the crap you turned off. Recently google was caught collecting your location data on your phone even if you have it off.
https://www.gizmochina.com/2021/06/...-locations-after-location-sharing-turned-off/

If you want to give up and say "ITS GREAT", Suit yourselves but please don't try to convince other people that you know what non-open source encrypted traffic streams are collecting about you.

Not everyone wants to have TB's of data collected about them that never gets deleted as we go forward in time. Nobody knows how it can be used against you; and it already is.

In America, it's more profitable for companies to collect data illegally and apologize if someone finds out since the fine never outweighs the cost of your data. If it isn't open source, you should assume the worst.

So much for being [H]ard, this sounds like (S)oft
 
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It would remain a secret unless someone was willing to get sued for violating an NDA. I suppose the details could always end up being leaked quasi-anonymously on the dark web, but then it would just be the stuff of tin foil hats and overpriced water filters, amiright?
Not if it was as extensive as claimed. People violate NDAs to leak the next MacBook, do you really think they'd keep quiet for something that would shake up the entire tech world and practically beg for some kind official action, even if it's just for optics?
 
Ah yes, you're able to decrypt otherwise impossible to decrypt packets.


Kinda funny to see all the corp apologists here. "ThEY wOnT dO aNyThInG Bad"
Every other day all big tech is accused of collecting the crap you turned off. Recently google was caught collecting your location data on your phone even if you have it off.
https://www.gizmochina.com/2021/06/...-locations-after-location-sharing-turned-off/

If you want to give up and say "ITS GREAT", Suit yourselves but please don't try to convince other people that you know what non-open source encrypted traffic streams are collecting about you.

Not everyone wants to have TB's of data collected about them that never gets deleted as we go forward in time. Nobody knows how it can be used against you; and it already is.

In America, it's more profitable for companies to collect data illegally and apologize if someone finds out since the fine never outweighs the cost of your data.

So much for being [H]ard, this sounds like (S)oft
Neither I nor NIZMOZ are apologists. You're attacking a straw man.

Of course Amazon, Google and others do nasty things. But if you want to claim they're always recording, you still have to prove it. The claim doesn't become true through sheer force of will.

You'd think that a forum full of techies would prefer to operate based on evidence rather than hunches and gut feelings, but apparently that goes out the window when you really, really want an excuse to portray them as evil incarnate.
 
That is profoundly stupid. Don't they realize that the ONLY reason so many of their customers bought their products is because they could run them on their own hardware?
If they're like other companies that had cloud and local systems and decided to get rid of the latter, they just don't care. They think they'll make more money with the cloud and they're willing to throw away the other, in spite of the fact that it will lose them customers.
 
Neither I nor NIZMOZ are apologists. You're attacking a straw man.

Of course Amazon, Google and others do nasty things. But if you want to claim they're always recording, you still have to prove it. The claim doesn't become true through sheer force of will.

You'd think that a forum full of techies would prefer to operate based on evidence rather than hunches and gut feelings, but apparently that goes out the window when you really, really want an excuse to portray them as evil incarnate.
I wouldn't call this forum full of "real" techies. There are some, but majority is enthusiasts that think they are techies. I've seen so much wrong information in this forum its really laughable.
 
Ah yes, you're able to decrypt otherwise impossible to decrypt packets.


Kinda funny to see all the corp apologists here. "ThEY wOnT dO aNyThInG Bad"
Every other day all big tech is accused of collecting the crap you turned off. Recently google was caught collecting your location data on your phone even if you have it off.
https://www.gizmochina.com/2021/06/...-locations-after-location-sharing-turned-off/

If you want to give up and say "ITS GREAT", Suit yourselves but please don't try to convince other people that you know what non-open source encrypted traffic streams are collecting about you.

Not everyone wants to have TB's of data collected about them that never gets deleted as we go forward in time. Nobody knows how it can be used against you; and it already is.

In America, it's more profitable for companies to collect data illegally and apologize if someone finds out since the fine never outweighs the cost of your data. If it isn't open source, you should assume the worst.

So much for being [H]ard, this sounds like (S)oft

Like others have said, we have already proven that it doesn't record TBs of data about you. How about you prove it records 24x7 like you continue to imply? Should be easy for you since its so well known per you.
 
Like others have said, we have already proven that it doesn't record TBs of data about you. How about you prove it records 24x7 like you continue to imply? Should be easy for you since its so well known per you.

The amount of data is not relevant, it is the type of data that is important. This is one big reason that, at least for me, I have switched entirely to Linux and am attempting to do so on my phone as well. This is also a good reason to never use a company supplied wifi router, which I do not do.
 
The amount of data is not relevant, it is the type of data that is important. This is one big reason that, at least for me, I have switched entirely to Linux and am attempting to do so on my phone as well. This is also a good reason to never use a company supplied wifi router, which I do not do.

sliding goalposts aside, how difficult is it to link to the home firewall logs that show all of this data going out of your network, which have been posted all over the internet by security conscious individuals such as yourself, in order to support your position here?

I’m sure companies are collecting far more data than is necessary because advertising but if you’re that worried about it you must have some proof you can share with everyone else here? So we can all be equally concerned, and not having a discussion about semantics of “how much” or “what type” of data is collected?
 
The amount of data is not relevant, it is the type of data that is important. This is one big reason that, at least for me, I have switched entirely to Linux and am attempting to do so on my phone as well. This is also a good reason to never use a company supplied wifi router, which I do not do.
Linux is not that secure. LOL. They have had as of recent some serious vunerabilities.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-kernel-vulnerability-exposes-stack-memory/

https://www.cpomagazine.com/cyber-s...ation-information-leak-and-denial-of-service/
 
sliding goalposts aside, how difficult is it to link to the home firewall logs that show all of this data going out of your network, which have been posted all over the internet by security conscious individuals such as yourself, in order to support your position here?

I’m sure companies are collecting far more data than is necessary because advertising but if you’re that worried about it you must have some proof you can share with everyone else here? So we can all be equally concerned, and not having a discussion about semantics of “how much” or “what type” of data is collected?

I do not set the goal posts, I simply state a fact of being. Terabytes, megabytes, kilobytes, it is not relevant, the data is not going to be all on advertising or other such stuff. But hey, you do you and enjoy your perceived, possibly subjective, privacy and security. :) I prefer objective privacy and security.
 
Linux is far more private and secure than Windows will ever be. :) Amazing how you actually need to know what you are doing in order to use linux, at least in a private and secure way.

Keep believing that. If Linux was as popular as Windows was, hackers would write code to attack that O/S and it would be the most vulnerable. This article sums it up pretty much below. Only reason Linux doesn't have as many showing is because its not as popular as Windows. 3% vs 80% user base.

https://bytebitebit.com/2140/safety-comparison-windows-macos-linux/
 
I do not set the goal posts, I simply state a fact of being. Terabytes, megabytes, kilobytes, it is not relevant, the data is not going to be all on advertising or other such stuff. But hey, you do you and enjoy your perceived, possibly subjective, privacy and security. :) I prefer objective privacy and security.
Still waiting on that proof.
 
Keep believing that. If Linux was as popular as Windows was, hackers would write code to attack that O/S and it would be the most vulnerable. This article sums it up pretty much below. Only reason Linux doesn't have as many showing is because its not as popular as Windows. 3% vs 80% user base.

https://bytebitebit.com/2140/safety-comparison-windows-macos-linux/

I do not "believe", I simply do things in an objective and practical way. Hey, you do you and be subjective. :)

Quote from the article: "Yes, the engineering of the Windows operating system is more secure now against all forms of cyberattacks, and Windows updates happen quite frequently too." Yep, and the update are more likely to screw things up than even a malware attack. :D Hey, it is what it is, no more and no less.

Edit: And as a main comment, I am speaking strictly of local privacy and security. You have to make more effort when it comes to security outside of your personal network, which is why I do not use cloud storage anymore. (Well, I have not tried Nextcloud yet so.....)
 
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I do not set the goal posts, I simply state a fact of being. Terabytes, megabytes, kilobytes, it is not relevant, the data is not going to be all on advertising or other such stuff. But hey, you do you and enjoy your perceived, possibly subjective, privacy and security. :) I prefer objective privacy and security.

oh, I do too. I don’t use my ISP’s router/modem. None of my network gear is cloud-connected. I don’t have smart speakers or light bulbs or cloud doorbells or whatever. I turn off my digital assistants and I don’t connect things to my WiFi just because they have the capability. i don’t trust my android TV, either, but it’s what we use for streaming right now so I’m taking a hit on that one in the name of convenience (I don’t think any streaming device is going to be “better” than another in this regard, so I haven’t bothered replacing it).

I’m right there with you in preferring objective privacy and control of my home network, which is why I’m asking you to provide the objective proof of what you’re saying. I’ve never seen anyone provide it.

I still don’t intend to purchase any smart type of device, and I generally caution against them when friends and family and coworkers ask. But if I could find some kind of objective proof that these devices are as nefarious as you say they are, it would be a lot easier to explain to people why they should avoid them, full stop.

so let’s not talk about “objective” privacy and security without providing the “objective” facts: the log data that shows what’s going on. Without that, all I’ve got are my suspicions. I’d prefer something a little more solid if I’m going to be telling my non tech savvy friends to pursue a more complicated setup.
 
oh, I do too. I don’t use my ISP’s router/modem. None of my network gear is cloud-connected. I don’t have smart speakers or light bulbs or cloud doorbells or whatever. I turn off my digital assistants and I don’t connect things to my WiFi just because they have the capability. i don’t trust my android TV, either, but it’s what we use for streaming right now so I’m taking a hit on that one in the name of convenience (I don’t think any streaming device is going to be “better” than another in this regard, so I haven’t bothered replacing it).

I’m right there with you in preferring objective privacy and control of my home network, which is why I’m asking you to provide the objective proof of what you’re saying. I’ve never seen anyone provide it.

I still don’t intend to purchase any smart type of device, and I generally caution against them when friends and family and coworkers ask. But if I could find some kind of objective proof that these devices are as nefarious as you say they are, it would be a lot easier to explain to people why they should avoid them, full stop.

so let’s not talk about “objective” privacy and security without providing the “objective” facts: the log data that shows what’s going on. Without that, all I’ve got are my suspicions. I’d prefer something a little more solid if I’m going to be telling my non tech savvy friends to pursue a more complicated setup.

Unfortunately, there is nothing I can provide that will help you in that regard. I would be more inclined to ask something like Switched to Linux for something like that, or at least his opinion on it, which is well versed and logical.
 
Like others have said, we have already proven that it doesn't record TBs of data about you. How about you prove it records 24x7 like you continue to imply? Should be easy for you since its so well known per you.
The burden of proof is completely impossible with encrypted traffic. That's why your responses make absolutely no sense when you trust something you literally CANNOT see. Every company that you're trusting has been involved in a scandal where they are collecting too much data about you mostly without your ability to stop it. By giving non-open source apologize-later-actors a back door, you're literally causing it to happen to you and smiling as it happens.

Also, you're totally missing the point. TB's of data comes as a big aggregate of all services and companies that infringe upon you and share your data through sometimes insecure API's through the years.

It's almost like you forgot big tech testified in front of congress for this or something? Maybe you forgot that API leaked hundreds of millions of GB of user data with an insecure API for years? It doesn't need to be the smoking gun, because ALL of it is snow that builds on a snowball that becomes that. Having someone aggregate data about you is only bad, and that's not really anything but common sense.

P.S. The whole "Linux is more secure than Windows" thing is kind of a sideshow. They both have their exploits, but both are more likely than not to never be exploited, assuming you're using ufw or firewalls. The main difference is that Microsoft is actively tracking and collecting things about you, and that isn't down to chance, and you can easily tell that you can't disable all of it, even in gpedit. Just look at your DNS logs and it's phoning home all the time, to tens of different addresses collecting different data.
 
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The burden of proof is completely impossible with encrypted traffic. That's why your responses make absolutely no sense when you trust something you literally CANNOT see. Every company that you're trusting has been involved in a scandal where they are collecting too much data about you mostly without your ability to stop it. By giving non-open source apologize-later-actors a back door, you're literally causing it to happen to you and smiling as it happens.

Also, you're totally missing the point. TB's of data comes as a big aggregate of all services and companies that infringe upon you and share your data through sometimes insecure API's through the years.

It's almost like you forgot big tech testified in front of congress for this or something? Maybe you forgot that API leaked hundreds of millions of GB of user data with an insecure API for years? It doesn't need to be the smoking gun, because ALL of it is snow that builds on a snowball that becomes that. Having someone aggregate data about you is only bad, and that's not really anything but common sense.

P.S. The whole "Linux is more secure than Windows" thing is kind of a sideshow. They both have their exploits, but both are more likely than not to never be exploited, assuming you're using ufw or firewalls. The main difference is that Microsoft is actively tracking and collecting things about you, and that isn't down to chance, and you can easily tell that you can't disable all of it, even in gpedit. Just look at your DNS logs and it's phoning home all the time, to tens of different addresses collecting different data.
I can see it fine when it only transmitted 74kb in a full 24 hours. That is enough proof to me that its NOT recording every conversation. Again, you need to provide your backing of the statement you said and try not to deter from it. You are the one that said it, not us, and now you are saying its impossible to prove it? LOL! Need I say more to anyone here.

I don't believe anything without the facts. The facts I know are it doesn't record 24x7, only records what we ask Alexa when her name is called.
 
The facts I know are it doesn't record 24x7, only records what we ask Alexa when her name is called.

And all the false positives/activations I'm sure they're just eager to fix and not happy at all that they occur to give them more data
 
And all the false positives/activations I'm sure they're just eager to fix and not happy at all that they occur to give them more data
74kb is tiny, and hardly has any activations period in it. Again, you are speaking assumptions and not facts.
 
its an interesting idea. The main issue is control IMO. There needs to be clear and easy control over whether a device uses the network and what a network can be used for.
 
74kb is tiny, and hardly has any activations period in it. Again, you are speaking assumptions and not facts.
Every payload has vital information, and non-vital information. Over time, and depending on the service, that equals TB of data, especially when you are aggregating email information, high-resolution images and videos, and microphone capture, along with MB's of usage statistics in raw text. In the end, if 1% of the payload is spying on me, I cry foul 100% of the time. Ever go into the network tab while loading popular websites and find that the pages weigh megabytes? Then VPN from europe where they have privacy laws and do the same thing, and the page weighs 47kb.

You sir, are just holding an opinion that is defeatist, and you've admitted that it does collect data and that you don't care. That is good for you, but it is not a position I will ever hold.

Judging the information that is collected from you solely the size of the payload is just ridiculous. Once again, I cannot decrypt that information, and nor can you. And they are repeatedly sued for exactly these infringements. Do a little 1+1.

If the product is free and run by a big corporation and most importantly, not open source, you are the product. The end.

P.S. If you ever used Pihole, and you can see how many devices and services phone home, and still work when you block their DNS, it's just sad and funny.
 
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Listening to things doesn't equate to recording everything. And if she had evidence that Google was literally recording everything, she'd be sitting on the most explosive tech story of the year. It wouldn't be a secret for very long as someone would break the news.
20-30 years ago, you would have been correct.
Today, it would be a passed over article by most who would go, "Meh, Google still makes cool stuff, and I have nothing to hide."

Consider the state of society in the world, and their mental process this day and age, before thinking such an article would hold much weight, let alone even be read...
To quote George from The Time Machine (1960):

5bx7uy.jpg
 
They are discontinuing the entire Unifi Video ecosystem in favor of their newer cloud based and dedicated hardware Unifi Protect product line.

That is profoundly stupid. Don't they realize that the ONLY reason so many of their customers bought their products is because they could run them on their own hardware? What's next, removing the ability to use Unifi AP's with your own local server? It's like they are morphing into Meraki, and in the process trying to kill their own business.

I still have some unifi cameras in unopened boxes I was planning on using to expand my network. Looks like I am going to ahve to sell or trash all my Unifi stuff and start over, if there even is an alternative out there these days. This really pisses me off. I have spent quite a bit of money on their camera hardware which is suddenly completely useless to me.

Looks like a software package called Blue Iris can read video streams from the Unifi cameras, so all is not lost, but it requires a $69 license, and will only run on Windows, which is a problem for my environment. ZoneMinder might be another option, but from everything I ahve read it is very poorly documented and really difficult to set up...

I don't have any personal experience with networked video surveillance products, but I think I have some idea of where you're coming from. Try skimming the comments of relevant posts at "Hacker News". You'll find talk of many alternatives and hopefully get some ideas. It's one of several strategies I find useful when I haven't followed a particular technology for a while. The pace at which networking hardware and software evolves in particular is staggering.

UniFi-Video Products End of Life Announcement
Ubiquiti Networks Breach
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22148157

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:ycombinator.com+unifi+video
 
Ah yes, you're able to decrypt otherwise impossible to decrypt packets.


Kinda funny to see all the corp apologists here. "ThEY wOnT dO aNyThInG Bad"
Every other day all big tech is accused of collecting the crap you turned off. Recently google was caught collecting your location data on your phone even if you have it off.
https://www.gizmochina.com/2021/06/...-locations-after-location-sharing-turned-off/

If you want to give up and say "ITS GREAT", Suit yourselves but please don't try to convince other people that you know what non-open source encrypted traffic streams are collecting about you.

Not everyone wants to have TB's of data collected about them that never gets deleted as we go forward in time. Nobody knows how it can be used against you; and it already is.

In America, it's more profitable for companies to collect data illegally and apologize if someone finds out since the fine never outweighs the cost of your data. If it isn't open source, you should assume the worst.

So much for being [H]ard, this sounds like (S)oft
You dont necessarily need to decrypt packets to see that a device at ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx connected to remote address yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
I got a Eufy video doorbell because it seemed to be one of the few that did not sync anything to the cloud. I occasionally check my logs to see if it is trying to connect to anything external, and nothing so far. I still have it stuck on my "IOT devices" SSID which is on its own network, just to be sure.
 
I'm looking forward to hearing about how Amazon is a walled garden and that this sort of thing is good for the larger ecosystem, and that this is part of what makes their pricing possible. They're a private company, after all. If you don't like it, you shouldn't have accepted the terms and conditions.

Where have I see this before?
 
You dont necessarily need to decrypt packets to see that a device at ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx connected to remote address yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
I got a Eufy video doorbell because it seemed to be one of the few that did not sync anything to the cloud. I occasionally check my logs to see if it is trying to connect to anything external, and nothing so far. I still have it stuck on my "IOT devices" SSID which is on its own network, just to be sure.
For this, the other poster is wanting proof of what is being sent from the device to Amazon, that would be impossible as that would mean you have a way to decrypt currently un-hackable encryption...which no on does, so proof of what is in those packet can not be provided. But hey, if people think Amazon has THEIR best interests and privacy in mind, keep drinking the koolaid
 
For this, the other poster is wanting proof of what is being sent from the device to Amazon, that would be impossible as that would mean you have a way to decrypt currently un-hackable encryption...which no on does, so proof of what is in those packet can not be provided. But hey, if people think Amazon has THEIR best interests and privacy in mind, keep drinking the koolaid

No one here is arguing that Amazon is acting out of the goodness of its heart.

However, you need to make claims based on what you can actually show that it's doing, not what you fear it's doing. And you don't need to decrypt traffic to know that certain things aren't happening, such as always-on recording. If a speaker consumes just 78KB in a day of being idle... well, there's no compression good enough to make a "top sekrit spying on you all the time" audio stream fit into such a tiny amount of data.

Again, it's weird to see techies, who are supposed to be driven by evidence and logic, cling so fiercely to unsupported claims fuelled largely by irrational fears. Amazon does enough horrible things already, such as the non-consensual internet sharing that prompted this thread; we don't need to invent "eye of Sauron" stories to feel outraged.
 
I like how you point out once piece of traffic and ignore the tens of other requests which weigh megabytes. Funny enough, you seem to ignore that the 1 packet header of metadata containing shit it shouldn't collect about you, is BAD ENOUGH. Once again, with the filesize is better than knowing what's in the packet logic. So silly, and so naive.

Simply use a DNS sink and see what happens. If you've ever done this, you would be thinking "Wow, wtf is all this traffic, and why?". When shit phones home, it's not for your benefit.

All of the big tech companies have been sued. You are ignoring the links to said lawsuits. You are ultimately in charge of how you feel. If you trust people, thats on you. I know I don't trust them because they've repeatedly showed me their bad intentions. The burden of proof is on them.

Funny enough, the EU has different protections from them than the USA. Your entire OS is different than the EU one, because they made several of the shit MS does completely illegal and have fined them hundreds of millions.

If you want to trust them, great. That's the koolaid you're drinking. Keep using Facebook, and know that Mark Zuckerburg owns half of Hawaii because Facebook is a non-profit company.

Just look up Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple, T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, Xfinity, etc, lawsuit over data privacy and you'll find tons of incidents. You'll even find incidents where they ignore their own settings, and in almost all of them, you'll find that their strategy is to collect first, apologize later, laughing that the fines are worth less than the data they stole.

Or better yet, just use any of their products, then leave it idle and watch your DNS proving continuous transmission of packets while nothing has happened for hours.

Just because -you- don't care, doesn't mean it isn't happening. It's quite clear you've resigned control of your privacy to these companies and are hoping for the best. That is not a best practice, and it's hillarious some of you work as security experts; because honestly an empty seat can "wait and see.; rather you should be curious instead of forgiving.

How on earth do you think these people make money? Do you -really- think the money is in you buying trashy hardware at 20-40$?... or do you think -YOU- are the product? .... It is quite obvious, afterall.

It lololol's me to think that anyone would be okay with amazon hijacking their internal network. That's some grape koolaid, my friends.

Welcome to 2021. Even your cable TV box has a microphone which is always on. ;) Prosumer Unifi tracks you illegally without providing options to disable it.

I can't say anything more than I've already said without sounding like I'm repeating myself. If you want to say "LOL 5G BILL GATES, TIN FOIL, AMAZON IS GREAT, BEZOS IS KING" to me, go ahead. But it's your data being harvested, not mine. Sometimes it's for advertising, but also it is being sold. Hope the future of your data is kind to you, because it's a snowball and it cannot be deleted. It already makes some students get rejected from college, some people rejected from careers, and maybe it could throw you in jail. The world changes very quickly, and as we all should know by now, what's acceptable today, may not be in the future. Best not to live with a tape recorder under your shirt always on, with big corps listening in.

/Next.
 
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Bump so people who can see how shitty Amazon is. Quit letting this monopoly take peoples' jobs, over convenience! Vote with your wallet!
Alternatives: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=duckduckgo+product+search&iax=shopping&ia=shopping

People claim "my phone overheard me saying this, and now I get ads for X," but I have yet to see any real evidence there's constant background listening going on. From what I've seen, it tends to be either pure coincidence (more likely in this case) or something else the person did online to prompt it. I wonder if claims like this will decline as more people use iOS' "don't allow this app to track me" feature and some of the causes of these freaky incidents decline.
You are naive not to believe this. I've talked in front of a smart enabled TV and had targeted ads delivered moments later on another smart enabled TV upstairs! On a SonyTV the mic is built into the TV and controller. Most smartTV's use Google's Android and require you to signup for an account. The caveat is it was the same TV and I was probably using the same account on both TVs.

I briefly worked for an advertising director who was in charge of Google Analytics data mining (and I also did data mining). It's easy to get "cookied", as she put it. She was doing some furniture shopping on one site and then was seeing targeted ads everywhere she went. It makes sense when you realize how it works - cookies can last 90 days and that data gets sent back to Google's servers through "tags." Since most sites use Google ad sense, Google Search, etc. they easily track you around the internet - iOS or no.

One of the creepier things that happened recently was when I was using my wife's iOS phone and was searching or talking about something with the words "head shoulders" in it. This was on Yahoo! I went back to my phone, clicked on a link to a different Yahoo! news article and received an ad for "Head & Shoulders." I am also using a VPN...

Google doesn't need to store everything you say to create targeted ads (although they probably could, with compression and the price of data nowadays). They have billions of datapoints from other people to be able to develop their voice AI programs to know what you are saying and can serve you an ad. They have thousands of data scientists for this. Voice recognition was already good 25 years ago. It's >95% accurate now. Ever called tech support? Checkout IBM's Watson Text to Speech demo. Your voice is turned into text and that can be data mined on the fly.

Google knows.
 
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Listening to things doesn't equate to recording everything. And if she had evidence that Google was literally recording everything, she'd be sitting on the most explosive tech story of the year. It wouldn't be a secret for very long as someone would break the news.

That's where you are stuck in 2005.

Today everything that they are capable of recording and collecting is recorded and collected. There is no such thing as a server log that just sits on a server anymore. Absolutely everything by almost every company out there is collected, analyzed added to user profiles and then either sold or directly used for marketing purposes.

There is no such thing as data that doesn't get used anymore. Venture capitalists will literally shoot down your business plan and send you packing if it doesn't include provisions for monetizing user/customer data.

In 2005 you could opt out. Not anymore. Haven't really been able to for a decade.
 
That's where you are stuck in 2005.

Today everything that they are capable of recording and collecting is recorded and collected. There is no such thing as a server log that just sits on a server anymore. Absolutely everything by almost every company out there is collected, analyzed added to user profiles and then either sold or directly used for marketing purposes.

There is no such thing as data that doesn't get used anymore. Venture capitalists will literally shoot down your business plan and send you packing if it doesn't include provisions for monetizing user/customer data.

In 2005 you could opt out. Not anymore. Haven't really been able to for a decade.
Oh, I'm not disputing that companies like Amazon dissect data whenever they can, my beef is with the assertion that Amazon, Google and others literally record you 24/7. It's not just that there's a lack of evidence, it's that it doesn't even make sense... Amazon and Google don't need to listen to hours of background noise and indistinguishable conversations in the off chance you'll say something they can use for ad targeting.
 
No human is needing to listen, and automated services don't get fatigued by background noise or whatever. And there's no way anyone can say it's 24/7, but they really don't need to, because there's also no way of knowing when it's happening or not. There has been Speech to text AI now for several years (e.g. your smartphone can even do it), and before that there was more simple approaches. They even know if you're the person talking, so it's pretty advanced.
 
No human is needing to listen, and automated services don't get fatigued by background noise or whatever. And there's no way anyone can say it's 24/7, but they really don't need to, because there's also no way of knowing when it's happening or not. There has been Speech to text AI now for several years (e.g. your smartphone can even do it), and before that there was more simple approaches.
There are plenty of ways to tell when it's happening or not; even speech-to-text would use a lot more data than people see when the speakers are idle.

Besides, as I keep emphasizing, you can't claim Amazon or Google is recording non-stop simply because you feel it's doing that, you need to show it. Otherwise, all the mights, maybes and well-it's-technically-possibles are just attempts to rationalize a fundamentally irrational argument.
 
There are plenty of ways to tell when it's happening or not; even speech-to-text would use a lot more data than people see when the speakers are idle.

Besides, as I keep emphasizing, you can't claim Amazon or Google is recording non-stop simply because you feel it's doing that, you need to show it. Otherwise, all the mights, maybes and well-it's-technically-possibles are just attempts to rationalize a fundamentally irrational argument.
Name one way. The reality is that you won't know. And they will lie to you about doing it. If this comes back to the 74 KB packet thing, just wow. lol. You leave wireshark running 24/7 and read every single SYN ACK? Lets say you did that, you still have no idea what's behind the encrypted data anyways. You even know what their compression looks like? Are you sure they're not using multiple servers to send this data, and some may not be branded to them?

Good luck proving this. AWS is 49% of amazon's revenue and powers a ton of the internet. x.aws.com is going to look mighty bland in your traffic log when you're browsing the web, you know.

For reference, here's windows 10 blocklist ALONE.
https://github.com/buckmelanoma/block_lists/blob/master/windows10_endpoints.txt

The ship sailed, my friend. Be vigilant.
 
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Name one way. The reality is that you won't know. And they will lie to you about doing it. If this comes back to the 74 KB packet thing, just wow. lol. You leave wireshark running 24/7 and read every single SYN ACK? Lets say you did that, you still have no idea what's behind the encrypted data anyways. You even know what their compression looks like? Are you sure they're not using multiple servers to send this data, and some may not be branded to them?

Good luck proving this. AWS is 49% of amazon's revenue and powers a ton of the internet. x.aws.com is going to look mighty bland in your traffic log when you're browsing the web, you know.

For reference, here's windows 10 blocklist ALONE.
https://github.com/buckmelanoma/block_lists/blob/master/windows10_endpoints.txt

The ship sailed, my friend. Be vigilant.
Wow is all I can say. I really hope you don't work in IT.
 
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