A mysterious voice coming from inside the house. A watchful eye you never knew was there. These scenarios may sound spooooooky,???? ???? ????? ?????? ????? ?? ????????? but they aren't paranormal.
These days, the plots of horror flicks can sound a lot like modern technology. We don't have to look to ghost stories or scary movies for tales of shadowy characters or the past never really dying. Tech products and hackers are our modern day Freddy Kruegers. Minus the, ya know, murder.
In honor of Halloween (and cybersecurity knowledge!), here are the spookiest tech gadgets and features.
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1. iOS 13 'Attention Correction' for FaceTime
The least human-to-human thing about FaceTime is that when you video chat with someone, you're not really making eye contact. Apple decided to do something about that problem of human connection with... artificial intelligence.
In July, Apple introduced a feature to FaceTime called Attention Correction. It uses AI to subtly alter the way a user's eyes appear to the person they're talking to, and make it look like they're actually making eye contact.
It hasn't exactly worked out: some users report that the effect is "creepy." Uh, yeah! We don't remember asking for a disembodied intelligence to move our eyes around for us! This feature has big time "eyes in the painting following you around" vibes.
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Apple *may* have gotten the message. One week after releasing Attention Correction in an iOS 13 beta, it removed the feature in the next iteration. However, it touted Attention Correction at its September hardware event, so the strange AI feature could still rise from the dead.
2. Fitness trackers
In 2018, the world woke up to the fact that strapping a GPS to our wrists was *maybe* not such a great idea. That realization occurred when a Twitter user pointed out that they could find U.S. military bases by searching fitness app Strava's "heat map."
These devices and apps are collecting, aggregating, and analyzing data about where real people are at all times. If you don't have your privacy settings toggled to give you the utmost privacy (Strava rolled out significant changes in September 2018), people could deduce a lot about you just from viewing GPS tracker data — which, in some cases, is public online. No thanks!
3. Advertising pixels
You're not just being followed IRL.... there are a lot of eyeballs watching you in the digital realm, too. Advertisers are able to track your activity around the internet when websites place a line of code, also called a pixel, on their sites. That's why ads for, say, some shoes you've been checking out, will sometimes appear on the next site you visit, and then eternally follow you around the internet forever more. Are you being haunted by the ghosts of would-be purchases past? You betcha.
4. Suggested locations in Google and Apple Maps
One day, notifications started appearing on my iPhone: traffic is heavier than usual. It will take you 25 minutes to get to [my home address]. Helpful? Maybe. Creepy: good god yes.
If you don't have Location Services disabled, Google and Apple maps keep track of where you're going, and sometimes prompt you to name these places, or even suggest destinations. Both are getting better about giving you the ability to delete your location and route data. But let's be real: they know where you were last summer.
5. Facial recognition
For anyone who's seen Face/Off, this is an obvious one. Facial recognition cameras don't just take pictures of your face, they create data that corresponds to your unique 3D proportions. Databases with 3D renderings of the world's faces is a little too House of Black and White for me.
When it comes to using biometric data for security, like with Face ID, companies like Apple say that this data is decoupled from your identity. Tell that to John Travolta, Tim!
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable 6. Ring
There are a lot of smart security products out there, but none have reached the same Minority Report-ish heights of mass surveillance that Ring has. Multiple reports linking Ring to police surveillance and crime prevention have shown the role it might play in the law enforcement of a surveillance state. Plus, the ability to constantly be watching outside your home, no matter where you are? How Jeff Jeffries of you, Amazon.
7. 'Memories' on iPhone, Facebook, and other 'Time Hop'-esque features
The past coming back to haunt you is the trope of too many horror films to name. Now, all the terrible photos and bad decisions you made on social media will eternally come back to life whenever a sentient algorithm decides to take you for a walk down memory lane.
8. Bluetooth
If the killer always enters through an opened window or a door left unlocked, consider Bluetooth the back door into your digital life. Recent research has shown how hackers are able to exploit Bluetooth to gain access to your phone, intercept messages, and even play audio. Toggle that bluetooth off and don't let them in the house!!
9. Smart Home Assistants
With Alexa, Google Home, HomePod, and Portal, it's easy to turn any home into a haunted house.
All of the big tech companies scrambled recently when reports showed that workers were listening in on audio collected in the home, sometimes containing intimate information; they have now revised policies to give users more choice over data collection.
There was also the incident when Alexa randomly recorded audio from its owner, and sent it to someone in their phonebook; a conversation just started playing out of the speaker out of nowhere! Who the HECK is in the house?!
Privacy missteps aside, the overall idea of a digital butler (that we've imbued with human qualities) that's always listening, waiting to be awoken to serve our needs, is the creepiest watchful presence of all.
Additional reporting from Jack Morse
Topics Cybersecurity Privacy