TV maker unlawfully tracked viewing habits

[vealmike]

Anyway, what most people (apparently you included) don't quite grasp is the breadth of inferences you can make from data collected "with consent". I've been quite immersed in the academic literature around this stuff for some time.

No, I honestly do get it, I'm very aware of the big data revolution and the implications of data mining. I design rack mounted storage for a living, so I'm working on the fringes of the industry. I just don't care if LG knows what TV programs I watch, I have too much other s**t to worry about.

I would never give up personal health data, or agree to a have a black box monitor my driving habits. But my TV watch habits? I really don't care.

It's not as if they are my TV watching habits that LG will be collecting anyway. I'm married and therefore not allowed to use the remote control.

[Halcyon]

As for a black box monitoring your driving habits. Why are you so confident there needs to be a black box?

There already is. Insurers are handing out OBD-II dongles that monitor every aspect of your driving. What's in it for the driver? Lower insurance premiums if they "behave".
How do I solve this? Firstly, I don't drive like a moron but secondly, I get cheaper premiums through a company who "hand pick" who they insure (Shannons). I reviewed my insurance last year and based on what I used to do for a living, my claims history and some other things, they offered me full comprehensive insurance for far cheaper than the other brands. No gimmicks, no bloody dongles, no Thailand call centres.

[Red Squirrel]

Sadly this is going to become more and more prevalent I think.  The NSA, CSIS etc are hell bent to get into every part of our lives. There are backdoors in a lot of things now including Intel cpus. Even an air gapped computer can be accessed through this backdoor as it uses 3G. For micro data transactions these companies can probably make deals with the carriers to basically get tons of access "numbers" for a very low cost then just stick the transmitters in every product they sell and it is linked to the serial number/sale. Suppose buying everything with cash will at least somewhat remove the distinction of who owns that particular serial number device but they'll figure it out via the data they get.

What's even more scary is the fact that the general public does not even seem to care about this constant war on our privacy.  They just accept it. Those same hypocrites probably also have curtains on their house windows.

[Halcyon]

The NSA, CSIS etc are hell bent to get into every part of our lives. There are backdoors in a lot of things now including Intel cpus. Even an air gapped computer can be accessed through this backdoor as it uses 3G. For micro data transactions these companies can probably make deals with the carriers to basically get tons of access "numbers" for a very low cost then just stick the transmitters in every product they sell and it is linked to the serial number/sale. Suppose buying everything with cash will at least somewhat remove the distinction of who owns that particular serial number device but they'll figure it out via the data they get.

Would you care to provide some sources as I find this very hard to believe. The technology you speak of is used in systems up to "Top Secret" level. US agencies don't have free access to everything as you might suggest.

Do I suspect a bit of "tin foil hat" happening here?

[Sigmoid]

Sadly this is going to become more and more prevalent I think.  The NSA, CSIS etc are hell bent to get into every part of our lives.

The NSA and the CSIS has nothing to do with corporate data aggregation. This is all private.

Yes the NSA does collect phone call and Internet traffic metadata, mandates that ISPs maintain logs for years, quite probably encourages the spread of backdoored elliptic curves, and similar, but that's that and this is this. Different shit, different actor, different channels.

There are backdoors in a lot of things now including Intel cpus. Even an air gapped computer can be accessed through this backdoor as it uses 3G. For micro data transactions these companies can probably make deals with the carriers to basically get tons of access "numbers" for a very low cost then just stick the transmitters in every product they sell and it is linked to the serial number/sale. Suppose buying everything with cash will at least somewhat remove the distinction of who owns that particular serial number device but they'll figure it out via the data they get.

Yea, could you provide some kind of source that isn't some fake-ass political fiction portal? This is so unfeasible on so many levels... I call 100% medical grade pure bullshit.

Yes there are ways to attack air-gapped systems, but they require some form of actual espionage effort. There are backdoors in many chips, but they need some effort to actually exploit. No, there aren't 3g radios in every bloody thing, have you seen the size and power consumption of a 3g radio? And apparently there aren't enough backdoors around, otherwise they wouldn't have had to try and force Apple to help government agencies access encrypted data on an iPhone... And if all Intel computers were backdoored, the Russian government would be a puppet of the USA, and Putin would be long gone as opposed to successfully meddling in US internal politics.

What's even more scary is the fact that the general public does not even seem to care about this constant war on our privacy.  They just accept it. Those same hypocrites probably also have curtains on their house windows.

You know, there is a fine line between being security conscious and being batshit insane. Information warfare is incredible and spectacular, there are huge gaps in the information security of most people, and there are absolutely movie-worthy attacks happening all the time... but the difference between understanding the crazy world of security and being a complete conspiracy theory loon is like the difference between understanding the wonders of modern physics and being a woo-woo homeopathy quack who spews shit about "quantum consciousness" and "frequency information stored in water".

As a warning to us all, let's remember that in his old days, Hunter S. Thompson was convinced that the groundhogs living on his estate were put there by the FBI to gather intel...

[vealmike]

Why does LG want your viewing habits? I don't have a smart TV so I haven't looked into it.

The TV is capable  of monitoring your viewing habits and making recommendations about new shows that you might like to watch.
Because I'm cynical, I presume that the recommendations are weighted and that LG get a kick back for advertising the new shows. If so, more fool the broadcaster, I do not use this feature.

I'm interested, of those here worried about a corp. collecting viewing data, how many have paid for cinema / theatre tickets with a card and how many insist on using cash?

[Sigmoid]

I'm interested, of those here worried about a corp. collecting viewing data, how many have paid for cinema / theatre tickets with a card and how many insist on using cash?

The difference is frequency, man. It's always frequency.

The power company reading your meter every month is normal fare, needed to calculate your bill. Reading your meter every millisecond allows an attacker to pretty much model your entire life with great accuracy, down to when you go to the toilet or have sex.

[vealmike]

The difference is frequency, man. It's always frequency.

The power company reading your meter every month is normal fare, needed to calculate your bill. Reading your meter every millisecond allows an attacker to pretty much model your entire life with great accuracy, down to when you go to the toilet or have sex.

Perhaps if they extracted from big data the frequency of my toilets, they could forewarn me in the event that I ever suffered from bowel cancer. 

[james_s]

As for a black box monitoring your driving habits. Why are you so confident there needs to be a black box?

There already is. Insurers are handing out OBD-II dongles that monitor every aspect of your driving. What's in it for the driver? Lower insurance premiums if they "behave".
How do I solve this? Firstly, I don't drive like a moron but secondly, I get cheaper premiums through a company who "hand pick" who they insure (Shannons). I reviewed my insurance last year and based on what I used to do for a living, my claims history and some other things, they offered me full comprehensive insurance for far cheaper than the other brands. No gimmicks, no bloody dongles, no Thailand call centres.

I've never owned a car new enough to have OBD-II but I wonder how hard it would be to hack one of these insurance dongles? Just program a microcontroller to talk to it and spit out some reasonable data simulating your car. Plug the dongle in at home on your bench and tell the simulator how many miles to "drive" per day.

[vealmike]

http://forums.hexus.net/automotive/323585-telematics-box-quick-teardowns.html
Nothing more than accelerometers and a telephone connection.

[vealmike]

I'm not paranoid enough to think this actually happens. But if the data exists sooner or later someone will aggregate it and sell it.  You may not be able to stop it being collected but you can at least not give it away.

Sweat the big stuff, not the little.
There are huge societal benefits to big data. Medical is the one that's always quoted. But in this case, if TV programme makers learn through collection of dig data what programs I like and consequently make more of them (and less "X-Factor's got no bloody talent") then that's a good thing.

I'm not in the paranoid camp. There are things I'm not concerned about sharing and things that I am.

If you use google, carry a mobile, use a credit card, have a bank account, drive a vehicle or do any of a 1000 other things we consider part of modern life your data is being harvested. If you fight every one of these, then you'll have no time to live your life and lets face it, you still won't win.
Like it or not, you have to accept that this happens and we each have to set our threshold of what's acceptable and what's worth the effort of pushing back against.

Whilst I agree that a lot of this collection is underhand, I really have better things to do with my life than worry about whether LG know's that I can't stand Kirsty Allsop.

[Muttley Snickers]

Slightly off topic alert, I received a surprise letter in this weeks mail from a government department completely out of the blue pertaining to a free bowel cancer test, eligible participants must be aged fifty or over which I expect to become in a few weeks, big brother keeping tabs or do they really give a shit.

Some might argue that this is normal and at the end of the day probably in my best interest and to a certain extent I would normally agree but I personally found the submission of this document rather intrusive so accordingly out of disgust the letter went in the bin.

By the same token I probably wouldn't knock back a century letter from the queen.   

[vealmike]

Slightly off topic alert, I received a surprise letter in this weeks mail from a government department completely out of the blue pertaining to a free bowel cancer test, eligible participants must be aged fifty or over which I expect to become in a few weeks, big brother keeping tabs or do they really give a shit.

Hmmn, I wonder if LG actually are selling details of our bowel movements?

[Muttley Snickers]

PS. Go and get the letter out of the bin. It is normal and in your best interests.

Fair enough, the letter is long gone and I was pretty pissed off at the time that somebody who thinks they know what's best is keeping tabs on my movements, anyway it was probably more of a shock than anything else and I do have a stack of mates all aged over fifty and none of them ever mentioned receiving a similar letter before. It did state in the document to call a number or go to a particular web site to opt out otherwise they will automatically send out some type of kit so I'm not totally out of the program just yet, either way I'm still not happy about the intrusion.

I haven't seen a doctor in years for good reason and the last time I did was the most horrific experience I had ever endured with an almost fatal outcome, this was due to a prescribed medication that I had a known history of severe allergic reaction to, a true occurrence that still haunts me to this day hence my reservation.

[james_s]

I'm interested, of those here worried about a corp. collecting viewing data, how many have paid for cinema / theatre tickets with a card and how many insist on using cash?

The difference is frequency, man. It's always frequency.

The power company reading your meter every month is normal fare, needed to calculate your bill. Reading your meter every millisecond allows an attacker to pretty much model your entire life with great accuracy, down to when you go to the toilet or have sex.

I monitor my own power consumption with one of those Effergy wireless power monitors and for a while I was graphing the data. It's not nearly as trivial to determine what's going on as you suggest. You can tell when I run the clothes dryer because it dwarfs my regular consumption but a large percentage of the varying loads are due to automated devices. Outside lights that are on timers, the furnace and air conditioner that cycle on and off as needed, the hot tub heating and filtration cycles, etc. My interior lighting has been almost 100% LED for years and was CFL before that, it hardly even registers on the meter. Also I'm really not that interesting. If someone at the power company wants to keep tabs on when I have sex and take a piss I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

[rrinker]

 I'm not nearly that paranoid, if I was, I'd have blackout curtains in every room of my house. Without that, you don't even need an electrical monitor to determine patterns, just watch the lights in the windows, which at least in my house you can do from the street without ever setting foot on my property. Every room in the house with the except of the basement has a window that is visible from the street somehow.

[Buriedcode]

Another rant..

Wow as this thread highlights, this sort of thing 'privacy' seems to polarize people.  With the more paranoid pointing out it may be possible to "profile" someone based on energy use, TV channels etc.. I think they are assuming that:

a) someone actually wants to find information specifically to you, the individual, and
b) its straight forward to infer personal details. 

The first is extremely unlikely - think about the man hours dedicated to track one individual. 
As we've seen over the past 16 years, government agencies probably have the capability to do so - but it takes a lot of resources so is reserved for those high on the 'threat' list.  The only instance I can think of where more private information can be 'gleaned' from big data used by google/Facebook etc.. is if someone at the company has access to this data, and is stalking someone. Where there is a will there is a way - but that doesn't mean to say someone cares enough about you to actually find this stuff.  Even then I don't think it can be done, when there are easier ways - camp outside someones house.

And the second - almost all 'big data' is owned by private firms who will not automatically roll over for a government, and it is extremely unlikely they would use 'individuals' data for their own gain.  The money is in the volume, anonymized - no-one actually cares about the individual.  Sure the data is sold, and I think those who generated the data (the public/consumers) should benefit from that.  We do.

Where there is possible risk is if the data is leaked or hacked, because one is unsure of the motives of the hacker.  But this is only for financial data (for spear phishing), and even then requires extraordinary effort to 'make use' of the personal information we give out every day.

It really does seem like those who get overly paranoid (because a little paranoia is healthy!) have a hair trigger, just waiting for stories in the news to unfold so they can justify feeling constantly scared.  We don't have 'true' privacy, because it depends on what you consider to be private, but we do reap the rewards of data mining and I suspect those who are vehemently against any form of data gathering would be unwilling to give up the convenience of cell phones, the internet, credit cards, television etc..  As others have pointed out there are ways to mitigate the 'trail' we leave behind, but if that isn't enough, then you do have the choice to not use such services.

[james_s]

The issue I have is with the valuable data. What I access online, what I search for in search engines, where I live, where I work, my phone number, what shows I watch, where I shop, what products I buy. That data is valuable to marketers and the more inter-connected it is, the more value it has. Privacy really is at stake there, and it's getting worse. I like that my smart meter allows the utility company to provide realtime monitoring of my water, gas and power consumption and billing, just a few weeks ago this allowed them to notify my mom that there was likely a leak in the water main between the meter and her house within hours and I was able to go over there and shut it off before it wasted thousands of gallons. I think the privacy risk on that particular data is minimal and is easily outweighed by the advantages but that doesn't mean our privacy is not at risk in general.

[metrologist]

Oh noes. Tax season is approaching and I am looking at TurboTax software. I know it will immediately need to connect to the internet as soon as I enter all my info into the forms. You know, it will need the right updates...

Yeah, I think there are many people and entities that see the world just like Neo. I do not believe computing can be made secure.

[Buriedcode]

The issue I have is with the valuable data. What I access online, what I search for in search engines, where I live, where I work, my phone number, what shows I watch, where I shop, what products I buy. That data is valuable to marketers and the more inter-connected it is, the more value it has. Privacy really is at stake there, and it's getting worse. I like that my smart meter allows the utility company to provide realtime monitoring of my water, gas and power consumption and billing, just a few weeks ago this allowed them to notify my mom that there was likely a leak in the water main between the meter and her house within hours and I was able to go over there and shut it off before it wasted thousands of gallons. I think the privacy risk on that particular data is minimal and is easily outweighed by the advantages but that doesn't mean our privacy is not at risk in general.

Agreed in a way.. but all that consumer data can drive down prices as companies can target smaller and smaller groups rather than waste resources blanket marketting everyone.  'What products I buy' has been recorded for many years, credit cards (which generally just track where you shop) and loyalty cards (where, what, and how).. and we have known this for decades, so why is it only an issue now? 

More recent data gathering exercises has been Google buying patient data from the UK's NHS.  This is of course anonymized, and I'm sure you might be able to find a single person based on their medical records - no-one is really interested in that, just trends and statistics. It will be interesting to see if this feed-stock for learning algorithms can make automatic medical diagnostics worth anything.

As it stands (or did stand, up until the UK's 'snooper charter') most claims were overblown - but I guess for many its not how things currently are that is the worry, it is the direction it is heading.  So more of a fear for the future.  The UK government hasn't had a good track record of using 'technology' to solve what it believes are problems, from banning all psychoactive substances (which include a bunch of flowers, and carrots) to 'assuming' that ISP's have the facility to track and record every website we visit so the government can just search for a person and find evidence of criminal behavior (ISP's can't currently do that, even if what they can record is rarely of any value).

So, yeah, I'll admit it's not getting any better any time soon, and as we give up small bits of privacy every few years, I might start getting worried.  But its hardly an 'Orwellian' state.  At least not yet.

As for a TV tracking viewing habits.. I've always assumed that any system that is two way (cable, satellite, internet) probably sends back all that.  Now if it constantly streamed audio back to servers for training voice recognition? That's too far - but also unfeasible.  I suspect recent media coverage on it was based on the poor wording in the license agreement, but no company is going to print in large block capitals 'we will monitor everything'.

[raptor1956]

I think the best countermeasure against tracking is to pollute it with fake data in order to lower the SNR.

You could disrupt the business model of a lot (most) companies if you did that, pollute with fake data.  I'll give you one guess what governments around the world would do if someone offered a devise or application to generate that fake data.


Brian

[Cerebus]

More recent data gathering exercises has been Google buying patient data from the UK's NHS.  This is of course anonymized, ...

Typical medical records supplied by the NHS to third parties for research purposes include age, race, sex [basic essential medical data] and postcode [necessary to research locality of effects. e.g. air or water pollution]. The name may have been removed, but that's not anonymous by any stretch of the imagination - I pretty sure that I'm the only white male of my age in the 20-30 houses that make up my postcode. Properly anonymizing medical data is hard, very hard and by the reckoning of some researchers impossible or very close to it. The only schemes that preserve medical privacy is where data is held in a protected silo and third parties are restricted in what searches they can make on that silo so that they cannot effectively de-anonymize that data. Handing so-called anonymized data over to third parties is the same as handing it over with the names intact, the effort to reverse the anonymization is trivial.

As it stands (or did stand, up until the UK's 'snooper charter') most claims were overblown -

Much of the Investigative Procedures Act [the "snooper's charter"] merely legalizes what GCHQ and friends were already going either illegally or with scant legality. I don't know what claims you think were overblown but I can tell you from some years of watching this from the sidelines that most claims of what domestic spying was being conducted were/are true.

...but I guess for many its not how things currently are that is the worry, it is the direction it is heading.  So more of a fear for the future.  The UK government hasn't had a good track record of using 'technology' to solve what it believes are problems, from banning all psychoactive substances (which include a bunch of flowers, and carrots) to 'assuming' that ISP's have the facility to track and record every website we visit so the government can just search for a person and find evidence of criminal behavior (ISP's can't currently do that, even if what they can record is rarely of any value).

Speaking as a man who was architect of no less than three ISPs networks I can assure you that any ISP who wants to can "track and record every website we visit", it's just that no sane ISP would want to or want to pay for the kit or storage to be able to do it for every customer. The thing is that by now, or very soon, all the big UK ISPs will have been served a "technical capability" notice under the IP Act requiring them to put the infrastructure in place to do exactly that for all of their customers.

If forcing ISPs to keep records of all web-browsing and email isn't Orwellian, then I really don't know what is. Are you holding off on calling it Orwellian until you've got exactly the situation Orwell described -  a TV with a camera attached that you're required to keep on 24 hours a day by law?

[Buriedcode]

If forcing ISPs to keep records of all web-browsing and email isn't Orwellian, then I really don't know what is. Are you holding off on calling it Orwellian until you've got exactly the situation Orwell described -  a TV with a camera attached that you're required to keep on 24 hours a day by law?

Yes. Otherwise by changing the definition you could call any society 'Orwellian'.  If you consider this to be 'Orwellian' now..  then what would you call it if we lose more privacy? Its all very Daily Mail to immediately claim that 'all privacy has gone' before it has even happened. And if you felt this strongly, surely you would never use email for anything private? It is currently very far from 1984, and I don't see it getting that way in my lifetime. It is very easy to post on a forum about it (as I'm doing) but those who are genuinely worried would curb their internet usage and emails, or start a petition.  Those who don't do that clearly don't really care that much. 

Just to be clear, I am not agreeing with the snooper charter here, just that responses should be proportional.  Unfortunately we live in a world where it is common for people to see things in 'black and white', so at what point do you go from 'perfect privacy' to 'we are just numbers!' ? And if GCHQ has been gathering this data (and regularly using it against citizens, source?) for years - why now is it a problem?  I'm asking for perspective here.  If one spent much of their life researching, it could very well lead them to think 'we are all completely controlled!' but within a country of over 50 million people, do you really think you are significant enough for businesses/governments to track your every move? or trawl though massive amounts of NHS data to find out more personal details?

[Red Squirrel]

The NSA, CSIS etc are hell bent to get into every part of our lives. There are backdoors in a lot of things now including Intel cpus. Even an air gapped computer can be accessed through this backdoor as it uses 3G. For micro data transactions these companies can probably make deals with the carriers to basically get tons of access "numbers" for a very low cost then just stick the transmitters in every product they sell and it is linked to the serial number/sale. Suppose buying everything with cash will at least somewhat remove the distinction of who owns that particular serial number device but they'll figure it out via the data they get.

Would you care to provide some sources as I find this very hard to believe. The technology you speak of is used in systems up to "Top Secret" level. US agencies don't have free access to everything as you might suggest.

Do I suspect a bit of "tin foil hat" happening here?

That's the thing it's top secret, so a lot of it is speculation, but after the Snowden leaks, you kind of have to read between the lines and realize the true lenghts these people go, and we would be naive to think that corporate/government spying do not cross hands.  Corporations spy on us for advertisers and such, and more then likely also provide the NSA the info, and perhaps even vise versa. 

As for the Intel backdoor this is a rather secretive thing as well that some people have found but there's little to no info on how it works or how to disable it.  There's lot of info if you search it, but it's all based on speculations.  I would not put it past the government to actually implement something like this though.

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/is-the-intel-management-engine-a-backdoor/

This talks more about the 3G part: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-1816242/secret-intel-chip-snoops-backdoor-access.html

[Halcyon]

I still find it a little hard to believe. If Intel implemented a 3G module in their CPUs, wouldn't it be easy enough to detect its presence each time it "talks" to a nearby cell tower? Just seems like a lot of speculation and Chinese whispers.