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

theguardian.com

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

#141

Post by mc32 »

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 think it would be important to know if Amazon can or would release information/data which could be used to exonerate someone suspected of a crime.

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

#142

Post by Sir_Substance »

supergeek133 wrote: post #129
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.

So how much do we hold back technology and the use of it to protect against people committing crimes with it (as mentioned above) This data when used properly (which is probably the case 90%+ of the time) helps to make the world better, or provides efficiency for the company who uses the tools.

>So how much do we hold back technology and the use of it to protect against people committing crimes with it (as mentioned above)

Would you like an arbitrary line in the sand? Sure, let me give you one. The crime you're trying to stop has to affect at least 0.0001% of the population before I'll even consider lowering the quality of life of 99% of the population to protect against it.

0.0001% is an order of magnitude over the percentage of the US population that got murdered or manslaughtered in 2015, if you were counting.

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

#143

Post by iak8god »

toxican wrote: post #109
iak8god wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they do have recordings of everything said to Alexa ("Alexa, how fast will a body decompose in a hot tub?"), and potentially other recordings following false positives for "Alexa", as the article mentions: "...the device is also occasionally accidentally activated, through similar sounds..." I used to have Google's voice search on my phone, and found it interesting that they store your recordings indefinitely. Yo…

Looked at mine and most of it is mundane/useless stuff like "open Spotify", "How many ounces in 13 lbs", etc. But there are some "text so and so: hey meet me wherever" type recordings...I find that little concerning, but not entirely unexpected. I like that there's an option to delete all of that info, but is it -really- deleted? Or just hidden from my view and kept on Google's servers and still associated with my ac…

I just assume, unless they super-duper promise to truly purge it, that Google is hanging on to every bit.

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

#144

Post by supergeek133 »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #142
supergeek133 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how much do we hold back technology and the use of it to protect against people committing crimes with it (as mentioned above) This data when used properly (which is probably the case 90%+ of the time) helps to make the world better, or provides efficiency for the company who uses the tools.

>So how much do we hold back technology and the use of it to protect against people committing crimes with it (as mentioned above) Would you like an arbitrary line in the sand? Sure, let me give you one. The crime you're trying to stop has to affect at least 0.0001% of the population before I'll even consider lowering the quality of life of 99% of the population to protect against it. 0.0001% is an order of magnitude…

But what is your line in the sand for then? Collecting the data? Or allowing people to access it via warrant?

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

#145

Post by Sir_Substance »

supergeek133 wrote: post #144
Sir_Substance wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So how much do we hold back technology and the use of it to protect against people committing crimes with it (as mentioned above) Would you like an arbitrary line in the sand? Sure, let me give you one. The crime you're trying to stop has to affect at least 0.0001% of the population before I'll even consider lowering the quality of life of 99% of the population to protect against it. 0.0001% is an order of magnitude…

But what is your line in the sand for then? Collecting the data? Or allowing people to access it via warrant?

Even having the discussion. It's default "no and fuck off" until then.

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

#146

Post by jenamety »

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?

I believe building your own 'storage' units would be better (letting you draw from these as you need, without monitoring) thus having a continuously slow supply of water,gas, electricity coming from the grid.

As long as these storage units don't simply begin to 'top off' when they are drained, the usage could be masked by averaging and predicting demand.

very simplified water day

6am - Toilet flush & hand wash 2 Gal

7am - Shower 36 Gal

8am - Breakfast - Coffee, Oatmeal, Dishwashing - 2 Gal

6pm - Dinner & dishwasher - 8 gal

10pm - flush and brush - 2.5 Gal

So you'd want a constant 2.1 gallons to be fed in from the street per hour, and you'd need a minimum 40 gallon reserve tank to cover that day.

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

#147

Post by maxerickson »

zepho wrote: post #140
maxerickson wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

My non-lawyerly speculation is that Amazon doesn't agree that they are under the jurisdiction of the court that issued the warrant.

Like is discussed here: http://volokh.com/2010/01/08/does-the-fourth-amendment-allow...

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

#149

Post by panzagl »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #49
fixermark wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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." ;)

Just because something is legally a crime doesn't mean it's not legitimate.

Actually, that's exactly what it means.

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

#150

Post by kefka »

Sir_Substance wrote: post #145
supergeek133 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what is your line in the sand for then? Collecting the data? Or allowing people to access it via warrant?

Even having the discussion. It's default "no and fuck off" until then.

Unfortunately, that assumes that "you" have that choice.

Individually, I'm sure you can rip out, mutilate, deface, damage or what have you to devices that report fine-grained time-series data. But the moment you go anywhere else, you're being recorded, watched, monitored, measured, and recorded.

It's already being done, and it's way past time that we do have that discussion. Because without string and stark dialogue, we'll end up with "We're not doing anything wrong, so why should we care?" kind of responses. Or worse yet, people won't understand what something like accurate TS data from power input can lead to.[0]

And as an addition on the above comment, I also wrote a CPU-bound facial recognition app. I wrote it initially for a convention that we have for our hackerspace every year... But it took me a week to do in my spare time, using open source libs (OpenCV, QT). This stuff is just getting more ubiquitous.[1]

[0]: http://www.hennebert.org/download/publications/isspa-2012-ma... MACHINE LEARNING APPROACHES FOR ELECTRIC APPLIANCE CLASSIFICATION

[1]: https://github.com/jwcrawley/uWho

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