Are we now so blasé with our privacy that we think it cool to have a lamp that eavesdrops on our conversations and Tweets random bon mots to the public? This is the question artists Brian House and Kyle McDonald claim they are asking with their listening device Conversnitch, which covertly records conversations and then posts extracts online.

Conversnitch uses a Raspberry Pi mini computer, a microphone, an LED, and a plastic flower pot to spy on us. The bugging device can fit into any standard bulb socket, and transmit any conversation taking place nearby directly to Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing service, where they are transcribed and interesting snippets extracted, which are then posted onto the Conversnitch Twitter feed.

Here’s how House & McDonald describe their product:

Conversnitch is a small device that automatically tweets overheard conversations, bridging the gap between (presumed) private physical space and public space online.

Information moves between spaces that might be physical or virtual, free or proprietary, illegal or playful, spoken or transcribed.

Yep, we all know our governments can and do listen into our private conversations, store our email and keep tabs on us, and House & McDonald probably think they are doing something quite radical to make us examine all of this invasion of privacy. Personally, I think these guys have created a gimmick to draw attention to themselves, and three cheers for that. But more troublingly, they are probably just making it slightly more acceptable for our privacy to be invaded whether by governments, businesses, Google, Facebook or even your local neighborhood hipster, and that’s not edgy. Conversnitch is not making governments more accountable or businesses more ethical, it’s making the public more vulnerable, and ultimately more oppressed.
 

 
Via Slate