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Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls

bloomberg.com

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Re: Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls

#11

Post by mtsr »

jrockway wrote: post #4
snvzz wrote: post #2

I find the title biased against Amazon to begin with. As if having assistants from other companies listening in was any safer. Why namedrop Amazon's own?

They mention Google in the first sentence. I think it's important to not overly freak out about these home assistants. Your phone company or video conferencing company is already listening to your confidential client calls. Your email provider is reading your email. Your internal applications run on Amazon's servers. Your upstairs neighbor has their ear to the floor. I think lawyers are used to thinking "as long as i…

It wasn’t always the case that teleconferencing providers could listen in. At least Skype was peer-to-peer originally.

And only corporate firewalls and some bad providers would prevent it from working today.

My email provider surely isn’t reading my mail, but then again, I seem to be in a minority that doesn’t use gmail.

The threat of real-time speech-to-text is real, but police all over the world have made the mistake of spying on lawyers now and then.

Re: Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls

#12

Post by fulafel »

zie wrote: post #7

I have no doubt they are able to hear anything happening in the room they happen to be installed in. But I doubt they listen for anything but their keyword, and I seriously doubt they listen, record and send off to their overlords what they hear on a massive basis. However, they clearly CAN, and while they almost certainly don't on any massive scale, if they by their overlord or a security hack, did on a targeted bas…

There were stories earlier about Alexa employees and contractors hearing all kinds of unintended conversations.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tn-amazon-alexa-echo-...

Re: Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls

#13

Post by shawnz »

mrfusion wrote: post #10
zie wrote: post #7

I have no doubt they are able to hear anything happening in the room they happen to be installed in. But I doubt they listen for anything but their keyword, and I seriously doubt they listen, record and send off to their overlords what they hear on a massive basis. However, they clearly CAN, and while they almost certainly don't on any massive scale, if they by their overlord or a security hack, did on a targeted bas…

Also what’s stopping them processing advertising relevant keywords locally and then just sending a list of keywords to amazon.

Now that they've publicly claimed several times that they don't do that, I think it would really erode trust in the product if they changed the policy.

Re: Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls

#16

Post by _jal »

jrockway wrote: post #4
snvzz wrote: post #2

I find the title biased against Amazon to begin with. As if having assistants from other companies listening in was any safer. Why namedrop Amazon's own?

They mention Google in the first sentence. I think it's important to not overly freak out about these home assistants. Your phone company or video conferencing company is already listening to your confidential client calls. Your email provider is reading your email. Your internal applications run on Amazon's servers. Your upstairs neighbor has their ear to the floor. I think lawyers are used to thinking "as long as i…

I agree, freaking out is pointless.

You treat these things as third-party listening devices - bugs, because that is exactly what they are, and adjust your conversation accordingly unless/until it is unplugged.

Look at it from a lawyer's perspective: imagine your privileged conversation with your client did leak. Your client sues you. If there was a surveillance speaker in the room it doesn't matter if it leaked because of it. You just demonstrated extreme lack of care by discussing privileged information in front of a networked microphone.

Re: Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls

#17

Post by rhino369 »

zie wrote: post #7

I have no doubt they are able to hear anything happening in the room they happen to be installed in. But I doubt they listen for anything but their keyword, and I seriously doubt they listen, record and send off to their overlords what they hear on a massive basis. However, they clearly CAN, and while they almost certainly don't on any massive scale, if they by their overlord or a security hack, did on a targeted bas…

>However, they clearly CAN, and while they almost certainly don't on any massive scale, if they by their overlord or a security hack, did on a targeted basis listen, record and send conversations on, that would be very possible, and very harmful for whoever was targeted.

Besides the fact that they have better antennas, this is true for pretty much any device with a microphone and a processor with audio processing capability, no?

My laptop has a microphone and video. Surely Microsoft could just start recording with the with right windows update?

My Avaya VOIP phone has speaker phone, could do the same.

Re: Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls

#18

Post by masklinn »

fulafel wrote: post #12
zie wrote: post #7

I have no doubt they are able to hear anything happening in the room they happen to be installed in. But I doubt they listen for anything but their keyword, and I seriously doubt they listen, record and send off to their overlords what they hear on a massive basis. However, they clearly CAN, and while they almost certainly don't on any massive scale, if they by their overlord or a security hack, did on a targeted bas…

There were stories earlier about Alexa employees and contractors hearing all kinds of unintended conversations. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tn-amazon-alexa-echo-...

It should be noted that the device is not intended to record conversations absent the trigger word, however there can be false positives:

> According to Amazon’s website, no audio is stored unless Echo detects the wake word or is activated by pressing a button. But sometimes Alexa appears to begin recording without any prompt at all, and the audio files start with a blaring television or unintelligible noise.

Re: Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls

#19

Post by dustinkirkland »

It's a very reasonable concern. I used to have a Google Assistant in my home office. I've muted the mic and just use it as a Bluetooth speaker.

However, the much bigger concern should be your phone, which has a mic, is internet connected, and almost always listening. You need to also disable the Google Assistant, Sciri, etc. there too.

Oh, and that doesn't just go for your home. That's in the office, at a client, on the train, in an Uber... Everywhere you take your phone.

Re: Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls

#20

Post by fulafel »

masklinn wrote: post #18
fulafel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were stories earlier about Alexa employees and contractors hearing all kinds of unintended conversations. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tn-amazon-alexa-echo-...

It should be noted that the device is not intended to record conversations absent the trigger word, however there can be false positives: > According to Amazon’s website, no audio is stored unless Echo detects the wake word or is activated by pressing a button. But sometimes Alexa appears to begin recording without any prompt at all, and the audio files start with a blaring television or unintelligible noise.

Well, from a suspicious mindset that could be more or less sincere...
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