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Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

nytimes.com

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Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#81

Post by sillyquiet »

mkirklions wrote: post #76
sillyquiet wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people keep repeating this tired and offensive myth? I bought my iphone for the hardware and software capabilities that I judged to be the best for my use cases. And I am not the only one that actually had a non-trite reason, I am sure.

Is this a myth? What does apple have better than android in 2018?

As far as what Apple iphone does better? Privacy, os updates, integration with my Mac, App store apps, and a bunch of other things. But that all is completely besides the point. Even if there were nothing at all iPhones do better, it's a bit absurd to go from 'well apple is not better than android' to 'people therefore only buy apple because they are shallow'

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#82

Post by floatrock »

jerf wrote: post #28
devy wrote: post #18

Just out of curiosity, what's the frequency range that a typical mic can pick up the signal from? The article did not specially mention about the range instead it said inaudible. And here is another article I found that mentions the normal 20-20kHz frequency response range: http://blog.shure.com/mic-basics-frequency-response/ Isn't that mostly overlap with the human ear capability? I understand each person is differe…

Yes, typical mics tend to pick up the typical human frequency range, though cheaper mics may have some really poor characteristics at the edges. Usually in the speech range they'll be pretty solid. However, there's a lot of play within the space. One difference is that microphones do a very direct recording of the sound waves, but what we hear is actually very distorted compared to the "real" sound by the nature of o…

hmm... the big idea that MP3 figured out was you can document all these "if there is a very loud 4000Hz sound, we can't hear a soft 4005Hz sound near it very well" psychoacoustic phenomena and just throw away all that extra "can't hear it very well" information, resulting in a vastly-smaller filesize that still sounds reasonable (yeah yeah it's not FLAC and the purist needs their gold-plated Monster cables, lets not go there, that's not the point)

So this attack is kinda a "reverse-MP3" that adds those lossy bits back in, but shaped with an attack payload. Or at least it adds enough pieces of the attack payload that the neural net pattern recognition triggers, while the humans say "Doesn't sound like anything to me".

Is that a close-enough explain-like-im-a-freshman?

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#83

Post by always_good »

mkirklions wrote: post #77
mulletbum wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone who likes iPhones owns one, so that removes status. Personal anecdote, I dislike Apple computers, but I like their phones. So I am at least one person who doesn't buy them for brand. This notion is outdated.

Can you explain what is good about their phones? Things that drive me crazy- >No widgets >constant reminders to sign-in >constant reminders to update >no double tap/settings seem harder to find >Finger print scanner sucks so bad. >Little annoyances like the animations to change screen take 0.5 seconds too long. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be enjoying on my iphone.

Please spare us from Android vs iPhone fanboi wars on HN.

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#84

Post by freehunter »

jonknee wrote: post #53
freehunter wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should bother taping over cameras you're not using though. It's way too easy to hijack them and keep the light from turning on when you do.

Do you really put tape on your phone?

I use my phone's camera, so no.

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#85

Post by floatrock »

floatrock wrote: post #82
jerf wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, typical mics tend to pick up the typical human frequency range, though cheaper mics may have some really poor characteristics at the edges. Usually in the speech range they'll be pretty solid. However, there's a lot of play within the space. One difference is that microphones do a very direct recording of the sound waves, but what we hear is actually very distorted compared to the "real" sound by the nature of o…

hmm... the big idea that MP3 figured out was you can document all these "if there is a very loud 4000Hz sound, we can't hear a soft 4005Hz sound near it very well" psychoacoustic phenomena and just throw away all that extra "can't hear it very well" information, resulting in a vastly-smaller filesize that still sounds reasonable (yeah yeah it's not FLAC and the purist needs their gold-plated Monster cables, lets not…

Hey Berkeley researchers, if you're reading this and want to make a demo that will really freak people out, embed an alexa activation command into this clip: https://youtu.be/iyXtGo418TY?t=1m11s

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#86

Post by always_good »

sillyquiet wrote: post #81
mkirklions wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a myth? What does apple have better than android in 2018?

As far as what Apple iphone does better? Privacy, os updates, integration with my Mac, App store apps, and a bunch of other things. But that all is completely besides the point. Even if there were nothing at all iPhones do better, it's a bit absurd to go from 'well apple is not better than android' to 'people therefore only buy apple because they are shallow'

I just saw someone on HN saying how amazing Google Photos was because of its learning in the cloud.

Having not used Photos on macOS in years beyond ensuring it actually imported my photos, I opened it up and was surprised at the level of analysis it had. It made an album for each city I visited in Mexico. "Puerto Vallarta 2017" and such. Even had a "Furry Friends in Mexico" album that was all the furred beasts I met along the way.

Really well done, and all done locally on my computer.

This is the sort of thing I have no problem voting for with my dollars.

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#87

Post by ctoth »

mkirklions wrote: post #76
sillyquiet wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people keep repeating this tired and offensive myth? I bought my iphone for the hardware and software capabilities that I judged to be the best for my use cases. And I am not the only one that actually had a non-trite reason, I am sure.

Is this a myth? What does apple have better than android in 2018?

Accessibility. I can pick up any Apple device created in the last 9 years and be guaranteed that as a totally blind person I can use it. Phone, iPad, Watch, whatever. Just works. This is very very far from being the case in Android land.

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#88

Post by toast0 »

mkirklions wrote: post #69
sailfast wrote: post #44

I can't recommend highly enough that everyone at least turn on the audible sound when their assistants are listening. At a minimum you should know the kinds of things that end up triggering the device. There's a really wide area of detection and it's interesting to see where that is. I would also recommending changing your default word at a minimum. Then again, I might also recommend ditching the device entirely but…

I want to get rid of my alexa, but my wife uses it as a kitchen timer. We literally dont use it for anything else. Might get one of those philips light sets since our living room is weird... Tbh, id rather not use alexa..

The clock / timer functions of Alexa/Google Home are super useful, but nothing else seems compelling to me.

Someone could clearly make an offline device that did voice recognition clock and timer, but does anyone?

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#89

Post by mkirklions »

sillyquiet wrote: post #81
mkirklions wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a myth? What does apple have better than android in 2018?

As far as what Apple iphone does better? Privacy, os updates, integration with my Mac, App store apps, and a bunch of other things. But that all is completely besides the point. Even if there were nothing at all iPhones do better, it's a bit absurd to go from 'well apple is not better than android' to 'people therefore only buy apple because they are shallow'

Has it been a while since you used an alternative?

All of those seem like expected features in any OS/phone.

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#90

Post by lozenge »

Jun8 wrote: post #6

The interesting thing is that Google Assistant has teh same problem, it's right there in the subtitle. It's interesting that it was omitted from the main title. Rather than journalistic oversight I think this verifies what people have commented many times: that the fact that GA does not have a personalized name makes it to refer to it. SO much so that a very distant third product is included rather than GA.

Usually the attack requires the source code (or weightings of the neural network), I'd be surprised if they are able to actually attack these systems.
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