this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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Eh, I dunno. I remember making exactly those points 20 years ago, but I think it's pretty feasible now. There are open source NNs that look like they can do this locally on mediocre phones. And if the output is garbage quality, that's ok, it just has to be good enough to sell some ads. I think it's largely feasible, although I'm sure it's inflated by startups looking to impress clients and investors.
Feel free to Wireshark your smart devices and confirm what I've said yourself. The most efficient way to do this is the pixels that already exist on almost every site.
On-device NNs use insane amounts of processing, even on "high-end" phones. You would notice if there was a always-on NN running on your device, this is also something you can try for yourself.
And what exactly am I looking for in wireshark? A few KB of encrypted text data occasionally sent to who-knows-where? Mixed in among a flood of other tracking bullshit and general wasteful bloat? Yeah lemme go check real quick.
Computationally, we've had low-quallity speech to text on home PCs for like 30 years, and we've had OK-quality NN implementations for like 15 years. Yes it would be a bit wasteful, but a trimmed-down NN could easily hide among the general bloat of modern software.
Yes it would be kind of a clunky and impractical way to collect data compared to other methods, but it's definitely plausible that an adtech startup could hack together a semi-functional version of this and then slap it in a slide deck. It would let them say "AI" more times during their pitch.
You can filter by device. Leave your suspect device connected to your network for a few days, filter by destination and review. Also keep an eye on CPU usage.
If your devices have a ton of random outgoing network requests you're already being tracked in a myriad of other ways and need to lock your shit down.
I've done this before, there's not as much network bloat as you might think.