The NSA and Xbox One..

[sc_shark]

You close a laptop when you're not using it. Your phone faces the inside of a pocket, a purse, or lies flat on a table. But the Microsoft Kinect, an always-on camera that will come with every new Xbox One game console, gets a perfect view of your living room. It's always listening for voice commands, even when you turn the Xbox off. It can even read your heartbeat with the right software.

Microsoft says it doesn't plan to abuse that power, and claims it couldn't even if it tried. The company told us that the Kinect's cameras and microphones aren't actually recording or transmitting any audio or video data back to Microsoft's servers without the user's explicit consent, and all ambiently collected data is anonymized.

Via: The Verge


personally do find it a worry with the chatter of prism program.. but i also believe its being done on the regular. i dont believe for a minute anything on skype or microsoft makes/has in not trackable or hackable... u can put a program in the background that allowes everythnig to be followed.

but in the end the age old well if ur not doing anything wrong comes into play.. whats the worst the nas will see... me having sex lol... their is enough devices in my posesion that allows them access to my life its almost not a thought.

 

[JRFlurry]

Not gonna lie...it's a little creepy. Lol. I'm not really worried about it though.

 

[Oldman Jr]

In this day and age you're already always being tracked/watched anyway so it's not really as big a deal as people are making it out to be. quite frankly I'm lazyand if I just have to say "xbox....spike" instead of looking through my couch for the remote then I'm all for it.

 

[Keith Watson]

Microsoft just admitted they have given the NSA assess to their encryption algorithms but they have so much data as long as they aren't looking for neck beards in their underwear most of us should be safe.

 

[ozadin]

I doubt it. I read a few articles about the NSA and Microsoft collaborating together, and they say they would use Kinect and Skype to their advantage, and give NSA the information they needed. They're spreading false information about how it's impossible for the Kinect to do this, but in reality, it's quite simple to implement. This is one of the main reasons I'm afraid, I might as well stuff the Kinect in my wardrobe after I'm done playing a game. Even if I do that, it would pick up sound so it's pretty hard to hide it.

 

[madhatter24]

I think the real problem is risk versus reward. I like having a GPS on my phone because it helps me travel. I like having a camera on my phone because sometimes I like to take pictures but don't like carrying around a regular camera. There's so many things that I can do with my phone that it makes it worth it to me to have it even if it does make it easier to spy on me. However, with the Kinect, it just doesn't interest me. I have messed around with voice control of my computer, and it just didn't impress me or was convenient enough. I can see the Kinect being fun for a party, for games that you have 10 people play at once. That would be really fun. Microsoft needs to show us a killer app to sell the device. I have so many devices hooked up to my TV that the idea of using voice commands from a Xbox to simplify things is silly. Everything that they showed us the Kinect can do can be done with a remote or two.

 

[Joker99352]

This whole NSA thing has gotten people very paranoid. I think it's a good thing to be cautious, but if the NSA (or anyone else) wants to spy on people, they're going to find a way to do it. That doesn't mean we have to give up the things we love for security. Otherwise, as they say, "the terrorists have won."