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Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

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Re: Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

#381

Post by tambourine_man »

wilsonnb wrote: post #363
tambourine_man wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can have clean water from an outdoor communal well, instead Have you ever considered that this is not the case in most of the world? Resources are far from evenly distributed. It is not by chance that the availability of indoor plumbing correlates to increase in life expectancy. It's nice that I can just open the tap and clean water comes out, but it's also a lot more sanitary than people carrying and storing b…

The whole point is that they were not comparing anything to clean water or cheap food . They were comparing something to water that doesn't need to be moved inside manually and bread that doesn't have to be made at home. Neither of which is needed to live. Both of which are conveniences.

It's not though, please reread the comment above. Water brought and stored in buckets from an outdoor communal well would not be nearly as clean or as plentiful. There's a reason we have indoor plumbing and convenience is just one of them. And I can't believe I have to explain this here.

Re: Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

#382

Post by duxup »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #365
duxup wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the first voice command stuff on google. Buddy of mine was trying it out and I couldn't help myself but shout: "NEW TEXT MESSAGE TO JENNY! FUCK YOU! SEND!" Fortunately the phone was too slow to take it all (even if it had Jenny would have found it amusing, she was a cube or two away). But yeah first thing I thought of was that if it's listening how easy is it for it to mistake intent or someone else or etc…

I got a touchscreen for my desktop PC once (it was the Windows 8.1 era, after all). I immediately discovered that it provided me no significant practical benefit, but it was now infinitely easier for someone walking by my desk to poke my screen and mess up what I was doing.

I had the inverse experience. My wife's laptop had a touch screen and I thought "What a dumb idea, what use is that?"

Then she'd ask me for help and rather than have to wait for her to find what button I was talking about I'd just tap the screen a few times and we were off and running again!

Re: Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

#383

Post by cookiecaper »

edwhitesell wrote: post #337
tj-teej wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you replace "fuzzy human speech-command detection" with "buttons which can accidentally be pressed" - how is this different from butt-dialing?

Most phone now have some kind of lock screen, which makes it pretty difficult to get to the butt dialing stage. Will speech command recognition get to that stage? The main reason I won't have any of those products in my house is because of that. I'd much rather have a confirmation of some kind before the system takes action. "...random talking..." Assistant "I am recording" Me: "Stop recording"

On the Echo at least, there's an option to have the device make a thump-type sound when it's activated. There's also a light ring that activates out of the box and shows where it believes the audio is coming from.

Re: Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

#384

Post by JasonFruit »

floatingatoll wrote: post #278
carbocation wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be cool to add thermal sensors to that, so the lights don't shut off because you're not moving enough.

I wish more offices would install motion sensors facing keyboards from above, tune-focused for finger motion detection.

The NSA could just give you access to theirs.

Re: Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

#385

Post by dolessdrugs »

spdustin wrote: post #380
tj-teej wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you replace "fuzzy human speech-command detection" with "buttons which can accidentally be pressed" - how is this different from butt-dialing?

Simply: no one else is dialing via my butt.

hold my beer

Re: Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

#386

Post by Declanomous »

duxup wrote: post #382
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a touchscreen for my desktop PC once (it was the Windows 8.1 era, after all). I immediately discovered that it provided me no significant practical benefit, but it was now infinitely easier for someone walking by my desk to poke my screen and mess up what I was doing.

I had the inverse experience. My wife's laptop had a touch screen and I thought "What a dumb idea, what use is that?" Then she'd ask me for help and rather than have to wait for her to find what button I was talking about I'd just tap the screen a few times and we were off and running again!

I bought the original Surface Pro the week it came out. I actually really like the interface and thought that it was great. I didn't really understand why so many people hated Windows 8 until I tried to use in on a desktop. Even with a touchscreen it's pretty annoying.

I'd been using Linux as my primary OS for years at that point, so I think I'm pretty critical of Microsoft in general, however they did a good job building a touchscreen interface.

The state of touchscreen support in Linux was pretty bad the last time I checked though.

Re: Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

#387

Post by tfandango »

SilasX wrote: post #227
asn0 wrote: post #15

Summary of vague technical details (which may be all we hear about this): > an Alexa engineer investigated ... they said 'our engineers went through your logs, and they saw exactly what you told us, they saw exactly what you said happened, and we're sorry.' He apologized like 15 times in a matter of 30 minutes and he said we really appreciate you bringing this to our attention, this is something we need to fix!" > th…

I'm just thankful that the response is more satisfying than the typical, "nope, couldn't have happened, can't reproduce".

I thought the response was pretty disturbing. They have logs of everything you say to Alexa? I guess I assumed the private conversations were not kept beyond some sort of metadata. No thanks.

Re: Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

#388

Post by pessimizer »

Anon1096 wrote: post #312
bluGill wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are on the right track, but I don't think you are quite right. Amazon like systems are more vulnerable to mass surveillance. Your vulnerability isn't a targeted attack: you are not valuable enough to be worth the effort to figure out your system. As an attacker on your system I'd have to figure out how to break in, and then how to use the hardware you have. You are more valuable as part of a botnet - attacks that…

And what exactly does this "vulnerability" mean in real terms? Let's be honest. No one cares what conversations are going on in your house _unless_ you're someone specifically targeted. There's little use in mopping up data with no goal.

If I'm using a dragnet to grab every conversation and filter it for things I personally care about, your conversation could make you someone I want to specifically target.

As a random example: let's say that I want to kill someone who lives in your neighborhood. I could analyze your conversations, comings and goings to figure out when and how to kill that person, and blame it on you. I could on a continual basis run numbers on everyone emitting data in your neighborhood, until someone had arrived at a point where their friends would testify against them on the basis of conversations with the potential patsy, that patsy had no alibi, and tailor the murder on the basis of the means that the patsy had available to them at the time.

I could also just be trying to figure out if you were a homosexual, or muslim.

Re: Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

#389

Post by acranox »

edwhitesell wrote: post #337
tj-teej wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you replace "fuzzy human speech-command detection" with "buttons which can accidentally be pressed" - how is this different from butt-dialing?

Most phone now have some kind of lock screen, which makes it pretty difficult to get to the butt dialing stage. Will speech command recognition get to that stage? The main reason I won't have any of those products in my house is because of that. I'd much rather have a confirmation of some kind before the system takes action. "...random talking..." Assistant "I am recording" Me: "Stop recording"

You'd be amazed at my dad's ability to butt dial people with an iPhone. It's possible. Like multiple times per week possible.

Re: Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact

#390

Post by hunter2_ »

spdustin wrote: post #380
tj-teej wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you replace "fuzzy human speech-command detection" with "buttons which can accidentally be pressed" - how is this different from butt-dialing?

Simply: no one else is dialing via my butt.

Just as nobody but the primary user(s) triggered the failure in this case!
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