Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

A couple of months ago I posted how it seemed someone was listening to conversations within my house and that it was spooky since I did not own one of those interactive devices nor did I have a computer with built-in camera operating at the time the conversations took place. One instant was when my daughter asked if I had a powerful magnet to so she could pull a needle from a slot in a table she had been sewing on. I got two ads about magnets, one proclaiming they sold the most powerful magnets available. ????

Well, the answers I received pretty much were in agreement that we are being spied on mainly through our cell phones. You may find the following interesting: It is Edward Snowden on Utube talking about cell phones.

If the link doesn't work, dial up Utube and ask for the Edward Snowden interview on cell phones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFns39RXPrU

cameranut Loc: North Carolina

The base sound on my pc speakers with sub woofer makes it impossible to hear what he is saying. I doubt, however, that my cheap cell phone will reveal much about me. If it does, it will show that I'm living in/below poverty level, in a house that would be condemned in some areas, with a 99 year old and various health problems, etc. If I have something someone wants, I'd like to know about it myself. :)

johngault007 Loc: Florida Panhandle

I've sort of made it a point to ignore anything Snowden says due to the fact he tried to embellish his own career and was basically disgruntled because he didn't feel important enough. He was a contractor working as a system administrator and had no idea about the legal processes that are involved to use the information that he acquired. Basically he broke more laws than he protected by allegedly acquiring sensitive data.


But, in lieu of that, the possibility to enable the microphone (mouth part) of a cellphone or computer and/or camera is a very real thing that hackers have been able to do many times at DEFCON and other published white papers. Luckily most of us are boring enough that the chances of us being listened to are very slim.

rustfarmer

Landline phones are able to listen to everything in your house even while the receiver is hung up if the proper equipment is used. This is because the switch which disconnects the handset only interrupts one of the two wires.

rplain1 Loc: Dayton, Oh.

Over 330,000.000 people in this country and someone is spying on YOU?? What exactly are you doing that anyone could possibly be interested?

nospambob Loc: Edmond, Oklahoma

Buy more tinfoil

Red6

I guess it depends on your definition of "spying." If you think there is someone somewhere in a dark room, listening to what say in your home, what your are viewing on your computer or what your are saying on your phone, then that definition of spying is probably not accurate, unless you are under investigation by the FBI or other law enforcement agency.

However, there are many computer networks out there collecting data from all our computer habits, cell phone usage, credit card usage and other activities. This data is then analyzed and "mined" by other computers and sold to be used for marketing purposes and selling us things that interest us. I have other hobbies such as amateur radio and astronomy and I often receive unrequested ads from vendors of these products. In fact, the mere mention of these in this post will most likely result in me getting ads associated with these hobbies.

There is little you can do to completely prevent this unless you just stop using the internet and cell phones. However, you can minimize it by using more secure browsers and taking steps within those browsers to turn off as much collection of the data as possible. Is it convenient? - NO. It will make browsing the internet slower and more inefficient, but you will be sending out less data.

Do some research, again some computer will know what you are looking for and will respond with ads for more security and less open browsers. But what you will learn about your internet habits may shock you.

phlash46 Loc: Westchester County, New York

JimBart Loc: Western Michigan

Do you have a “Smart” television? This is probably what the culprit is. Party I know has one and sometimes hears his neighbors conversations. Once talking about him

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Privacy faded away long ago. Do you think all the "Privacy" settings we can select really do any good? They are they to placate us. We click a couple of boxes and think we're private. Companies us AI to gather phenomenal amounts of information about us automatically.

I watched a good video about this on The Great Courses. A man went to Target and complained that his 15 year old daughter was getting ads about pregnancy and newborn babies. He thought that was totally inappropriate. Turns out she was actually pregnant, and Target knew about it before her family did. By monitoring Facebook and other social media, AI can gather all sorts of info about us. You don't have a Facebook account? That doesn't matter. AI can still formulate a good profile of you from things your friends post.

Privacy is an illusion. Sorry.

EDIT: If your computer has a web cam, you should cover the lens if you want privacy. Hackers can turn it on while leaving the light off.

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

Red6 and others have echoed how I think on this. Your digital life means you are trackable, but the intention is about as nefarious as product marketing.
Did you know that if you have a Facebook account, that FB is tracking your browsing history even if you are not logged into Facebook? ( https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-clear-history-offline-activity-tracker-tool-how-to-use-2020-1 ) That one annoyed me, for some reason!

Bayou

Do you do the "Hey Siri" thing on an iPhone? Or the "hey Google" thing on Android....to search or ask a question? If so, that's the culprit. It's not a television or any other device. Those services listen constantly so they can respond to a voice query, and so they can target advertising as well. They can be disabled.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

If I have anything worth spying on, have at it!

bwa

clickety

I believe the term “bulk collection” of data is the greater concern followed by “monetization” of that data which apparently is what you experienced. We were forewarned eighty years ago by George Orwell (ala 1984) yet we still ignore and some even rush to provide all their personal particulars to internet entities just because they will give something for ‘free’ whether it be tax filing, credit monitoring or Jerry’s ‘free’ lunch.

Steven Loc: So. Milwaukee, WI.

The truth is out there!