Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 190 posts

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

#131

Post by supergeek133 »

Quarrelsome wrote: post #26
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.

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…

I can't refuse a valid search warrant on my apartment because something found within "might incriminate me" for something else.

Take criminal cases where they find drugs in your system and use that to make it look like you're more apt to commit said crime.

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

#132

Post by getpost »

Slightly off topic, but this brings up the issue of whether data maintained using technological means is correct. And how can the correctness be verified or refuted? For example, suppose Amazon does provide data in reply to the warrant. How is anyone sure it's the data from the specified device at the time in question? Database errors happen all the time. It might be possible to use other means to assure that the data is correct, but it's unlikely anyone with the necessary knowledge would be assigned to this task.

Similarly, in LA, there are no fare gates at metro train stations. Occasionally police stop people leaving the station to check whether fare is paid by scanning the transit smart card. What if the card malfunctions? What if the scanning device outputs the wrong information? I have no way of contesting or verifying the information on these devices. It would be me, the passenger, held to account, not the infrastructure technology.

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

#133

Post by supergeek133 »

WalterBright wrote: post #24
Filligree wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of a murder, it's a good thing. The risk is always the chance of abuse, and although in the case of water stats it's hard to imagine how you'd abuse it, having more information always means a higher chance. Ideally we'd want to get the benefits without the abuse, but that requires a solid bureaucracy and strong rules.

You can tell when someone's home or not from utility usage.

You've always been able to make this guess from lights on/off, windows, etc. It might have become easier to some people.

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

#134

Post by Godel_unicode »

mikestew wrote: post #96
misja111 wrote: post #38

I'm wondering, what if the suspect agreed with the request of the police to check the Echo recordings? Suppose the suspect is innocent and thinks that allowing access to the Echo recordings can only make his case stronger. Would Amazon then still refuse access?

From my POV, cops tend to ignore anything that doesn't point to "guilty". There would be no benefit to the accused in this case. IANAL, yada, yada.

That's absurd. Investigative police work is the process of ruling out possible suspects to arrive at the truth.

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

#135

Post by supergeek133 »

getpost wrote: post #132

Slightly off topic, but this brings up the issue of whether data maintained using technological means is correct. And how can the correctness be verified or refuted? For example, suppose Amazon does provide data in reply to the warrant. How is anyone sure it's the data from the specified device at the time in question? Database errors happen all the time. It might be possible to use other means to assure that the dat…

That's why in serious criminal cases we have trial by jury and not technology. If your only evidence is a 20 second recording from an Echo, you shouldn't be going to trial.

Poor DNA evidence/practices have wrongly convicted people, they have also exonerated people that were wrongly convicted.

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

#136

Post by Bartweiss »

dmd wrote: post #89
Sir_Substance wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

That was an excellent read, as Vernor Vinge usually is.

I've certainly used anti-surveillance arguments like "what if some employee misuses the data", and I mean them, but it's not my fundamental objection. On a much deeper level, I worry about surveillance as an inherent harm. Partly as the death of privacy (a right in itself, to me), largely as a de facto power transfer to the state.

I think Seeing Like a State is right when it argues that states depend on 'legibility'. If it can't be logged, measured, or predicted, it can't be handled on the statistical level where states have to operate. And so everything that increases the legibility of our lives eases the real power of the state, without any need to expand its legal power.

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

#137

Post by w8rbt »

jpitz wrote: post #101
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…

I wonder what the market is for a utility usage randomizer that fuzzes this data?

While it is likely illegal at various levels, there are probably ways to interfere with the smart meter via RF.

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

#138

Post by supergeek133 »

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…

We either assume the data will more often than not be used for negative reasons, and stop it, or we assume it will be used mostly for positive reasons and allow it to improve the world.

If we do the latter, we treat the minority cases as a crime. Just as we do when police use their access to stalk people.

That being said, I DO think we have poor transparency in these cases of who has access to what. I've always said that if it were publicly available to see how many times someone has run my license place and/or drivers license I would be really upset.

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

#139

Post by filoeleven »

gravypod wrote: post #20
smileysteve wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the police stands in front of my house with a warrant to search my belongings, can I refuse that? Yes, if your legal team denies it as overly broad. They can also file an injunction. This is why you call a lawyer as soon as the police arrive w/ a warrant or ask you questions. > Does it make sense if I have nothing to hide? Yes. Because you value your privacy of hobbies and speech. > I have nothing to hide. The a…

Do you have a citation for the 3 times a day figure? I'm not disagreeing because I belive it's true. I'd just like to see some real data.

The vehicle code alone for my state is nearly three inches thick. If they want to pull you over, you will almost certainly give them a "valid" reason if they follow you for even just a few minutes. A friend of mine in law enforcement demonstrated this to me once while riding in my car. He had racked up four or five things on the car ahead of us (tailgating, crossing the fog line or center barrier, failure to signal within x yards of a turn, etc.) in under a mile.

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

#140

Post by zepho »

maxerickson wrote: post #84
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, cou…

Amazon said will not release customer information without a valid and binding legal demand properly served on it.

If my reading of this is correct, seems like all Amazon is really saying here is they're refusing to hand over the data until they're "properly served" the warrant.

The Guardian article did mention that "Arkansas police issued a warrant to Amazon to turn over recordings" but as IANAL it's unclear to me whether or not that's the same as actually serving the warrant, legally speaking.

Is "issuing" a warrant the same as "serving" it?

Post reply on HN