Your Samsung *Smart* TV is eavesdropping on your private conversations

[Xithras]

31. This is the reality of "Cloud based" anything.

The voice recognition systems used by MANY different devices are cloud based. The devices themselves are incapable of doing the voice pattern matching locally, so they shift the work to a remote server.

Apple dealt with this by building in a rudimentary voice recognition system that looks for the specific "Hey Siri" command. Google did the same with their "OK Google" command. Until that command is recognized locally, no voice recognition takes place (both Siri and Google DO transmit your words remotely after the phrase is recognized).

The problem is that user studies suggest that most people DO NOT like speaking this way. It's unnatural and non-conversational to begin every sentence by naming the subject. Users want to hold more natural conversations with the devices instead of learning different commands. LG, Samsung and even Amazon with the Echo have embraced a newer model to allow for more natural conversations with the devices. Unfortunately, this means that they now have to listen to ALL conversations in the room so they can try to determine whether you're talking to the device or talking to another person. And because this analysis is cloud based, those conversations are analyzed in a central server.