Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by MereInterest » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #20

masklinn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It doesn't even matter how sincere they are. False negatives hurt the perception of the product, because then people need to repeat the key word. False positives do not hurt the perception of the product, because the recording occurs silently. Their incentives are aligned against privacy, and so privacy will suffer.

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

#32

Post by masklinn » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #20

masklinn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Obviously, any device which is mic'd and connected is a risk. And devices like the echo or whatever google and apple sell have a permanent hot mic' since they keep trying to match the keyword so a "live" indicator would be of very limited use.

Unless the trigger-matching was performed by some sort of tamper-resistant secure module which would also trigger the indicator and not feed any data to the rest of the system, but then you'd have to trust that that is properly implemented as well.

I guess a suspicious mind could be able to check that by looking whether there is traffic between the device and the cloud servers. And the paranoid mind (who wasn't paranoid enough to not have such a device, oddly enough) could only allow the device 'net access when desiring to use its capabilities (though obviously there's no guarantee said device wouldn't have been buffering hours of conversation while offline).

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

#33

Post by chmod775 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

zitterbewegung wrote: post #25

Until we have a home assistant that can be operated without a connection to the internet without going to the cloud there is always going to be this risk. I don't see any of the big players actually designing a system like this other than Apple.

> other than Apple.

Microsoft might. I don't know what their cortana does right now though.

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

#34

Post by Frost1x » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

Welcome to a world where the general consumer's choices coupled with more and more private capitalization of essential services dictates life for the rest of people.

In this case it's pretty easy: dont buy these garbage products to begin with. Phones, on the other hand, are a bit more difficult to find viable alternatives for in many cases

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

#35

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

chmod775 wrote: post #33

zitterbewegung wrote: post #25

Until we have a home assistant that can be operated without a connection to the internet without going to the cloud there is always going to be this risk. I don't see any of the big players actually designing a system like this other than Apple.

> other than Apple. Microsoft might . I don't know what their cortana does right now though.

[deleted]

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

#36

Post by pampelondan » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:22 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #23

rhino369 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 cap…

> My laptop has a microphone and video. Surely Microsoft could just start recording with the with right windows update? It's a commonly mentioned issue, and a somewhat regular occurrence with various malware or "security solutions". That's why a number of laptops have either visual indicators or shutters (though mostly for the cameras, sadly hot mics are rarely a consideration), and a rare few have physical disconnec…

I saw one gizmo for mic the other day

https://shop.googlemerchandisestore.com/Google+Redesign/Acce...

haven't tried it though, anyone has any experience? Does it really muffle the sound enough?

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

#37

Post by numpad0 » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

sys_64738 wrote: post #22

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…

Where is the keyword 'Alexa' recognized? On the device or back in Amazon towers? If the latter then every sounds is transmitted back to grep for 'Alexa'. Of course we believe they don't store that other noise data.

Usually done by dedicated software on a separate CPU that captures “wakeword”(mostly for technical reasons than privacy)

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

#38

Post by xyzzy_plugh » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

sys_64738 wrote: post #22

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…

Where is the keyword 'Alexa' recognized? On the device or back in Amazon towers? If the latter then every sounds is transmitted back to grep for 'Alexa'. Of course we believe they don't store that other noise data.

Both. First on the device, then in the cloud. The latter determines if it's a "false positive" or not. AFAIK there is no way to remotely start recording up to the cloud.

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

#39

Post by gruez » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

chmod775 wrote: post #33

zitterbewegung wrote: post #25

Until we have a home assistant that can be operated without a connection to the internet without going to the cloud there is always going to be this risk. I don't see any of the big players actually designing a system like this other than Apple.

> other than Apple. Microsoft might . I don't know what their cortana does right now though.

I doubt it, given their current track record with windows telemetry.

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

#40

Post by gruez » Sat, Mar 21, 2020, 2:29 PM UTC

wrkronmiller wrote: post #30

I don’t entirely get the cognitive dissonance of worrying about a microphone+speaker sitting on your table when you probably have a microphone+speaker+camera+face-scanner etc... in your pocket. Same story for most laptops.

Wrong threat model. Those devices only record maliciously if they're hacked. Smart speakers/home assistants inadvertenly record during normal operation. See: all the news stories about their owners discovering their recordings on their google/amazon account.