Saturday, February 21, 2015

Smart TVs Are Not The Only Things Eavesdropping On You

When the story broke that certain Sansung television sets were eavesdropping on their owners -- a polite way of saying the sets were spying -- it raised some alarms and forced Samsung to rewrite its privacy policy. But if you think hi-tech TVs are the only things capable of gathering your private information and sharing it with others, think again:

Our smartphones and computers, of course, listen to us when we're making audio and video calls. But the microphones are always there, and there are ways a hacker, government, or clever company can turn those microphones on without our knowledge. Sometimes we turn them on ourselves. If we have an iPhone, the voice-processing system Siri listens to us, but only when we push the iPhone's button. Like Samsung, iPhones with the "Hey Siri" feature enabled listen all the time. So do Android devices with the "OK Google" feature enabled, and so does an Amazon voice-activated system called Echo. Facebook has the ability to turn your smartphone's microphone on when you're using the app.
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This is something my clients don't have to worry about. I give them SpyWarn MicSpike™... free. ~Kevin