121–130 of 196 posts
Seriously, screw google home and Amazon echo. If I wanted a wiretap, I'd go to FISA court.
Odds are you already carry one around with you every where you go.
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So record the audio 24/7 and compress and send once an hour? Once a day? Or eliminate empty space first. The files wouldn't be that big
Totally possible. As an example, Codec2 used in ham-radio applications can send pretty decent voice audio at a few kilobit/s or less, and it keeps sounding perfectly understandable even at 1.2 kbit/s like this short sample: http://www.rowetel.com/downloads/codec2/hts1a_1200.wav More information here: http://www.rowetel.com/?page_id=452
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If it's true that all audio is being sent to Amazon, I will throw my Echo out today. That's a serious invasion of privacy and breach of trust.
The entire point of the Echo and similar devices is that it's always listening.
The device has to continuously process audio to listen for the wake word (upon which it does start sending everything to amazon) and a few seconds of the buffer before that so you can just bark out commands rather than waiting for it to acknowledge you.
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So you don't have a smartphone?
Reducing the attack surface is already a good defense, even if you have a smartphone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_in_depth_%28computing%...
If and when that happens, we can fight it then. I'm a believer in picking my battles, and see no reason whatsoever to pick this one.
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If it's true that all audio is being sent to Amazon, I will throw my Echo out today. That's a serious invasion of privacy and breach of trust.
The entire point of the Echo and similar devices is that it's always listening.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So record the audio 24/7 and compress and send once an hour? Once a day? Or eliminate empty space first. The files wouldn't be that big
Totally possible. As an example, Codec2 used in ham-radio applications can send pretty decent voice audio at a few kilobit/s or less, and it keeps sounding perfectly understandable even at 1.2 kbit/s like this short sample: http://www.rowetel.com/downloads/codec2/hts1a_1200.wav More information here: http://www.rowetel.com/?page_id=452
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They can only reveal voice data IF the victim said "Alexa" when the crime was taking place. If the victim didn't say "Alexa" that day, then there's nothing to reveal. Your example about encryption doesn't make sense in the context of the Echo.
I'm not certain there exists nothing to reveal. Is there a technical limitation of the system that prevents or avoids recording of "non-'Alexa'" audio? Or do I just trust Amazon when they say their alway-on device only records when triggered with the magic word? As I think about it, I'd ask the same regarding the voice-controllable phone in my pocket. FWIW, I don't trust the devices, because their operations are out…
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Reducing the attack surface is already a good defense, even if you have a smartphone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_in_depth_%28computing%...
I don't know about you, but I have no desire to become a digital pariah and avoid useful technologies just because they may , at some nebulous point in the future, be used against me in some nebulous way. If and when that happens, we can fight it then. I'm a believer in picking my battles, and see no reason whatsoever to pick this one.
> just because they may, at some nebulous point in the future, be used against me in some nebulous way. If and when that happens, we can fight it then.
sounds very much like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
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Totally possible. As an example, Codec2 used in ham-radio applications can send pretty decent voice audio at a few kilobit/s or less, and it keeps sounding perfectly understandable even at 1.2 kbit/s like this short sample: http://www.rowetel.com/downloads/codec2/hts1a_1200.wav More information here: http://www.rowetel.com/?page_id=452
Totally not possible. 1.2kbps * 10M devices is 12Gbps, or greater than the bandwidth of a STM-64 link. Not practical to either receive or store, even for Amazon, and certainly bandwidth consumption on that scale would be extremely noticeable.
There are many reasons why it doesn't make sense for them to do this, but this isn't one of them.
Edit: To clarify, and put this in perspective, 12 Gbps is 1.5 GB per second, which is less than 127 terabytes a day. Amazon, through AWS in multiple regions, is entirely capable of adding 127 terabytes of storage a day, and already transfers MUCH more than 12 Gbps. This is not impossible, just very improbable.
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Totally possible. As an example, Codec2 used in ham-radio applications can send pretty decent voice audio at a few kilobit/s or less, and it keeps sounding perfectly understandable even at 1.2 kbit/s like this short sample: http://www.rowetel.com/downloads/codec2/hts1a_1200.wav More information here: http://www.rowetel.com/?page_id=452
To spell it out, that's extremely unlikely, it's not impossible . Just very, very costly.