New Xbox by NSA partner Microsoft will watch you 24/7

With all that has come out in the last few weeks basically confirming many "conspiracy theorist" ideas regarding internet surveillance and the spying on American citizens via their widgets, this story is not a surprise.

I have often laughed at the "webcam will watch you" theory, but it looks like it is a reality - via the new Xbox.
It literally watches you; very likely it then downloads and sends the info off to - who knows where.

What Microsoft has not promoted, however, is the fact that you will not be able to power on the console without first enabling the Kinect, designed to detect both heartbeats and eye movement. and positioning yourself in front of it.

It reads your eye movements to see if you are watching its ads...

Disturbingly, a recently published Microsoft patent reveals the Kinect has the capability to determine exactly when users are viewing ads broadcast by the Xbox through its eye movement tracking. Consistent ad viewers would be granted rewards, according to the patent.

Although many will say, "so what", it is obvious that we are on the brink of a completely non-private world. Sooner or later you will be labeled a terrorist if you aren't somehow connected to their spy toys, be it face book, cell phones, video games, web cams, tvs, etc. Sad thing is we are allowing it to happen. What happened?

Perhaps the feature most worryisome to privacy advocates is the requirement that the Xbox connect to the Internet at least once every 24 hours. Many critics have asserted that Microsoft will follow the lead of other Silicon Valley companies and use their console to gather data about its users, particularly through the Kinect, and collect it through the online connection users can’t avoid.

Privacy should be a right.

Playing Games Means Allowing Them to Watch You

ColoradoJens

Actually you can turn off the Kinect and still be able to play. That info was released today (yesterday?) on the Xbox website. Regardless though everything Microsoft has revealed about the Xbox One indicates they don't care about their consumer. Instead they're just trying to placate the publishers.

People were talking about this a while back. It's believed it can monitor 4 people at the same time. It was even suggested it can lip read too!
What about microphones?

Stick with a PC, at least we have some control over it.

Originally posted by VoidHawk
People were talking about this a while back. It's believed it can monitor 4 people at the same time. It was even suggested it can lip read too!
What about microphones?

The Kinect has a built in microphone as well.

The Kinect can be paused if you don't want it on while playing games. However, you can still use voice commands like "Xbox Off" to turn off the console. When it is off, the Kinect only stays awake to listen for the "Xbox On" command.

Source: tech2.in.com...

According to that, the microphone is functional even when the Kinect is off, but they claim it's only listening for "Xbox On". If you can give it this voice command at any time, how is it not always listening?

reply to post by goochball

According to that, the microphone is functional even when the Kinect is off, but they claim it's only listening for "Xbox On". If you can give it this voice command at any time, how is it not always listening?

And even if they claim it does not listen we just cannot trust their word. They said the same about the recent reveal of NSA spying on services, which has now been admitted by obama administration.
This shows that they are lying through their teeth.
I bet Windows has a backdoor that lets the government spy on us as well..

Cool. I want one so I can play Call of Duty 12...

This is incredibly disturbing. I can't imagine anyone with half a brain that would even buy one of these with all the James Bond-like spy gadgets it comes with. This is horribly invasive all for the sake of money (and probably big brother setting foot in your house.) What, Microsoft didn't make enough $$$ with their last 2 revolutionary, groundbreaking consoles? pffft

Technology to make sure you're reading the ads? Is this seriously something people are okay with in exchange for playing a video game?

A device that never stops listening so that it can respond to voice commands?! How is this unlike a wiretap that you paid to put in your house?!

Perhaps the saddest thing is that all it would take to send a loud and clear message is a massive effort to boycott and shun the system. Simple, right?

Now, about my copy of Call of Duty 12. I'll even give a blood sample and copy of my birth certificate if I can have an advance copy!

It has an 'off' button. Problem solved.

Also, haven't people heard about sticky tape? One good thick piece and that camera won't see a thing.

Originally posted by goochball
According to that, the microphone is functional even when the Kinect is off, but they claim it's only listening for "Xbox On". If you can give it this voice command at any time, how is it not always listening?

First off the kinect not only has microphones, but it has speech recognition.

Now, I'm not sure what the full plans are for the new Xbox 1, but with the 360 on kinect you can use the security settings to disallow it from transmitting anything from the kinect through the net. If you do not trust that, you can start the machine, start your game, and as long as its not an online game, you can disconnect the network cable. On the other hand, you can always disconnect either the kinect USB plug, or its power cord.

I find it hard to believe that even the new machine will not work at all without both the internet and the kinect powered up. In essence that would mean that you could not play even a local game if lost your internet connection for some reason, or something happened to your kinect.

I wouldn't put it past microsoft to keep the microphone on if it hears product names or even collects certain data on you for ads or mailings. The xbox does have to be connected to the internet atleast once every 24 hours otherwise you have a very expensive bluray player that can play live tv too. Everything else gets blocked out, plus it's microsoft anything they can do to make money. I love the idea of the kinect but when the box has to be online and is from a company like microsoft I don't trust it.

Originally posted by defcon5

Originally posted by goochball


I find it hard to believe that even the new machine will not work at all without both the internet and the kinect powered up. In essence that would mean that you could not play even a local game if lost your internet connection for some reason, or something happened to your kinect.

edit on 6/8/2013 by defcon5 because: (no reason given)

you can play offline but only for 24 hours before you have to reconnect to the internet and cannot play games at all.

edit on 8-6-2013 by sandman441 because: (no reason given)

Putting aside the possible or i should say more than likely
spying they will be doing with this tech, after all we already
now know for sure that they do indeed spy on anything else
you do, phone calls, texts, net activity, anywho the other and
maybe tiny silver lining to this is the feature that tells if your
looking at ads, i don't know about most of y'all but if i look
at an ad that's shoved into my entertainment its only for
about .09 seconds lol maybe this will actually teach them
that people are SICK SICK SICK of ads all together, we
really just don't care.

I like the fact that Galaxy S4 staring contests are cool but ... XBox Kinect the voluntary Spy-On-Me console is not.
%

I also like the fact that previous posters think people are hired to spy on people 24/7. Do you honestly think that anybody has that much interest in you at any given moment in time?

Even in person, everyone's wrapped up with themselves 75% of the time...
24% of the rest is in the past or future events...
1% ... of what's in front of their faces... Perhaps focused on you... Most likely not. And if so, it's fleeting... Because their attention spans are---
Oh, look a SQUIRREL!!!

Just turn it round or put some tape over the lens.

Originally posted by DPrice
Just turn it round or put some tape over the lens.

Hmm that just gives you the error code : 1984

i.imgur.com...

ET technology exchange

reply to post by defcon5

Microsoft just confirmed that you cannot play a game without first hooking it up to the internet. It has to call back at least once per day for you to be able to play your games.
And even if it has an option to turn off kinect access to internet, you still cannot trust this company considering they lied about NSA tapping into their services. Since this surveilance program was supposed to be a secret then they are probably under some kind of NDA.
And even if you unplug internet, who is to say it is not storing information that will be sent back once you finally hook it back up?

I bet it will turn out that Windows and OSX has some kind of backdoor as well..

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
Actually you can turn off the Kinect and still be able to play. That info was released today (yesterday?) on the Xbox website. Regardless though everything Microsoft has revealed about the Xbox One indicates they don't care about their consumer. Instead they're just trying to placate the publishers.

You can turn it off, but you can't disconnect it. So, is it really off? How could you know for sure?

Not only xbox either.

Not long ago, (to many of the usual 'sceptical' members rolling eyes at the story) there was a brief flapo over school kids being watched and listened to via their built in laptop webcams and mics.

This has been going on for a loooong time.

It might be a good time to look into alternative op systems that are less vulnerable to spying. Linux based probably.

Originally posted by MysterX
Not only xbox either.

Not long ago, (to many of the usual 'sceptical' members rolling eyes at the story) there was a brief flapo over school kids being watched and listened to via their built in laptop webcams and mics.

This has been going on for a loooong time.

It might be a good time to look into alternative op systems that are less vulnerable to spying. Linux based probably.

You are right. I think now we are starting to wake up to the idea that indeed, there is a conspiracy. "They" think we should not have privacy anymore. I think it is time to legislate privacy laws that STOP this intrusion.

CJ

Originally posted by Xcalibur254
Actually you can turn off the Kinect and still be able to play. That info was released today (yesterday?) on the Xbox website. Regardless though everything Microsoft has revealed about the Xbox One indicates they don't care about their consumer. Instead they're just trying to placate the publishers.

I don't truly believe the kinect will be allowed to be "off". I mean, seriously, think about it. If they allow you to just shut it off, then why are they requiring it to always be plugged in to use?? If they were nice enough to allow a "power" switch, then they should've just allowed people to unplug it period. But you can't. See my point?