The title looks strong, but unfortunately is the reality. Taking a small historical excursus, semantics might help explain the problem better.

The previous computational technology was and is called the Personal Computer and the adjective exactly defines the data management logic.

The hardware device was designed to complete the decoding of all the data locally: good power computation, data storage capacity, input devices (keyboard, mouse, cam, microphone), what di output (monitor, loudspeakers, etc…) and an operating system for the management of programs that "turned" on the computer.

The "new" technology is currently defined as "smart", but we should ask for those smart?

digital and real economy, the reference value has become the given, and appropriate them in an "intelligent", It was and is the goal of those who understood the great potential a few decades ago.

Pass to obsolete personal computers and programs that can be installed locally, it's simply a dialectical inoculated to the public to allow those who provides the infrastructure hw and sw, to be able to get hold of the data easily, "Economic" and apparently legitimate.

The privacy on smartphones

We analyze for example how you made a "Smart" -phone.

We could call it "at first glance", a small laptop : It has a processor, capacity storage, It has a monitor, a virtual keyboard touch that also serves as a pointer, a microphone, Loudspeaker, various sensors, but ... the OS aims to make "turn" Apps that are simply engineered programs to collect data to be sent on someone else's server (definito romantically "Cloud", which it is much more concrete and less evanescent a harmless cloud!). It not by chance has become necessary to maintain always-on data connection to use the services offered by the app ...

This choice "technique" has one main aim: complete the cross profiling for commercial purposes, at best, but if we were to think badly for discriminatory purposes for many different uses and abuses.

The invitation is to do an act of faith in these few and partial statements, but to go and see for themselves what "permissions" you are obligated to grant to use the tasks set down in apps. Practically it must provide access to strangers intimate and personal data such as photos, address book, log gps, search log, call log, System tools, microphones, cam, various sensors.

Unfortunately, there is little awareness of these workings and in the best case in the light of some scandal about Numbers (promptly shelved), the average user mature a "feeling" sweetened and impalpable that it spied.

Then this feeling is dissipated under the media pressure of skilful communication campaigns on many media, based on the mantra, according to which "it is good to share" and "privacy is over" ... to pass through it and clearly established "normal" that strangers take ownership of my photos, in my address book, of my trips (GPS log), my messages, of all phone (!), etc.. in order to "improve services".

Continuing the discussion, we take the "smart" technologies for the detection and collection of biometric data; This may in photographic and predictive way to describe our state of health: Imagine then how these data in hand could be used for those entering into the life insurance or health insurance policies or in the hands of a potential employer who has to choose between different candidates, also "counting" on the votes given by algorithms of "future production efficiency". But it doesn't stop there! These cross data with other very personal and intimate variables inherent in the individual's lifestyle, can be used to project potential future scenarios also direct the next generation: think about your children.

Also we contextualize the evolution of telecommunications networks with the advent of new standards 5G at high speed and very wide bandwidth. Of course they collect data from a constantly growing number of connected objects that have the function of measuring the whole of reality in real time, living beings including!

But we come to the objective end toward which all the smart technology is sailing at full speed: penetrate the house that is the most intimate and precious environment for the individual.

In this reality abberated and aberrant is scary to think that a place considered sacred and inviolable regardless of culture, on latitude and longitude, is about to become the land of voyeuristic forays of a few private individuals who are watching everything and everyone.

Smart speaker: the spearhead of espionage

The silent attack has already started some years ago with the introduction of "SMART" -TV ... then followed by the SMART-refrigerator (refrigerators poke-nose), dagli SMART-hoover (vacuum cleaners that "learn" the house floor plans), SMART- CAM (nice web cam controlled from your mobile phone) and now the SMART-speaker: the spearhead of espionage!

This is "harmlessly" described as a "virtual assistant" in disguise, just, da Smart speaker, but what it is concretely?

Remember the definition of Personal Computer? Well, from this eliminated the computational power and leave only the input devices (microphones) and those output (speakers). Virtually unknown materializes eyes and ears inside the house!

To be more precise we move to the functional description of these "Smart" tools: the microphone is "always on" with server-side decoding, what does it mean? Simply that there is a microphone constantly listening indoors, and the part of computation that serves to "understand" what are wondering virtual server resides in the cloud, ie outside the home (aliases in the hungry of our data servers).

Technically, as we spy on smart speaker?

Let's take an example to make clear the operation process:

The microphone when it senses the activation word (definita “wake word “) begins the conversation recording. This conversation is transcribed by software (speech to text) in a text document that is analyzed by semantic analysis algorithms which extrapolate "by understanding", the sense.

For example, ask: "Hey Alexa or Google or Bixbi ... .that the weather will be in Rome tomorrow?”

All the above process takes place in the owners of the respective server technologies, retrieved information on the web, fall into the house with a synthetic voice enunciate the required weather.

The defenders of this technology, accusation of spying on an ongoing basis, they usually respond that the recording is activated only at the pronunciation of the word "key" ... but in reality, as already documented by recent scandals concerning access to the data requested by a user, it was found that not only This user has received the conversations of another user (human error, according to the manufacturer), but that the recordings were "activated" even from words that had a sound similar to the activation word, It could be a limitation of the technology yet to be refined. And what to make of the fact that Amazon has filed a mailetto with a clear name: "Voice sniffing" which exponentially enriches the number of words that will trigger the recording?

I conclude by inviting to take full knowledge about the inner workings of the "smart" technology and act coherently, indeed when we get home, We close the door, perhaps with a nice flow and pull the curtains so as not to be the object of unwanted attention. With the same care we should keep out of the house who does not respect our privacy ... smart technology included!

#ComputArte its #key4biz let's clear technology #smart and on the #smarthome. Why the #privacy It is not a luxury but a necessary good : #stopspyingme