NH judge orders Amazon to give Echo recordings in murder case • Hacker News Board

Re: NH judge orders Amazon to give Echo recordings in murder case

#181

Post by jhayward » Sat, Nov 10, 2018, 11:23 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #6

I know that this article itself doesn’t have much content but I’m interested in what the police are actually requesting, and what they end up getting. Do they assume/suspect that Echo/Amazon continuously records and logs audio, akin to a security camera? Or do they have evidence that Echo was actually activated around the time of the murders, or afterwards by the suspect himself? I was also interested in this quote:…

> Do they assume/suspect that Echo/Amazon continuously records and logs audio, akin to a security camera? Or do they have evidence that Echo was actually activated around the time of the murders, or afterwards by the suspect himself?

They're looking for any scrap of information. It could be that someone task Alexa with something that becomes pertinent to determining motive, or opportunity, or even just presence or absence of an individual.

They're not necessarily (or even imaginably) thinking they'll get wiretap or bug type recordings. It's more like getting phone records - who did they call? Then following up those leads.

Re: NH judge orders Amazon to give Echo recordings in murder case

#182

Post by ryanlol » Sun, Nov 11, 2018, 10:03 AM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #113

jeremyjh wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been demonstrated that it does not send network traffic apart from requests made to it; e.g. it is not continuously streaming data. Of course that could be changed at any time with a software update that you have no choice about accepting. To prove it is not recording locally could be much more difficult, but there are practical questions there. What media is it recording to, and if the recordings are never se…

That does not demonstrate anything. It could "buffer" the data it wants to send and only send it after the trigger word is detected, precisely to trick such naive analysis.

How do we know your laptop is not doing this? Or your phone? Or your TV?

In fact, it seems more likely that your laptop would be doing this give that it probably has far more electronics inside it.

Re: NH judge orders Amazon to give Echo recordings in murder case

#183

Post by andrepd » Mon, Nov 12, 2018, 1:45 PM UTC

jeremyjh wrote: post #163

tkxxx7 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you can be reasonably sure the device is only sending a payload of max size N at a time, padding your requests with some recording data when it can

Any smart tv could be doing the same thing. Why do you think that Amazon in particular is likely to be conducting a massive, secret and illegal surveillance operation?

>Any smart tv could be doing the same thing.

And many have been found to, which kind of proves my point.

>Why do you think that Amazon in particular is likely to be conducting a massive, secret and illegal surveillance operation?

Uhm, because it makes money? Isn't that the answer to any "why" in our current economic system?

Re: NH judge orders Amazon to give Echo recordings in murder case

#184

Post by themagician » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 2:07 AM UTC

superflyguy wrote: post #76

themagician wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not possible. This is a classic example of the legal system confusing reality with science fiction. You can monitor Echo itself over your network and quickly realize that it’s not sending a constant stream of voice data. For the most part the device is off until it hears its name.

"Amazon/verizon - tell themagician's Alexa to start recording now. And don't tell themagician."

Jokes on them, I keep the Echo in the bathroom because I mainly use it to sing in the shower. So they can listen to me shit and sing “Call me Maybe”.

Re: NH judge orders Amazon to give Echo recordings in murder case

#185

Post by themagician » Tue, Nov 13, 2018, 2:09 AM UTC

dingaling wrote: post #96

themagician wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not possible. This is a classic example of the legal system confusing reality with science fiction. You can monitor Echo itself over your network and quickly realize that it’s not sending a constant stream of voice data. For the most part the device is off until it hears its name.

> You can monitor Echo itself over your network No, you can't. The SSL certs are pinned. You can determine the metadata and quantity of data transferred, but not the contents.

Unless they have invented some kind of magic compression then I can. The Echo either sends nothing or tiny pings. If they’ve invented some kind of subspace coms channel that can stream an hour of voice over 12kb, then props.