Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#81

Post by inestyne » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:48 PM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #31

When Eric Schmidt said "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," this is pretty much what he was talking about. We live in a society where passive, ubiquitous, voluntarily-accepted monitoring is becoming the norm because of the vast convenience it affords the users. The flip-side of that coin is of course breaks in your regular pattern of behavior…

Same logic used in the Salem witch trials. You ever wonder why The Right to Be Silent is the first right mentioned in Miranda? Our entire criminal justice system is rooted is this concept. You have to be proven guilty and the state has to provide probable cause to search or seize.

Eric Schmidt is as biased on this subject as you can get, he profits from our data.

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#82

Post by phil21 » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:50 PM UTC

zubspace wrote: post #22

FroshKiller wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A warrant is not the same as a subpoena. But look, "the innocent have nothing to hide" is an insidious and wrong idea. If people and corporations don't assert their rights against the will of the state, they erode the foundation of our shared liberties.

I'm not a lawyer, so excuse me if I'm asking trivial things: To obtain a search warrant or arrest warrant, the law enforcement officer must demonstrate probable cause that a search or seizure is justified. An authority, usually a magistrate, will consider the totality of circumstances and determine whether to issue the warrant. [1] I agree to your statement, if there is no search warrant. But in this case an authorit…

> But if this happens a lot, the consequence will be, that search warrants are issued without second thought and the person/company affected by the search should always deny it first.

I think you'll find the vast majority of search warrants aren't even read by the judge signing them. When I owned a (hosting) company it was blatantly obvious reading them, and we had a policy of challenging them when possible.

The whole search warrant/subpoena process is a joke. There is essentially no oversight on law enforcement whatsoever here and the whole trope of "but a judge reviewed it!" is a complete and utter outright lie in many cases.

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#83

Post by kanzure » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:51 PM UTC

Hondor wrote: post #13

superkuh wrote: post #10

More importantly, the headline should read: "Police use high time resolution data from modern water meter against man charged with murder." Basically this Abstruse Goose comic, http://abstrusegoose.com/553 , about the dangers of utility data logging have come true. The greater the time resolution of such things the more can be inferred. Such high resolution is completely uneeded and complex in order to just charge fo…

Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder? The police are still getting it with a warrant and presumably from physical access to the device, so it's not the same worry as bulk monitoring.

> Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder?

You might trust the current custodians of $BACKDOOR, but do you trust all future possible custodians that have dominion over that role? Keep in mind that nothing is technically restricting them to look only at possible murder.

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#84

Post by maxerickson » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:51 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #75

The article title seems misleading. It says "Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect's Echo recordings" and in the article says "Amazon has refused to hand over recordings from an Echo smart speaker to US police investigating a murder in Arkansas". However, the article then points out that the device only has an audio buffer of a few seconds and there are no such recordings: "the vast majority of the re…

USA Today has a few more details and got a statement from Amazon about it. Amazon refused to answer the requests.

Specifically, the Bentonville Police Department requested "electronic data in the form of audio recordings, transcribed records, or other text records related to communications and transactions between An AmazonEchoh device" located at Bates' residence and Amazon.com's services between Nov. 21 and 22, court documents show.

Amazon refused both times. In a statement to USA TODAY, Amazon said will not release customer information without a valid and binding legal demand properly served on it. Amazon objects to over broad or otherwise inappropriate demands as a matter of course, the company said.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/12/27/amazon-al...

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#85

Post by ansgri » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #59

Godel_unicode wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Timers and automation are a thing.

Those patterns would be easily detected in the dataset. I tried logging my electricity use. You can easily see what time I wake up each day, when I get home, whether I watch TV or not, whether I cook using the microwave or the hob. It doesn't show up on my graph, but I'd bet from the data you can see exactly when I go to bed, since I plug in my phone (+1W) and switch off the last light (-5W). Within all this, the fri…

Thus you have a training dataset. Train a statistical model, and with enough programmability in your smart home it will be easy to forge a rather normal-looking pattern in your absence. And I'd probably use some special fire-proofed energy dissipation device instead of the more powerful real ones (e.g. the hob).

EDIT: the internet surfing patterns are another story. But you can probably VPN to your home through some newly-installed network interface and access the net as if you were there.

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#86

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #59

Godel_unicode wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Timers and automation are a thing.

Those patterns would be easily detected in the dataset. I tried logging my electricity use. You can easily see what time I wake up each day, when I get home, whether I watch TV or not, whether I cook using the microwave or the hob. It doesn't show up on my graph, but I'd bet from the data you can see exactly when I go to bed, since I plug in my phone (+1W) and switch off the last light (-5W). Within all this, the fri…

Yes, by the exact amount of current used, the logger can tell what you've got on at any moment. It can be correlated with water usage as well. It'll log how many times you flush, and whether you brush your teeth.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the government tries to require a device that logs all our conversations at home. It'll be sold as "crucial for law enforcement".

The Echo is a technological marvel. But who's to say Amazon doesn't get a "national security letter" one day where they're forced to send a patch to the machine to have it log everything?

Some day, if I'm bedridden or some such, I'd welcome an Echo in the house. Until then, I'd rather get up and turn a manual switch. I could use the exercise anyway :-)

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#87

Post by Quarrelsome » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

fixermark wrote: post #32

Quarrelsome wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its a fine line. There is a great fear of false positives from such inference. Let us imagine for a second that there is a legitimate reason for that water use that he doesn't wish to disclose because it would incriminate him for something else? Hypothetically speaking if you were doing some grey-hat, "illegal" probing/hack at the time of a murder the police question you about; admitting to your actual activity could…

"A legitimate reason for that water use that he doesn't wish to disclose because it would incriminate him for something else" is an odd definition of "legitimate." ;)

e.g. he needed to refill his secret swimming pool for his pet crocodile that he doesn't have a permit for.

"legitimate".

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#88

Post by Godel_unicode » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:57 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #73

Godel_unicode wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Amazon not provide access to your recordings similar to how Google does with OK Google recordings? That seems easier.

The cops can't be certain if the suspect hasn't deleted incriminating recordings.

How is that different from you giving them access to your text messages?

Edit: IANAL, but pretty sure deleting incriminating evidence is obstruction of justice

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#89

Post by dmd » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:59 PM UTC

Sir_Substance wrote: post #29

Hondor wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder? The police are still getting it with a warrant and presumably from physical access to the device, so it's not the same worry as bulk monitoring.

>Isn't it a good thing to record data that helps solve a murder? Recording everyones data everywhere just in case it might be relevant to an extremely rare event like a murder is very dangerous. The use of NSA recording capabilities by employees to digitally stalk victims of their affection (LOVEINT) is a clear example of how badly this kind of collection can go wrong.

Your first statement is correct, but not because of what you said in your second. Google "ubiquitous law enforcement" for some good reading.

Re: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect’s Echo recordings

#90

Post by jat850 » Wed, Dec 28, 2016, 2:59 PM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #59

Godel_unicode wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Timers and automation are a thing.

Those patterns would be easily detected in the dataset. I tried logging my electricity use. You can easily see what time I wake up each day, when I get home, whether I watch TV or not, whether I cook using the microwave or the hob. It doesn't show up on my graph, but I'd bet from the data you can see exactly when I go to bed, since I plug in my phone (+1W) and switch off the last light (-5W). Within all this, the fri…

May I ask how you collected this data? I am extremely interested in doing the same. For me right now, my power usage is "stuff goes on, money goes out".