Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu: What your smart devices know (and share) about you
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birthday last year,
in privacy and security.
in the middle of our home
and Edison Research,
now has a smart speaker,
a virtual assistant at home.
is getting here fast.
all kinds of internet-connected devices.
smart toilets, smart toys,
can connect to the internet,
one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco
measuring our sleeping habits.
that the only thing worse
tell you the next day
and got a low sleep score."
feel like shit today."
internet-connected devices in my home.
at all the network activity.
sort of like a security guard,
all the network packets
he's not my husband,
to their manufacturers.
in understanding
emissions look like
but more importantly,
of digital silence in the house --
you guys woke up and went to bed.
brushed her teeth.
when you were working from home.
to, like, a lot of people here.
it's just metadata.
and how long you watched it for.
it's usually in binge mode.
"Difficult People" and "Party Down."
I loved "Party Down."
and you should definitely watch it.
was all my husband, Trevor.
that you knew about his binges,
to connect the TV to the router,
that our TV has spied on us.
to the government just last year,
second-by-second information
were watching on TV, including us,
to data brokers and advertisers.
almost all pinged their servers daily.
was especially chatty?
every three minutes,
you were using it or not.
ongoing conversations
no idea, without your router.
you should probably know --
is going to own your data.
maybe that's to be expected --
it's going to use the internet.
that is the home
our really basic behavior there.
can be mined by the surveillance economy.
how often you brush your teeth?
insurance company called Beam.
smart toothbrushes since 2015 --
premiums, of course.
some of you are thinking:
or some price breaks in return.
in my smart home.
drove me insane:
over a dozen apps to my phone
was just a world of hell.
coffee wasn't really working for you?
but I thought it was going to be great.
and we'd say, "Alexa, make us coffee."
brand-specific phrase to make it work.
to run quick start."
really hard to remember
that was right next to our bed
by screaming this phrase at the Echo Dot.
the button to make the coffee run."
survived the experiment,
less infuriating than Kashmir did.
to target and profile you.
can be used to predict
and they've also patented it.
every time you go online,
a sex toy connects to the internet,
who are in a long-distance relationship,
a lot of information
how long it was used for,
how hot the toy got.
this really sensitive data?"
for market research."
their customers' orgasms.
you're cavalier about privacy,
that's a step too far.
to keep my sex toys dumb.
range from useful to annoying.
the companies that made them.
and social media,
you're the product.
of your smart home,
that these things connect to the internet
in that commercial panopticon,
the design of these devices
to participate in "market research,"
has a Wi-Fi connection.
generally, this is happening,
household items are spying on you.
these things are watching you,
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Kashmir Hill - Technology journalistKashmir Hill writes about privacy and technology.
Why you should listen
Kashmir Hill is a senior reporter for the Gizmodo Media Group. As she writes: "I started out in journalism blogging at what was essentially an online tabloid for lawyers. Then I got interested in privacy, and that forced me to write about Facebook and eventually about other technologies; along the way people started describing me as a technology journalist instead of a legal blogger.
"I've always wanted my writing to be approachable for a lay audience, so I usually use humor, a first-person approach or, ideally, both. So I've hacked a smart home, lived in a monitored one, created a fake business and bought it a fake reputation, worked as a crowdsourced girlfriend, lived on Bitcoin and spent a whole week WRITING IN CAPS LOCK. The best way to prepare people for future possible tech dystopias is for me to live in them and report back."
Kashmir Hill | Speaker | TED.com
Surya Mattu - Artist, investigative journalist, engineer
Think of Surya Mattu as a data detective. As he writes: "I am interested in figuring out the ways in which algorithmic systems harm people."
Why you should listen
Surya Mattu is a data reporter on Gizmodo's Special Projects Desk and an R&D journalism resident at Eyebeam NYC. As he writes: "My practice combines art, investigative journalism, engineering and creative technology. The aim is to reverse-engineer the specific ways in which the tools or technology we create are imbued with the ethics of the culture in which they're created. Currently, I am a data reporter. Previously, I was a contributing researcher at ProPublica, where I worked on "Machine Bias," a series that aims to highlight how algorithmic systems can be biased and discriminate against people."
Surya Mattu | Speaker | TED.com