Category Archives: Google

Pardon My Paranoia – Are Nosy Bots Reading Our Emails?

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by Debbie Burke

 

Recently I had a disturbing email experience.

For some months, circumstances had prevented the five members of my critique group from meeting face to face. So we began exchanging group emails to bring each other up to date.

Since we’re friends as well as writing colleagues, our emails often include personal information about families, friends, dogs, health, etc.

With five people chiming in, a recent email chain became quite long.

Then one member received a pop-up notice at the top of her gmail that gave an “AI Overview” summarizing each person’s contributions to the discussion.

Where the &$%# did that come from??? How did a bot gain access to our emails?

Our conversations included deeply personal medical information about ourselves, family, and friends such as…

Who’s struggling with symptoms that doctors can’t diagnose? Who needs heart or brain surgery? And so on.

Private, personal, confidential conversations among close friends.

Out of nowhere, an AI bot gave us a nice, neat, efficient, accurate summary.

How helpful. But intrusive as hell.

How did this nosy bot access, read, and summarize our discussions?

Had an update from Gmail changed settings to allow AI summaries?

Click the following link for an article from HuffPo that describes what probably happened and reasons why we might not want a nosy little bot to read our emails.

More insights from Proton.me:

“Today, companies like Google are expanding AI access to private communications such as email, framing it as productivity and convenience. But Gemini operates under its own terms, making it harder to distinguish what data is handled by Gmail itself and what is processed by AI systems.”

If you don’t want Gemini AI summaries on Gmail, here’s how to change “smart” settings: help page.

When I checked my settings, I had already turned off “smart” features. Yet the AI summary still showed up. Hmmm. 

That leads me to believe someone else hadn’t disabled their smart features, which opened access to our Gmails.

***TKZ’s tech experts, please feel free share your knowledge in the comments.***

What does that mean for medical and legal professionals who send and receive confidential records? If a recipient doesn’t know to shut off their device’s smart features, can Gemini suck up private information for its own commercial use?

Doesn’t that violate HIPAA rules and attorney-client confidentiality???

I foresee class action lawsuits from victims damaged by confidentiality breaches.

What about writers?

We routinely email manuscripts to agents and editors. We also exchange manuscripts for beta reading, critique, editing, etc. Those manuscripts are copyrighted as soon as the author commits them to tangible form, on paper, digital file, etc. That protects our work, right?

Not necessarily.

You may have heard about the $1.5 billion judgment against Anthropic for using illegally obtained copyrighted books to train Claude, their large language model (LLM) AI program.

The award was a win for authors, right? Uh, only under limited conditions.

To qualify for compensation in the Anthropic settlement, their books had to be registered with the US Copyright Office, not just copyrighted.

Typically, traditional publishers register copyrights but some companies didn’t. Their authors were out of luck.

Also typically, copyrights are registered upon publication, after edits, rewrites, additions, etc.

That leaves many manuscripts in limbo.

What if we email manuscripts to agents or editors? Our work is copyrighted but, while it’s under submission, it’s probably not yet registered. Can these be vacuumed up to train LLMs?

Currently, regulation of AI’s use is virtually nonexistent. Laws haven’t caught up with constantly changing developments. Legislation to control and limit use is likely years away, maybe even decades.

Meanwhile, the ease, convenience, and efficiency of technology has seduced us into giving up privacy and confidentiality.

I turned off annoying Gemini intrusions by changing settings on my own computer, but I can’t control others’ devices. And of course I trust Google as much as that nice Nigerian prince who’s sending me millions. 

Yes, I could switch to a different email server but that would cut off my main contact point as an author.

I don’t know how to deal with this except to be more cautious of what I write in emails.

Back in 2019, I wrote about text messages that I naively thought were private. Then I learned Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. had accessed my texts to send advertising related to them. Stealth permissions buried deep in the phone’s terms and conditions grant access to third parties. By using the phone, you agree to the conditions, even when they’re next to impossible to find.

Six years later, Gmail is in a similar state where the onus is on the user to go extra miles to opt out of invasions into privacy.

This reminds me of wise advice from an attorney mentioned in the 2019 post: “Don’t put in writing anything you wouldn’t want to be read in open court.”

~~~

TKZers: Have you run into Gemini’s email summaries? What do you do to maintain online privacy? Or does that no longer matter?

~~~

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Surveillance by Keystrokes – Giving Permission to Snoop

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By now, we’re all pretty used to doing a Google or Amazon search, then having ads pop up about the item you searched for.

Take that a step further: Have you walked into a business but didn’t buy anything? Then next time you check Facebook, an ad for that business appears on your feed?

Happened to me for the first time about a year ago. I went into an independent bookstore in Whitefish, Montana to make sure they still had copies of my book in stock. I left without purchasing anything.

When I got home, I happened to check Facebook. An ad popped up for that same bookstore. How did FB know I’d been there? I hadn’t Googled it. No credit card transaction had been processed to connect me to that store.

However, the smartphone in my pocket knew I’d been there.

The amount of data recorded by that device creeps me out…especially when I didn’t knowingly put the information into it.

Recently I made airline reservations on my laptop. When I opened the calendar on my smartphone to enter the flight times and numbers, they were already there. What the…? I purposely haven’t synced the laptop and smartphone to talk to each other.

Yes, it was convenient but it bothered me. What uncomfortable magic suddenly connected the two devices? It hadn’t occurred several months earlier when I last bought tickets from Delta, nor with American Airlines where I’d booked flights a week before. What had changed?

Somewhere hidden in terms and conditions, apparently a new provision allowed access to my phone. By whom? Google? Delta? The phone manufacturer?

If anyone more techie than I am (which means 99% of the population) can explain this, I’m all ears.

Stealth “permissions” sneak past us whenever we check that box: “I agree to the terms and conditions.” When you download a game, an app, or make a purchase, do you read all 47 pages of underlying legalese? Probably not. Additionally, since terms are often subject to unilateral change by the company without notice, what good does it do to read them?

We have traded privacy for convenience, one app at a time.

Smart devices invade our homes. Alexa eavesdrops 24/7 on conversations. In some instances, she has been known to broadcast private conversations to third parties, as happened to this Portland, OR family who learned their discussion about hardwood flooring had been shared with a person on their contact list.

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/woman-says-her-amazon-device-recorded-private-conversation-sent-it-out-to-random-contact/755507974

Nicolaes Maes

So…in the privacy of your bedroom, what if you complain to your spouse about your rotten boss? Suppose the oh-so-helpful Alexa sees fit to send that conversation to that boss because s/he happens to be on your contact list. Ouch.

Never mind what else Alexa might overhear in your bedroom!

Lately my husband and I have been listening to a Michigan attorney named Steve Lehto on You Tube. He delivers short, entertaining podcasts about legal issues, specializing in vehicle warranties and lemon laws. Sometimes he goes off on an unrelated topic that catches his interest. This video addresses stealth permissions on smartphone apps.

Steve reveals that when you buy or lease an Android smartphone, it comes preloaded with certain apps including one that keeps track of keystrokes on the phone’s keyboard. Sounds innocuous, right?

Until you realize every text message, every bank PIN, and every credit card number you type is recorded. A record of those keystrokes may be available to whoever pays for that information.

Steve didn’t mention iPhones but it’s not a great leap to imagine they share similar apps.

Older devices like Blackberries have mechanical keyboards rather than electronic. You tap a key and a contact switch causes the letter to appear on the screen.

But smartphone keyboards are different. They record keystrokes electronically (known as “keylogging”) with no mechanical switch. Somewhere in cyberspace, someone is keeping track and storing every keystroke.

I don’t bank or pay bills online because hackers gallop miles ahead of safeguards. Security patches close the breach only after the horse is long gone out the barn door.

http://Embed from Getty Images

However, I do text. And that’s how the keystroke app slapped me in the face.

Last summer, an old friend visited us in Montana and left behind his small, well-worn Bible. A few weeks ago, he died in San Diego. At the time of his death we were away from our Montana home, on vacation in Florida, meaning we had to fly from Tampa to San Diego for the funeral.

We wanted to take his Bible to the memorial so I texted our neighbor in Montana and asked him to look for it among the books stacked on our coffee table. I described it as a small, turquoise Bible. The neighbor found it and mailed it to us. All good.

Shortly afterward, an ad popped up on my Facebook feed…

Amazon ad on my Facebook feed

…for a pocket Bible in turquoise.

Hmmm.

That unusual combination of keywords could only have come from the text I typed on my smartphone. Android recorded my private text message and passed it on to Facebook who passed it on to Amazon. Now I’m angry.

If you’re arrested on suspicion of a crime, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution requires law enforcement to obtain a search warrant to dump the contents of your phone. The same rules obviously don’t apply to Facebook, Android, Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. because we give up those rights simply by using these convenient devices.

Keylogging apps are sold for legitimate purposes, like checking your minor children’s exploration of internet sites, or to see if they’re texting pals to sneak off to a forbidden kegger.

However, such apps are a hacker’s dream because passwords, bank PINs, credit card numbers, and other sensitive private information can become available to cybercriminals.

It’s like installing a deadbolt on your door then handing out keys to random people on the street.

Crime writers can imagine endless plots arising out of technology scenarios.

My thriller, Instrument of the Devil, was set in 2011 as smartphones first exploded in popularity. In the story, a terrorist hacks into the protagonist’s smartphone. He employs what was then secret technology to eavesdrop on her every word and track her physical location while he sets her up to take the fall for his crime—a cyberattack on the electric grid.

In 2019, those formerly covert apps are widely in use by anyone. They are everyday tools that allow tech giants to mine ever more intimate information about us.

As an author, I’m normally delighted when someone reads what I’ve written. However, as a human being, I resent this invasion into my personal communications.

A wise lawyer once told me, “Don’t put in writing anything you wouldn’t want to be read in open court.” I remember his advice now when I text because…

…Someone is always watching and listening.

 

Your turn, TKZers. Have you experienced creep-out moments due to technology? What nefarious plots can you imagine where smart devices play a role?

 

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Fixing the Tool

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A computer is at its core a tool. For a writer, it can be the mother ship of tools. It can be a research tool, a production tool, and a communications tool, among other things. If it suddenly goes wobbly, it can be a real problem that leads to other problems such as expense, downtime, and inconvenience. There is a way around it, if your mind is clear and your hand is steady and your heart is brave: you can, in many circumstances, fix it yourself.
I am the IT guy in our house. We — my wife, my daughter, and my bad self — each have our own computer. It goes without saying of course that we all share our respective machines with our cat (those of you who are owned by cats know exactly what I mean). My daughter, just to complicate matters and enable me to broaden my scope of knowledge, has an iMac. Since I spend the most time on a computer of anyone in the house it has fallen to me to be the fixer of all things technological. To that end, I have established the “three-minute rule” of computer aggression: if you can’t get the computer to do what you want it to do in three minutes, stop doing what you are doing and come and get me. Don’t sit there for three hours hitting the “Print” button because you’re going to get a surprise when your printer decides to start printing, yes indeed. You’ll see exactly how many times you hit the print button (“Thirty-two copies of the lyrics to the new One Direction single, huh?”) in due time.
How did I acquire my expertise, you might ask? I don’t have any. I have simply become good at looking things up and following directions. I am able as a result to resolve most resolvable computer problems with three things which you probably have as well: 1) internet access; 2) a computer or smart phone that works; and 3) the ability to follow simple directions. I started doing my own troubleshooting due to a combination of circumstances. For one, I don’t like strangers coming over, which precludes people in golf shirts driving up in vans to help me out. For another, I am somewhat tight-fisted when it comes to spending money to repair things that I should be able to repair myself. And for a third, I don’t like My Precious out of my sight for more a few minutes, which removes the possibility of my laptop spending the night with someone else.
I am totally serious.  I discovered this latent skill when, a few years ago (when all three of us, including my poor, deprived daughter, had PCs), I awoke one morning and discovered that all of our computers were displaying the “blue screen of death.” I figured out the problem was — a Windows update that had been automatically sent to all three computers did not get along with something that was already on them — but that didn’t help me with the main problem, which was how to repair each and all of the computers in the house. Fortunately, I had a smart phone. I did a search for “how to restore service to a computer displaying the blue screen of doom” and got the answer — do a “system restore” — and instructions for doing it. I had all of the computers working in a half-hour.

I will confess that doing this makes me feel useful.  I was having a delightful breakfast with some people at Bouchercon a few weeks ago when one very nice lady’s iPad froze up. I don’t own an iPad, but I fearlessly asked her to pass me her temporarily useless tool. I took out my phone, googled “How do you unfreeze an iPad?” got the answer, and…well, unfroze her iPad by pushing two buttons. A friend called me a few weeks ago because her daughter had a paper due the next day and couldn’t access Internet Explorer. Problem solved. But there is nothing special about me. There are folks who will attempt to fix their dishwasher utilizing a Google search (yeah, I did that too) but won’t even attempt to jump start their computers in the same manner. If you are going to do this, it helps to be as exact as possible when making your query. Googling “why did my pc just pass a sandcastle?” for example, will not be as effective a query as “why is my Lenovo B570 with Windows 7 displaying everything upside down?” It might be important to get an answer and use it five minutes ago, however, whether you are downloading pictures off of Tumblr or reading Facebook news posts or just wrapping up twenty more pages of a manuscript, when, God forbid, your computer freezes.  If you can frame a descriptive question halfway decently and follow directions a step at a time, Enterprise-style (boldly going where you haven’t gone before) you can very often help yourself. Some folks even post YouTube videos showing how certain procedures, such as installing new memory cards, are performed.  Most of the time the helpful people who post this information will give you an idea as to how difficult the task may be. Sometimes it is as easy as pressing F5, or restarting the computer; sometimes it involves more than that.
Which brings us to our question(s) of the day: When you have a computer problem that doesn’t involve smoke rising from the side vents, what do you do? Do you try to fix it yourself? Do you call a friend? Do you take it into a shop? Or throw it out the window?