Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#111

Post by woolvalley » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 8:03 PM UTC

LinuxBender wrote: post #52

stevecalifornia wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) It's always listening for a keyword, and then it starts recording. It's a voice interface for a computer. 2) Your phone is doing the same thing except for it follows you around everywhere you go and records your map location, what apps you use, who you are talking to and what your web searches are. Your phone isn't recording just what you say...its recording what you do and where you do it and when you do it. It's…

1) Nobody can prove that. It's always listening and you have to assume always recording and transmitting. 2) My phone is a $12 throw away that speaks voice and sms (text). 3) Loose lips sink ships.

I vaguely remember rumors (or maybe it was used in a few court cases by the FBI), where carriers would turn on the microphones of 2G dumb phones remotely and silently. So your dumb phone probably has the same issue.

Carriers also keep records of where subscriber devices have been, so even if your phone doesn't have GPS, the carrier has cell tower triangulation logs of the device too.

ISPs such as comcast also save your browsing history to run their advertising networks, so that is also recorded somewhere too. And if/when net neutrality goes away completely, they might just sell that info too:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/comcast-we-wont-...

Whats even worse about ISPs doing it is how you usually have no other choices and it's your complete traffic stream!

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#112

Post by janoc » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 8:04 PM UTC

ryanmercer wrote: post #57

rdtsc wrote: post #17

I am baffled by how many people have no problems adding always listening and recording Google and Facebook devices to their living rooms. Some are considered tech people who should know stuff like this could happen, but they just don't care or don't think it will happen to them. Somewhere there is an ex-Stasi officer who is thinking "I wish we were that good and had people fooled to voluntarily install listening devi…

>I am baffled by how many people have no problems adding always listening and recording Google and Facebook devices to their living rooms. I am baffled by people that think anyone cares about their conversation about Jeff at work or what Monica and Ross just did on the 75th viewing of an episode of friends, or that they talk to their stuffed rabbit named Bun that they've had since about a week after they were born ab…

You know, if nobody cares about this, then why are people constantly up in arms whenever yet-another-Facebook-privacy-scandal surfaces?

Why people object to have e.g. their financial or medical information disclosed?

Yes, there are people who are "sheep" in the sense that they would do anything if there is some voucher or discount for it. But most people would also object to a camera in their bedroom or photos of their kids being posted publicly online for everyone to see.

You are right that most of the stuff is absolutely mundane, especially in isolation. However, with a bit of analysis one could suddenly learn things about you that you would likely want to keep private - e.g. your sexual fetishes, whether or not you have some illness (insurers and some employers would kill for such info!), your political views, ton of data about your interests, which TV shows you are watching, etc. That's an absolute bonanza of data that makes any marketer salivate and see dollar signs. And a gold mine for all sorts of stalkers and creeps too.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#113

Post by mynameisvlad » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 8:05 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #93

ryanmercer wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am baffled by how many people have no problems adding always listening and recording Google and Facebook devices to their living rooms. I am baffled by people that think anyone cares about their conversation about Jeff at work or what Monica and Ross just did on the 75th viewing of an episode of friends, or that they talk to their stuffed rabbit named Bun that they've had since about a week after they were born ab…

Using a reward card and taking FB quizzes are active decisions. Being surreptitiously recorded is not.

Well, they made an active decision to buy a device specifically meant to record them and provide responses to said recording. It would be another thing to find out a phone records every conversation passively, but these devices are literally made for the purposes of recording you.

That kind of sounds like a self inflicted wound if they actually cared about privacy.

This is all said with the presumption that the devices actually are surreptitiously recording. Which is far from proven but already addressed by other comments here.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#114

Post by ddalex » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 8:05 PM UTC

ryanmercer wrote: post #57

rdtsc wrote: post #17

I am baffled by how many people have no problems adding always listening and recording Google and Facebook devices to their living rooms. Some are considered tech people who should know stuff like this could happen, but they just don't care or don't think it will happen to them. Somewhere there is an ex-Stasi officer who is thinking "I wish we were that good and had people fooled to voluntarily install listening devi…

>I am baffled by how many people have no problems adding always listening and recording Google and Facebook devices to their living rooms. I am baffled by people that think anyone cares about their conversation about Jeff at work or what Monica and Ross just did on the 75th viewing of an episode of friends, or that they talk to their stuffed rabbit named Bun that they've had since about a week after they were born ab…

I am baffled that people like yourself are not concerned in the least.

I grew up in an Eastern Europe Communist State where this kind of personal surveillance was the norm. People went and wrote down all their interactions with others. You can see these documents now as the former secret police archives were published (what wasn't destroyed to protect the higher ups).

It's amazing how the most innocuous remarks can be used against yourself in an unbelivable twists. Just an example: Person A criticized person C, which was his boss, as being incompetent, to person B, which was a secretly delator. Person B went and reported to the secret police this tension, as he was payed on the number of pages he would write.

The secret police compiled a weekly report of stuff that would happen, in each company, and send it up to the party for review. It just happened in the party that somebody who saw the report had frictions with that Boss, and he used that report to push the Boss around. The Boss thought that person A himself wrote the report, and used his connections to get person A fired, and banned, on the party line, from ever having a qualified-work position again - ie he could not be an engineer, teacher, or anything, leaving him with just construction work or janitorial jobs.

How often do you bitch about your boss? How would you like that your boss gets reports about what you bitch about him in your own home? How would you like that what you say, no matter how private you want it to be, is always recorded?

I'm astounded by the fact that people see nothing wrong having these devices always listening to them.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#115

Post by madrox » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 8:05 PM UTC

pmontra wrote: post #92

closetohome wrote: post #26

I'm having trouble getting worked up about this one. Yeah a privacy breach happened, but it was only one person's data exposed, and only to one other person. The only reason it made the news is because people are already paranoid about voice assistants.

The interesting fact is how much data they store with no apparent reason. They can perform speech to text on the fly and throw away the recording. Machine learning? Do it with people paid to talk to Alexa.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the thrust of your argument (do you really need to store all that?), but constraining your sample to people paid to talk to Alexa can create huge swathes of bias. You'd need to make sure the people you pay also reflect all the accents and languages of the people who use Alexa. On top of that, without some amount of voice data, how are you to even know what that accent breakdown looks like? That's a near-impossible task.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#116

Post by bootaccount » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 8:06 PM UTC

pmontra wrote: post #79

stevecalifornia wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) It's always listening for a keyword, and then it starts recording. It's a voice interface for a computer. 2) Your phone is doing the same thing except for it follows you around everywhere you go and records your map location, what apps you use, who you are talking to and what your web searches are. Your phone isn't recording just what you say...its recording what you do and where you do it and when you do it. It's…

You can opt out of basically every Google login/tracking in Android, except the Play store. I know because I'm logged out of everything and I disable location services. Google Maps keeps working. What I don't understand is why they have to store voice recordings instead of deleting them once they understand the vocal command. There could be a number of reasons and I don't like any of them.

try disabling Google Maps location access permission. For me it triggers an endless loop requesting Location permission, rendering the app unusable.

Google's always mining data behind the scenes and gapps are constantly phoning home, your "opt-out" preferences are meaningless.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#117

Post by aero142 » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 8:07 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #96

Zelphyr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why this is getting downvoted. I feel the same way. Amazon and Google have yet to demonstrate to me that they value my privacy enough to take necessary steps to protect it. They, like Facebook, know most people foolishly don’t care enough to hold these companies feet to the fire on it. At the risk of stating the obvious; Facebook has more than demonstrated the opposite.

What evidence or steps would be sufficient for you?

Not parent, but I'll answer.

1) The implementation of the wake word recognition is implemented in hardware that cannot be updated remotely.

2) The device is unable to transmit information without lighting up a TX light. Implemented in unmodifiable hardware.

3) Voice recordings are processed and then deleted within one month.

4) The device is run by a company that doesn't make money through marketing or data analysis.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#118

Post by pixxel » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 8:07 PM UTC

cheeze wrote: post #66

accnumnplus1 wrote: post #12

This is just facebook all over again. Why can't people see trouble-tech? I never used facebook and won't ever use an alexa, nor whatever google's thing is.

I disagree. Amazon seems to actually care about privacy and takes things like this pretty seriously. One could certainly criticize AMZN data collection, but I think Amazon has shown that it does care about privacy of this data. Mistakes do happen which is unfortunate, and I think there is a good argument for no company, no matter their intentions to record this much data. On the other hand, this is Facebook's busines…

“Amazon seems to actually care about privacy “

Not according to the NY Times this week. Amazon have been reading your private messages on Facebook.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/technology/facebook-priva...

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#119

Post by michaelcampbell » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 8:07 PM UTC

LinuxBender wrote: post #52

stevecalifornia wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) It's always listening for a keyword, and then it starts recording. It's a voice interface for a computer. 2) Your phone is doing the same thing except for it follows you around everywhere you go and records your map location, what apps you use, who you are talking to and what your web searches are. Your phone isn't recording just what you say...its recording what you do and where you do it and when you do it. It's…

1) Nobody can prove that. It's always listening and you have to assume always recording and transmitting. 2) My phone is a $12 throw away that speaks voice and sms (text). 3) Loose lips sink ships.

Steve Gibson did a wireshark investigation of an Alexa, it is NOT always transmitting.

Your assertion that "nobody can prove that" is rather absurd.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#120

Post by kolbe » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 8:09 PM UTC

Klathmon wrote: post #73

LinuxBender wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Nobody can prove that. It's always listening and you have to assume always recording and transmitting. 2) My phone is a $12 throw away that speaks voice and sms (text). 3) Loose lips sink ships.

If we are playing the "you can't prove that" game, then you also can't prove that your $12 throw away phone isn't always recording, or that you new kitchen countertop doesn't have a recording device embedded in it, or that the maker of whatever device you are using to type that comment isn't breaking a plethora of laws to record everything you type or say or do around that device at any time.

It's reasonable to embed motive into these suspicions. My confidence in iPhone not listening to me is linked to the fact that Apple's ad network is a fraction of the size of Amazon's and Google's, and that to the best of our knowledge, it doesn't require extensive access to personal data to run effectively. Same with GE appliances and countertop makers. One of the most reliable ways for me to believe a company will not harvest my data surreptitiously, now or with TOS updates in the future, is for me to be convinced it's not in their best interest to do so.