WORT 89.9FM Madison · Voice Recognition Software Is Surprisingly Easy To Hack

In their never-ending quest to make human-machine interactions as convenient as possible, while keeping information secure and private, financial institutions such as Chase Morgan, Wells Fargo and Charles Schwab, as well as tech giants like Apple and Google  have started turning to voice recognition software.  Can’t be bothered with remembering, typing and constantly changing a password?  Well, what could be easier than just speaking into a microphone and waiting for the system to recognize your voice?  Sounds great, but the problem is, it is distressingly easy to fool such software.  Two University of Wisconsin Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Ph. D. candidates, Shimaa Ahmed and Yash Wani, have found a surprisingly low-tech way of hacking voice recognition software, using, of all things, PVC pipe.

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