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Microsoft Privacy XBox (Games)

Microsoft Contractors Listened To Xbox Owners in Their Homes (vice.com) 27

Posted by msmash from the privacy-woes dept.
Contractors working for Microsoft have listened to audio of Xbox users speaking in their homes in order to improve the console's voice command features, Motherboard has learned. From a report: The audio was supposed to be captured following a voice command like "Xbox" or "Hey Cortana," but contractors said that recordings were sometimes triggered and recorded by mistake. The news is the latest in a string of revelations that show contractors working on behalf of Microsoft listen to audio captured by several of its products. Motherboard previously reported that human contractors were listening to some Skype calls as well as audio recorded by Cortana, Microsoft's Siri-like virtual assistant.

"Xbox commands came up first as a bit of an outlier and then became about half of what we did before becoming most of what we did," one former contractor who worked on behalf of Microsoft told Motherboard. Motherboard granted multiple sources in this story anonymity as they had signed non-disclosure agreements. The former contractor said they worked on Xbox audio data from 2014 to 2015, before Cortana was implemented into the console in 2016. When it launched in November 2013, the Xbox One had the capability to be controlled via voice commands with the Kinect system.
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Microsoft Contractors Listened To Xbox Owners in Their Homes More

Microsoft Contractors Listened To Xbox Owners in Their Homes

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  • Cloud (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rtkluttz ( 244325 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2019 @02:59PM (#59110104) Homepage

    Cloud anything can just fuck right on outta here. If you aren't the sole entity in control of your devices, then you don't understand the issue.

  • fix the laws so they can't use Contractors / sub's (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2019 @03:01PM (#59110112)

    fix the laws so they can't use Contractors / sub's to get away with stuff.

    • fix the laws so they can't use Contractors / sub's to get away with stuff.

      Ah, I see you're using that old common sense trick where you suggest the easiest and cheapest method to resolve an issue that We the People would likely support.

      Sadly, this concept is about as welcome as Ebola with our lawmakers, who of course created the initial laws in order to get away with stuff.

    • fix the laws so they can't use Contractors / sub's to get away with stuff.

      So, you're happy to just let only direct employees listen in to the private conversations then?

      I mean to me, who the fuck cares if they're working 1099 taxation or W2 taxation....NO ONE should be listening into your home and your private life.

      • No one.. except the people you explicitly and implicitly authorized to do so by putting a literal electronic listening device in the same room you are talking in. Seriously, what are you even talking about? This is a non story unless something was done outside of the consent of the people who chose to buy and enable audio recordings. If you don't want people listening, don't put an eavesdropping device in your front room.
    • People bought this with the expectation that the machine would send their in-home recordings out to strangers. If it didn't make your life less private, nobody would have bought the microphones and proprietary software. They didn't even merely consent; they insisted. People paid money to have less privacy and you're trying to rip them off by taking away a horrible feature that they bought. If you're going to reduce the "value" of these infernal products by statute, at least have the government issue a taxpa

  • There are plenty of cloudless solutions (Score:4, Informative)

    by mrwireless ( 1056688 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2019 @03:04PM (#59110132)

    I have no link to the company whatsoever, but for the past few weeks I've been working with Snips. It's a French startup that makes a fully open source cloudless voice product which is designed to run on a Raspberry Pi 3. I must say I'm pleasantly surprised by how well it works.

    MyCroft is another open source option that I've tried. It works too, but Snips was more serious about being cloudless.

    The point being: for 80% of the voice control functionality people want in their smart homes a cloud connection really is not required. Obviously it's difficult to search Wikipedia without an internet connection. But to turn things on and off or set an egg timer, well, that feels like a solved problem.

    • The point being: for 80% of the voice control functionality people want in their smart homes a cloud connection really is not required.

      Sure, but your average tech idiot isn't going to be too keen on having to host a dedicated device in their house for it to work, double so if they have to fuck around with their router config to forward traffic to it so the outside can see it.

  • It's starting to get a little repetitive with all of the stories about being listened to by various large companies.

    Perhaps Slashdot should start a feature article "Who listened to me this week"? That summarized whatever device spying was going on that week, to keep the reading and outrage overhead low.

    • It's starting to get a little repetitive with all of the stories about being listened to by various large companies.

      It is. It shouldn't be news to any nerd that companies providing voice activated devices or services might actually listen to the voice commands so they can compare what is said with what the computer thought was said. And to make improvements.

      Don't we want those companies to validate and make improvements in a service we're using? (Note: don't bother replying "they're stupid for using it" or "I would never use it". Both are irrelevant.)

      I would actually expect Amazon to monitor the Echo when I have it on

  • So? (Score:2)

    by DogDude ( 805747 )
    Why is this an article? People explicitly purchase and install devices so that giant corporations can listen to them at home. The devices are doing exactly what everybody wants them to do. What's the store here?

    • Why is this an article? People explicitly purchase and install devices so that giant corporations can listen to them at home. The devices are doing exactly what everybody wants them to do. What's the store here?

      People are probably worried if the contractors hear "Oh YES OH YES!!!! FASTER!! FASTER!!!!!!!111111111111!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....got a cigarette?"

      Although that could occur during a game, too......hmmm.

    • I have an XBox One but I made sure voice activation is turned off. If they "accidentally" listen to me with that setting turned off, then I'll have a right to complain. But with the feature turned on.. who wouldn't expect audio data to get sent to the mothership?

  • So Microsoft heard me every time I cussed after I got my shit blown up in PUBG?

  • Game consoles, computers, phones, IoT crap, FB, Google.
    And they aren't going to stop.
    If you don't like it then it's up to you to fix it. Unplug cameras and microphones. Cover cameras and mics on computers and phones. power off devices when not in use. Don't buy voice activated anything. Anything saying "cloud" is either disabled or not bought.
    And pay cash for as much as you can.

    If you're not going to at least do that, then someone is going to have your info. Act accordingly.

  • No way! Spying??!! They'd NEVER! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BringsApples ( 3418089 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2019 @03:30PM (#59110224)

    They told me, 5 years ago, that I was crazy for saying that this was happening. What next, I'm right about the Earth being a globe?? I guess after that, it'll come out that politicians don't do any actual work for a living, and that the entirety of our society is held together by interns that work for free. ...whatever

  • Dear Microsoft.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Radical Moderate ( 563286 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2019 @05:08PM (#59110508)
    When we said you need to listen to your customers, this isn't exactly what we meant.

  • ... to be glad I don't own or use anything X-Box or voice-commanded....

  • you buy a voice activated system, you'll get false positives. in order to fine tune these out they'll follow up on these. as they drill down and iron wrinkles out, contractors focus more on remaining issues. nothing to see here - you explicitly brought the listening device into your home and hooked it all up.

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