from Hacker News

How Instagram uses your mobile microphone to spy on you (and serve ads)

by ssaunier_ on 8/25/17, 2:55 PM with 31 comments

• by teapot01 on 8/25/17, 3:31 PM

  This is maybe the third time I've seen an article with the same anecdotal proof. If you have any real proof, show us, if you don't be clear and don't use a bullshit clickbait title.

  For those that want to spend some time trying to figure it out - take a look at MITMproxy, find proof that they are spying and show us.

• by ruddct on 8/25/17, 3:29 PM

  One theory: Instagram and Facebook have hacked iOS to bypass the built-in bright red flashing 'recording' status bar and are recording your conversations constantly for their own benefit.

  Another theory: At some point you looked at a web page that mentioned projectors, or you happen to be in a demo that frequently buys projectors, so you saw an ad for projectors.

  I know which theory I'd buy. These conspiracy theories pop up constantly, they're quite tiring.

• by hellweaver666 on 8/25/17, 3:37 PM

  I know FB have a lot of really smart data-scientists working on this stuff but I doubt that it's worth the effort to analyse everything you say on the hope it'll contain some kind of keyword that can trigger an advert.

  It's more likely that you and the friends posted pictures at around the same place/time your friend later googled micro projectors and was tagged via an embedded like button on the page (yeah... those things track you!). Then they just made a jump that two people in the same area may have similar interests and served you an ad.

  It's just like how I get recommendations for people I've never met before after attending an event that we both just happened to go to.

• by ricardobeat on 8/25/17, 3:42 PM

  The "experiment" described doesn't even seem to have been intentional, that's just an anecdote.

  On the other hand, nearly _everyone_ I talk to has experienced these mind-reading ads - if this happens solely through correlation of social networks and their online activity, it is maybe even more mind-blowing than the conspiracy theory, and brings up scary questions about what we should expect from AI in the future.

• by marze on 8/25/17, 3:30 PM

  Maybe the cousin did some web research on micro projectors, and the ad was served to those he/she was with?

  Some experiments discussing obscure products should help determine.

• by bkmartin on 8/25/17, 3:06 PM

  This article is obviously anecdotal and not proof... But me and my wife have been experiencing very similar things and she is convinced that Facebook or Google are doing the same thing. We have had a few, instances in the last month where our conversation in the car was followed by relevant advertising just minutes later when she looks at Facebook... Not actually making an accusation, but we are definitely suspicious at this point.

• by dvdhnt on 8/25/17, 3:36 PM

  As others have said, this is not causation nor has hard evidence been provided, however, I am curious:

  What moral obligation does a developer have, if any, to expose this sort of "feature"?

  The mob came when Snowden et all exposed the large passive-collection programs run by the federal government - do people not believe that we have the same protections from private companies as we do from public entities? Yes, it's their app and I don't have to download it, but we're talking about covert activities - aka spying - that a user has not consented to.

  You wouldn't let General Electric put a "passive" video camera in your oven to capture what goes on in your kitchen for the sake of a "better cooking experience" or "personalization"; our digital real estate should be no different.

• by altern8tif on 8/25/17, 3:44 PM

  Wouldn't it be easy to test your hypothesis even further?

  Instead of a random conversation, keep repeating a certain outrageous/uncommon phrase (say Korean cuttlefish snacks) and monitor your feed to see if any weird ads appear.

  My guess is that Facebook/Instagram probably categorised your profile as someone who enjoys the outdoors and watches movies (which can be said of a large proportion of the world population), and knew that you might have been hiking then (location tracking and possibly via your face appearing in a friend's post?). Consequently, a "relevant" ad was pushed to you.

• by ramshanker on 8/25/17, 3:11 PM

  Creepy. So let's have a Mic / Camera icon blinking in the status bar whenever an application accesses them. At least it will keep people informed.

• by SallySwanSmith on 8/25/17, 3:28 PM

  Repeat after me, “Correlation does not imply causation”

• by yesbabyyes on 8/25/17, 3:46 PM

  The day I became sure of this, I was painting a house together with this guy whose dad used to work for my dad. The day before I had gotten a job offer for working at some startup, can't remember the name right now (I haven't heard about the company since this day). They were supposed to record DJ sets and put them on their web site, and the guy I was working with was into the EDM scene so I mentioned it to him, mostly because I couldn't quite understand the business proposition, and thought perhaps he could. He couldn't, though - according to him, it was already a big thing but the DJ set videos were posted to YouTube, which makes sense to me.

  Not 15 minutes later, he comes around to me and says "What was the name of that company?" I reply, and he goes, "wow, that's strange - I just got an ad for them on my FB."

  Again, I've never heard about the company before or later.

  Well, it's going to come out, and when it does, people will go from "what?! that can't be true" to "well duh, what did you think?! everyone knows that".

• by djtriptych on 8/25/17, 3:31 PM

  Another possible explanation is that someone else in that conversation performed a search that Facebook could see. Facebook also knows where you are, and perhaps pushed ads to everyone within X meters of that search.

  Creepy, but not "listening to every word you speak" creepy.

• by Steve44 on 8/25/17, 3:39 PM

  I don't know if that is being done or not but would immediately question if this is just a coincidence. How many different things have been talked about over the years and how many adverts have been served.

  Was this just a case of a random though possibly slightly profile targetted, advert happening to appear during the time he remembered the conversation. Did he get ads for everything they discussed?

• by tucif on 8/25/17, 3:35 PM

  Mods: Title is misleading and not the original.

  This post never shows "how" ig uses a mic, just theorizes about it without any proof.

• by dylanz on 8/25/17, 3:34 PM

  I have another anecdote. I saw a friend I haven't seen in over a year randomly at the airport. We had a drink, never took out our phones, and he told me he was going to take photos in the Yukon. Later that day on my phone I got an ad on Instagram for "Visit the Yukon!". That creeped me out a bit.

• by lobotryas on 8/25/17, 3:56 PM

  Agree with what everyone else is repeating about the article. I'm curious though: why does Instagram ask for your mic in the first place? I don't use the app so the presence of that option is weird.

  Personally I am sure that I am tracked online, but I block ads very aggressively so at least there's that.

• by textech on 8/25/17, 3:38 PM

  It has happened to me too and far too many times to be just a coincidence. I don't even have Instagram or Facebook on my mobile so won't be surprised if Google is involved too as I have an android phone.

• by deweller on 8/25/17, 3:48 PM

  Isn't it much more likely that this was a predictive algorithm doing a good job of guessing what you might want?

• by hawkilt on 8/31/17, 1:07 AM

  i’ve similar experience, my location permission is always turned off for Facebook, it was showing the realeaste ads right where i was.

• by jlebrech on 8/25/17, 3:36 PM

  or someone on a related device has been googling for products related to that conversation.

• by Overtonwindow on 8/25/17, 3:30 PM

  I think an assumption should be made for every single app on your phone: It will read, listen, take, and record everything.