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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

#181

Post by mikestew »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #180
mikestew wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be the definition of "investigative police work", yes. That's not what I've observed in practice. And those that know better than I advise against giving up evidence with the idea that it will "help your case"; re: the "don't talk to the police" video that is so often referenced here.

So you think that, for instance, if the police are investigating you in connection with a bank robbery while you were in another country speaking at a conference, you should not tell them that? What about if you are wanted for questioning about a murder which involved dragging the body a significant distance while you were in the hospital recovering from chemotherapy? Still don't talk to the cops?

Still don't talk to the cops?

Nope. While you're busy playing "what if...", I'm dialing a lawyer. Should that trained professional advise talking to the adversarial trained professionals, then I would do so, and not before.

I don't how it is where you're at, but in the U. S. cops have demonstrated time and again (and I've seen with my own eyes) that they are not concerned about truth and justice, but arrest and conviction rates. I'm not walking into that scenario running my mouth without professional advice.

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

#182

Post by canadian_voter »

stormcrowsx wrote: post #177
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 we shouldn't collect data that might help solve a major crime because someone might commit a minor crime like stalking? We're trading the potential to solve a major crime for the potential for a minor crime of stalking to happen. As long as we require that a warrant be involved in getting the data and there are punishments in place for accessing without a warrant I'd feel safe with them collecting it.

"Minor crimes" like stalking can lead to major crimes like murder. There are 2 major issues here:

1) The information might be used "off-label" for all sorts of personal and political reasons. There are countless examples of this in history.

2) The standard of evidence must remain high. Circumstantial evidence has been, and continues to be, used to convict innocent people of crimes. Giving the authorities what amounts to a mountain of circumstantial evidence could allow them to build a case out of thin air.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, he must be guilty: he entered the bar two minutes after the victim, and left a minute after they did. He took an Uber along the same route and exited at the same address. 3 minutes later the murder weapon was purchased by a man matching his description a block away." ... and so on.

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -- Cardinal Richelieu (disputed, but classic)

Imagine what can be done with a lifetime of data from hundreds of sensors?

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

#183

Post by chronial »

fixermark wrote: post #110
chronial wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> […] that if you're going to take up murder as a hobby […] and right there is the problem. Nowhere in the article does it say that anybody has committed a murder. You are not proposing to strip privacy away from a criminal, but from a person that is suspected of a crime and might just be completely innocent. That leads to stripping privacy away from everybody.

> Nowhere in the article does it say that anybody has committed a murder. Article headline: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect's Echo recordings . If your point is that the suspect is not a proven murderer, then yes, of course I was speaking loosely and not adhering to the legal definition of innocence until proven guilty. But in point of fact, yes, we do strip some privacy away from murder suspect…

I would argue that the thing in your home that's listening to all your conversations is quite clearly closer to a spouse than a friend. But that is a different topic.

A murder suspect is just very different from someone who has take[n] up murder as a hobby. The first description might apply to you right now without your knowing, whereas the second (hopefully ^^) clearly doesn't.

> … speaking loosely and not adhering to the legal definition of innocence until proven guilty

You make it sound like that is a minor detail, but it's in fact a cornerstone of a Rechtsstaat (apparently there is no English word for this? see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechtsstaat).

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

#184

Post by smileysteve »

jerf wrote: post #28
gravypod wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Three crimes a day is probably a reference to this book: https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp... (I know it's better to provide references to web pages and not books, but I don't have a web page that recreates that book on hand. Suggestions welcome.) As I understand it, it's an estimate, not an actual figure. In order to perform such a survey, we'd have to sample people, record their entire da…

Thanks. !

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

#185

Post by smileysteve »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #27
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…

> This is why you call a lawyer as soon as the police arrive w/ a warrant or ask you questions. Pragmatic question regarding this type of advice. It's easy to say "call a lawyer", sure, but like many Americans under age 35, I do not presently have a lawyer in a meaningful sense of the term. (I had one once, for a very specific matter regarding a visa for another country - it was four-figure expensive - that relations…

I imagine very few of us have a lawyer on retainer. Meet one at a party that you could call for advice in a pinch.

The other alternative is LegalShield and such services.

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

#186

Post by ryanlol »

johnward wrote: post #68
ryanlol wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I've got no doubt that they are end-to-end encrypted, this certainly doesn't even suggest that.

Does this not suggest that Amazon could provide unencrypted audio files from their servers? That's not really "end-to-end" in my mind.

End-to-end just means that the communications between two parties are encrypted, in this case between you and Amazon.

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

#187

Post by fixermark »

chronial wrote: post #183
fixermark wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nowhere in the article does it say that anybody has committed a murder. Article headline: Amazon refuses to let police access US murder suspect's Echo recordings . If your point is that the suspect is not a proven murderer, then yes, of course I was speaking loosely and not adhering to the legal definition of innocence until proven guilty. But in point of fact, yes, we do strip some privacy away from murder suspect…

I would argue that the thing in your home that's listening to all your conversations is quite clearly closer to a spouse than a friend. But that is a different topic. A murder suspect is just very different from someone who has take[n] up murder as a hobby . The first description might apply to you right now without your knowing, whereas the second (hopefully ^^) clearly doesn't. > … speaking loosely and not adhering…

It's definitely not a minor detail in terms of the law, how it is applied, and the moral dimensions of same.

I don't have to walk far down the street though to find people loosely throwing around terms that suggest guilt or innocence completely divorced from the legal definition. Your streets may differ from mine.

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

#188

Post by Symbiote »

jat850 wrote: post #90
Symbiote wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I have a CurrentCost power logger, given to me as part of the British government's insistence that power companies try and reduce power usage. The choice was a power meter or some low-energy bulbs.

I was lucky to move house just after the rules came in, but before cheap, residential versions of the logging devices were on the market -- mine has a serial port! It outputs a line of XML every 6 seconds showing power use, measured with a probe which clamps around the live wire where it enters the house.

I've since moved again, and my newly built apartment has the wires hidden, so I can no longer use the probe.

http://www.currentcost.com/product-envir.html -- but make sure you get one with a serial port.

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

#189

Post by jpitz »

jenamety wrote: post #146
jpitz wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Quite true, but the opportunity for time-of-day rate arbitrage is tempting.

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

#190

Post by stormcrowsx »

canadian_voter wrote: post #182
stormcrowsx wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we shouldn't collect data that might help solve a major crime because someone might commit a minor crime like stalking? We're trading the potential to solve a major crime for the potential for a minor crime of stalking to happen. As long as we require that a warrant be involved in getting the data and there are punishments in place for accessing without a warrant I'd feel safe with them collecting it.

"Minor crimes" like stalking can lead to major crimes like murder. There are 2 major issues here: 1) The information might be used "off-label" for all sorts of personal and political reasons. There are countless examples of this in history. 2) The standard of evidence must remain high. Circumstantial evidence has been, and continues to be, used to convict innocent people of crimes. Giving the authorities what amounts…

1) Which is why the data shouldn't be accessible without a warrant and there should be stiff punishments if it is accessed without one. We shouldn't stop all the other advances that come from the technology of these sensors and the help they could provide in solving very real crimes.

2) There's already plenty of avenues for circumstantial evidence already, this is the reason we have lawyers and judges to argue over and prevent evidence that isn't solid

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