How do I stop my computer from listening to me

[MrsRonnie]

I've heard discussions about this phenomenon, where people are talking about something then an advert comes up on Facebook that is related to the thing that they're talking about. It's always been in relation to phones rather than computers but, anyway, it's not very nice.

So MrRonnie and I were discussing the (relatively new to us) dog earlier, and the fact that she doesn't seem terribly interested in her dry food and maybe we should go onto wet.

Then MrRonnie went on Facebook and up came an advert for dog food.

MrRonnie rarely posts anything on FB and, if he does, it's usually about politics. Neither has he posted about the new dog, and it's all just a bit freaky. So I'm assuming there's a way to switch off the (presumably built-in) microphone on his laptop. And hoping that this will make his laptop deaf.

Am I right, or is there something else that needs to be done aswell?

TIA
Ronnie

[kempiejon]

They said I was paranoid when I put tape over my laptop's microphone and camera. I wouldn't be surprised if after you turned the microphone off they turned it back on again. Or even, if you turn it off it actually stays on, listening.

I did an experiment a few months ago and spoke about llama farming regularly all weekend, we have Alexa on a Sonos that listens, a google mini and 2 of the three of us have listening mobile phones. No one had any adverts for anything llama related.

Most weekends I see adverts for delivery pizza although it has not been mentioned.

[bungeejumper]

Well, if you go into Settings/Devices/Sound/Manage Sound Devices, there's an option to disable your microphone. As to whether that would stop the fiends from Mossad from bugging you, that's another matter. Or your mobile phone, which is technically capable of listening in even when it appears to be switched off. Last month's news that people at Siri and Amazon are both recording and listening to stuff, including people having sex, has not exactly helped matters.

The point's good, though. I've heard of somebody who was discussing a sister's grave illness, and who was then bombarded with ads for funeral parlours. Which are not the kind of enterprises that usually send out marketing campaigns merely on spec. Personally I wouldn't have any listening device in my house, such as an Amazon Echo speaker, but I fear it may eventually become a losing battle now that even fridges are starting to get listening capabilities.

BJ

[Itsallaguess]

The point's good, though. I've heard of somebody who was discussing a sister's grave illness, and who was then bombarded with ads for funeral parlours.

Which are not the kind of enterprises that usually send out marketing campaigns merely on spec.

Cold calling?

I'd have thought it was right up their street.....

<gets coat....>

Itsallaguess

[bungeejumper]

The point's good, though. I've heard of somebody who was discussing a sister's grave illness, and who was then bombarded with ads for funeral parlours.

Which are not the kind of enterprises that usually send out marketing campaigns merely on spec.

Cold calling? I'd have thought it was right up their street.....

<gets coat....>

I'd give them a stiff reply, I think. And ask them if there's anything they could do to stop me coffin?

BJ

[SalvorHardin]

A friend, who is a lot more paranoid than me, recommends the following:

1) Don't use Facebook. Seriously. That thing is surveillance central. If you have to use it keep your use to a minimum and do lots of random stuff with it so that your feed and adverts get a bit confused. Facebook's track record for privacy isn't good (if you're not paying, you're the product).

2) Don't keep using the same search engine (e.g. Try Duck Duck Go, use Bing as well as Google, etc.)

3) Don't use Alexa or any other bugging, sorry listening, device.

4) Don't use anything that's "internet of things" (massive security risk as IoT devices don't pay much attention to security). If your fridge is connected to the internet it's probably very easy for someone to logon to it and cause havoc.

5) Disable microphones and web cameras (I put duct tape over any camera in my computers, tablets and phones).

6) Avoid using Google Chrome for the majority of your web browsing (I use Firefox).

7) Don't use a Chromebook

8) Use an ad-blocker such as Ad-Aware when browsing

[Slarti]

8) Use an ad-blocker such as Ad-Aware when browsing

uBlock Origin is much better and doesn't have a list of advertisers that they whitelist. I know that you can turn that off, but the very existence of it worries me.

Oh, and I physically disabled the microphone in my laptop by plugging in an external one, well at least the jack plug for one.

Slarti

[SalvorHardin]

uBlock Origin is much better and doesn't have a list of advertisers that they whitelist. I know that you can turn that off, but the very existence of it worries me.

Thanks. The blocker I use is the Firefox "Adblock Plus" add-on, not ad-aware (which my friend prefers).

One thing I've done is to regularly search for watches, watch parts and watch repairs (I've bookmarked several searches). The result is that whenever I see an advert, it is most likely to be for a watch ☺

[UncleEbenezer]

If it is indeed his computer[1], you want to track down what app is listening. Obvious suspects could be the likes of siri or alexa: if you have any such thing installed, check your privacy settings: in these days of GDPR they wouldn't use overheard data to feed adverts without very clear permission! It also seems unlikely behaviour for serious malware: why would it out itself on something so low-value as general advertising?

[1] As opposed to another device, such as a "smart speaker" associated with something like home automation. Or of course pure coincidence. Or - probably more likely - that you or a friend really has posted something connecting you with a canine family member. Or just visited a dog-related website where it was seen by an ad-broker.

[BobbyD]

MrRonnie rarely posts anything on FB and, if he does, it's usually about politics. Neither has he posted about the new dog, and it's all just a bit freaky. So I'm assuming there's a way to switch off the (presumably built-in) microphone on his laptop. And hoping that this will make his laptop deaf.

Have you been looking at Dog/Dog food related websites?

[formoverfunction]

What are ads? Seriously, I don't often see them these days LOL

I used to get followed around by Fisher Investments. I'd see it everywhere! How creepy is that.

Now I add block ( EFF's Privacy Badger), force HTTPS everywhere and No Script. Use DuckDuckGo and Startpage. I use Google services, but never their "apps". Use multiple browsers. Brave & Firefox and cookie jar page cookies, so they only ever see their own cookies. One of the browsers is set to start fresh each time.

I use a VPN, but not all the time and reboot my router on a regular basis to get a new IP.

I have thought about blocking my mic and camera, but haven't.

I do have a Raspberry Pi without a (camera or mic). For a small amount of money you can have second stripped down machine for facebook etc. My Pi runs a VPN all the time and uses a slightly hardened Linux set up. I use it in a very limited way. It useful on occasions to run software I don't want on my main machine. It also runs my social media accounts: Twitter, Facebook. I don't often post on them, but I do use them for research. They both think I live in Germany.....Facebook has banned me a few times. Not for posting, I don't. I guess because they can't see much on me. Who knows?!
To save on cost the Pi doesn't have a monitor, keyboard or mouse. I just VNC into it over my home network.

[MrsRonnie]

Some interesting responses - thank you.

I have looked for dog food reviews on my PC, but MrRonnie hasn't and he hasn't looked for dogs since we got the new one a month ago. I suppose it could have worked out that no dog searches for a month means dog must have been found, therefore advertise the food...

Anyway, will go through your suggestions and carry out the necessary homework.

Ronnie

[simoan]

A friend, who is a lot more paranoid than me, recommends the following:

1) Don't use Facebook. Seriously. That thing is surveillance central. If you have to use it keep your use to a minimum and do lots of random stuff with it so that your feed and adverts get a bit confused. Facebook's track record for privacy isn't good (if you're not paying, you're the product).

2) Don't keep using the same search engine (e.g. Try Duck Duck Go, use Bing as well as Google, etc.)

3) Don't use Alexa or any other bugging, sorry listening, device.

4) Don't use anything that's "internet of things" (massive security risk as IoT devices don't pay much attention to security). If your fridge is connected to the internet it's probably very easy for someone to logon to it and cause havoc.

5) Disable microphones and web cameras (I put duct tape over any camera in my computers, tablets and phones).

6) Avoid using Google Chrome for the majority of your web browsing (I use Firefox).

7) Don't use a Chromebook

8) Use an ad-blocker such as Ad-Aware when browsing

All great points. I'd go even further on the Chromebook and not use an Android phone either, personally, but realise that's quite difficult for some people these days. I have the "misfortune" of working in data security. The problem is when you tell friends and family this stuff you just come across as the kind of person who sits around in a tin foil hat. This is the real problem - most people just think you're a weirdo! Especially when they see my old dumbphone which is a source of merriment for my younger family members. Not that they were laughing a few weeks ago when I was the only person with a phone signal in the middle of the Peak District

All the best, Si

[Alaric]

I have looked for dog food reviews on my PC, but MrRonnie hasn't and he hasn't looked for dogs since we got the new one a month ago.

I would have thought that was the link. Search for dogs and ads related to dogs will appear.

[gryffron]

I have looked for dog food reviews on my PC, but MrRonnie hasn't and he hasn't looked for dogs since we got the new one a month ago.

I also would have thought internet searches were WAY more likely to be the cause of this than audio. Audio recognition is still pretty poor. Try talking in a strong accent

Since you are both using the same router you both have the same internet IP address, linking your two machines isn't going to be hard for advertisers to do.

Gryff

[Julian]

I have looked for dog food reviews on my PC, but MrRonnie hasn't and he hasn't looked for dogs since we got the new one a month ago.

I also would have thought internet searches were WAY more likely to be the cause of this than audio. Audio recognition is still pretty poor. Try talking in a strong accent

Since you are both using the same router you both have the same internet IP address, linking your two machines isn't going to be hard for advertisers to do.

Gryff

I definitely agree. The idea that Google, Facebook or other organisations are doing mass audio surveillance from what would probably be hundreds of millions(*) of phones, tablets and PCs and then doing sufficient audio and language analysis to determine the subjects of conversations reliably enough to target ads is just not realistic. As already mentioned it is WAY more likely to be related to searches on the computer.

That doesn't necessarily mean that concerns about devices with microphones or cameras are silly. It is perfectly feasible that malicious actors could individually target such devices to enable data collection so I can see why some people might want to disable them, indeed Snowden leaked that our own government has done it (GCHQ's "Smurfs" suite of software - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34444233) but those are targeted intercepts where GCHQ can then allocate whatever combination of computer and/or human analysis resource are required to extract meaningful intelligence from the data collected. The computing resource that would be required to analyse trillions of person-hours of conversations each year would be absolutely astronomical and I'm not convinced the analysis algorithms are even there to do it yet. The computing challenge involved in actually working out what conversations are about is a lot more difficult than most people realise, probably because we as humans do it so effortlessly from a fairly young age (or at least most of us do).

- Julian

(*) Hundreds of millions because most people have multiple devices so it's probably quite a few tens of millions just in the UK and if it was being done in the UK it would surely also be happening in the USA, Canada, and probably Australia, New Zealand, most or all of the other EU countries, Japan, South Korea etc etc.

[gryffron]

mass audio surveillance... reliably enough to target ads is just not realistic.

Also bear in mind, even if I could tap audio from the average living room, 90% of what I'm hearing will be TV/Radio/Youtube... How can the technology disconnect that from your "real" conversations?

Gryff

[JohnB]

If you are bugging millions of households, it would be trival to produce audio fingerprints from the few thousand tv and radio shows that are likely to be most likely to be playing in people's homes. Or persuade broadcasters to put in ultrasonic watermarks in their shows 'for anti-piracy measures'

As for the dog food thing, anyone searching for dog buying terms is likely to be bombarded with dog food ads until the supplier thinks they'll have fixed on a brand. One month in is prime time for that.

[Julian]

If you are bugging millions of households, it would be trival to produce audio fingerprints from the few thousand tv and radio shows that are likely to be most likely to be playing in people's homes. Or persuade broadcasters to put in ultrasonic watermarks in their shows 'for anti-piracy measures'
...

What about when someone is listening to personal music or even worse streaming from something like Spotify/AppleMusic/GoogleMusic and perhaps using those services’ auto-discovery features to play new-to-them stuff that they might like (that’s exactly what I’m doing right now)? Or streaming from Netflix? Or using a catch-up service such as iPlayer? The world of media consumption, at least in the UK & many other countries, is moving away from having much grasp of who will be watching or listening to what when.

I suppose if one is getting totally paranoid then this hypothetical listen-to-everyone agency could perhaps also hack into everyone’s Netflix/iPlayer/Spotify etc accounts and attempt to correlate what those servers say the individual targets are currently streaming and attempt to map that onto the background noise on the audio eavesdropping feed with a view to filtering it out but frankly to me that all seems like further illustration of how technically infeasible the whole task of mass audio eavesdropping is.

- Julian