People: I will never put one of those smart speakers in my home! You're basically just putting in a microphone that will spy on you!

Also People: Hang on I have to grab my phone/high-fidelity microphone/high resolution camera/GPS tracker/Data Aggregator and make sure I have it with me literally everywhere I go, because who knows when I will want to comment on a cute picture of a cat!?

I do draw the line at the new echo that has the camera.

@ChachiKlaus It's easier to protect your phone vs the smart speakers. Can't really do shit.

But even then, the companies can't really do any monitoring with the smart speakers aside from data collection (which happens already, and the people alluded to by the OP don't care) or like using the mic to listen in.

I'm happy to see more rants like this pop up recently. The tin foil fest has gone on long enough 😄

@ChachiKlaus Yeah I think that it's just as reasonable of an assumption that the smart speaker only transmits data when you use the "wake word". Especially now that most phones have "Hey Siri" or "OK Google", I assume they have to function in the exact same way as the smart speaker does now. Couple that to how much more data the phone captures (and the fact that it's almost always with you, unlike a speaker), I think that the privacy risk of a speaker is almost tame by comparison.

Don't get me wrong, I use both of those devices, and I realize that I operate largely on faith that my privacy is not being abused. I think it's just funny that there is such a large stigma against one device vs the other when in reality the concerns should probably be swapped.

@jhh2450 Definitely, me too.

Before anyone comes here saying "But they're not open source! They might aswell be recording all the time and sending it all back!!11!1!1!1!".

No, you can just drop a wiretap between it and you'll router and you'll know. If that was the case, someone would have noticed and the shitstorm that would start would be visible from the moon.

@Froot This has nothing to do with the tin foil people you're referencing here. These people acknowledge the fact that these speakers COULD be used against you, and they acknowledge that phones can be used against you.

This post is satirically roasting people who refuse to use these smart speakers but ignore the fact their smartphone is 10x worse than these speakers ever will be.

With modern technology, I feel that the only way to have an expectation of privacy is to not use technology.

People still crying about smart speakers?

@Froot Ah so just because you actually give a shit about what devices listen to you you suddenly are a tinfoil hat person?

@deusprogrammer Well by end to end encrypting my chat messages through open/verified crypto protocols, i retain a quite high level of privacy.

@linuxxx It's just that the tinfoil fest has gone out of hand. It'll soon be like Alex Jones show here where tap water turns frogs gay and people sell male vitality supplements.

What I mean is that the conspiracy theories are getting a little loony and the people spreading them sometimes offer ridiculous ways to protect yourself, like downloading bootleg apps from a bootleg site instead of the official store. I mean... cmon...

But, I love ma Google Home.

Reminds me of...