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Project Alias hacks Amazon Echo and Google Home to protect privacy

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Re: Project Alias hacks Amazon Echo and Google Home to protect privacy

#51

Post by tjr225 »

WAthrowaway wrote: post #20

You could also just not buy one of those awful things. I have never seen a legitimate use for it that wasn't misplaced adolescent tech fantasies (omg I can tell big brother to make coffee and my keurig starts up!). But maybe my line of business has made me excessively paranoid / niche I would like to make an edit: functionality for those with disabilities is a huge use-case I did not consider. Thank you for your insi…

I mostly agree with you but there is a legitimate use.

Imagine if you couldn't use your hands or interact with technology due to a disability - these devices would make the world so much easier to interact with.

Re: Project Alias hacks Amazon Echo and Google Home to protect privacy

#52

Post by Kiro »

WAthrowaway wrote: post #20

You could also just not buy one of those awful things. I have never seen a legitimate use for it that wasn't misplaced adolescent tech fantasies (omg I can tell big brother to make coffee and my keurig starts up!). But maybe my line of business has made me excessively paranoid / niche I would like to make an edit: functionality for those with disabilities is a huge use-case I did not consider. Thank you for your insi…

I think it's great. Just because you cannot imagine the utility doesn't mean others can't.

Re: Project Alias hacks Amazon Echo and Google Home to protect privacy

#53

Post by Someone1234 »

ninju wrote: post #36
goda90 wrote: post #19

So doesn't Alexa already not record until you say the trigger word? If we don't trust that that is the case, then sure this device covers that, but it doesn't change the fact that they are still collecting data on every command you issue to the device.

The microphone on the Alexa needs to be constantly active so that it can hear its name (the trigger name). The point of this device is to defeat the microphone, by playing white noise. But yes this device does not address what data is captured after you have engaged your smart assistant (nor is trying to address that issue)

The processing for the wake word is handling on the firmware. If you point Wireshark (or another network monitor) at a Google Home or Alexa device you can see that there isn't significant network activity while idle.

Re: Project Alias hacks Amazon Echo and Google Home to protect privacy

#54

Post by pwython »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #50
pwython wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that your phone can delegate the same voice commands to your smart devices or do Q&A, but some of these devices are also decent speakers to stream music casually (eg. $75 Echo).

If you don't trust these devices, you probably wouldn't trust your phone either.

And I have a feeling many people who make a privacy case against Echo/Home forget that their phone does the same thing.

Re: Project Alias hacks Amazon Echo and Google Home to protect privacy

#55

Post by wrs »

While I appreciate the sentiment...unless you actually think Google and Amazon devices are recording irrelevant ambient sound deliberately (they aren’t), this doesn’t help anything. Unless the software here is better than theirs at recognizing the trigger word (very unlikely), there will be even more false positive activations on this device than there are on the originals.

Edit: It’s very unlikely because Amazon and Google pay for false positives, so they have a strong incentive to develop really good trigger word detection.

Re: Project Alias hacks Amazon Echo and Google Home to protect privacy

#56

Post by jdietrich »

runeb wrote: post #48
lotu wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is correct! Google, Amazon, and Apple despite having vast resources don't have the ability/desire to pay for the bandwidth, storage, and processing needed to have 24/7 recording and analysis from every smart device, especially when you realize that includes cell phones. Also it is ironic because all modern cellphones have the whole smart speaker thing built into them but people aren't freaking out about that in…

Couldn't the device use voice-to-text and upload the text, possibly tagged with which voice profile said what? The same goes for phones, obviously.

That would either increase the cost of the device or degrade the performance of the speech-to-text.

In the case of your phone, you'd get about an hour of battery life. Reasonably accurate speech recognition requires several orders of magnitude more computation than wake word detection.

Re: Project Alias hacks Amazon Echo and Google Home to protect privacy

#57

Post by ttul »

lotu wrote: post #37
goda90 wrote: post #19

So doesn't Alexa already not record until you say the trigger word? If we don't trust that that is the case, then sure this device covers that, but it doesn't change the fact that they are still collecting data on every command you issue to the device.

That is correct! Google, Amazon, and Apple despite having vast resources don't have the ability/desire to pay for the bandwidth, storage, and processing needed to have 24/7 recording and analysis from every smart device, especially when you realize that includes cell phones. Also it is ironic because all modern cellphones have the whole smart speaker thing built into them but people aren't freaking out about that in…

This is similar to the issue of people being scared of radiation from cell towers but somehow not freaking out that they have a transmitter in their pocket that uses the same range of frequencies but at vastly higher power (due to the proximity).

Re: Project Alias hacks Amazon Echo and Google Home to protect privacy

#58

Post by lukeschlather »

WAthrowaway wrote: post #20

You could also just not buy one of those awful things. I have never seen a legitimate use for it that wasn't misplaced adolescent tech fantasies (omg I can tell big brother to make coffee and my keurig starts up!). But maybe my line of business has made me excessively paranoid / niche I would like to make an edit: functionality for those with disabilities is a huge use-case I did not consider. Thank you for your insi…

It's somewhat poignant that you say "adolescent" because I know a number of octogenarians and nonagenarians for whom these are indispensable. I won't buy one at this phase in my life, but there will come a point in most people's lives where having an omnipresent corporation listening in will become a net positive.

I would of course prefer dear friends listening in, but who knows what life will bring.

Re: Project Alias hacks Amazon Echo and Google Home to protect privacy

#59

Post by Kiro »

tjr225 wrote: post #51
WAthrowaway wrote: post #20

You could also just not buy one of those awful things. I have never seen a legitimate use for it that wasn't misplaced adolescent tech fantasies (omg I can tell big brother to make coffee and my keurig starts up!). But maybe my line of business has made me excessively paranoid / niche I would like to make an edit: functionality for those with disabilities is a huge use-case I did not consider. Thank you for your insi…

I mostly agree with you but there is a legitimate use. Imagine if you couldn't use your hands or interact with technology due to a disability - these devices would make the world so much easier to interact with.

I've seen this blind kid on YouTube who posts a lot of clips of him joyfully using Alexa. Obviously of great utility to him.

Re: Project Alias hacks Amazon Echo and Google Home to protect privacy

#60

Post by partiallypro »

runeb wrote: post #48
lotu wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is correct! Google, Amazon, and Apple despite having vast resources don't have the ability/desire to pay for the bandwidth, storage, and processing needed to have 24/7 recording and analysis from every smart device, especially when you realize that includes cell phones. Also it is ironic because all modern cellphones have the whole smart speaker thing built into them but people aren't freaking out about that in…

Couldn't the device use voice-to-text and upload the text, possibly tagged with which voice profile said what? The same goes for phones, obviously.

I was going to say this, the only real cost would be the cognitive service to transcribe, storing a text version would be nothing.
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