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Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls

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

#81

Post by perl4ever »

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…

Voice mails and instant messages have been produced in court cases for many years. Even some famous cases have hinged on that.

There's also a thing where if a communication is privileged, and you accidentally produce it, you may not be able to unscramble the egg just because in principle it was covered by lawyer-client privilege. So there is a real risk to recording things even if there are rules protecting you.

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

#82

Post by matz1 »

einpoklum wrote: post #28
matz1 wrote: post #14

I want and expected it to listen to everything. Sure it can be used to harm me but it won't be a good business decision, on the other hand they can use the data improve the product and service for me.

Sending a copy of all data to the NSA is apparently a great business decision, especially when National Security Letters demand it.

Everything has a trade off, you have to look at it using cost benefit analysis.

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

#83

Post by [deleted] »

_jal wrote: post #16
jrockway wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 becau…

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by masklinn »

rebuilder wrote: post #50
snovv_crash wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea there is that it physically disconnects the mic, since the laptop instead tries to use the headphone mic (which in this case isn't connected). Not sure if it would actually work, it would be easy to 3d-print one to test.

If you connect a plug to the audio jack, sure, the laptop probably defaults to using that jack for input and output. But you can still choose to use the built-in mic, right? So it's not physically disconnecting anything, just triggering a software disconnect.

AFAIK you're correct. Though it's possible most spying software just uses the default mic and doesn't have the capabilities to switch the input device?

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

#86

Post by zabana »

Foober223 wrote: post #49
Touche wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing in your pocket is always listening too.

Supposedly your smart phone and smart TV are not passively listening to your offline conversations. That's only done on a targeted basis to people who are being monitored. Your location history however is being passively tracked. Not defending it, but your smart phone is not quite as bad as Alexa. At least for the moment.

> That's only done on a targeted basis to people who are being monitored. Your location history however is being passively tracked.

Except Amazon was caught with their hands in the cookie jar listening on 'regular' people's private conversations on more than one occasion.

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

#87

Post by [deleted] »

pdkl95 wrote: post #75
Touche wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing in your pocket is always listening too.

The only things in my pocket are my wallet and keys. My phone[1] could probably be used for remote surveillance, but without a warrant, that's a crime. Note: intent and expectations matter. A cellphone by itself (without any type of "voice assistant" app or feature) is only intended to record audio when it's being used to make a call. Yes, malicious actors or buggy software could enable the microphone, but that's not…

[deleted]

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

#88

Post by charlesism »

matz1 wrote: post #14

I want and expected it to listen to everything. Sure it can be used to harm me but it won't be a good business decision, on the other hand they can use the data improve the product and service for me.

   >  it won't be a good business decision
You don't think it might be better to assume all this data will leak or be hacked? You most likely have decades of life ahead of you, and once a file is free on the net, it's there forever.

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

#89

Post by rndgermandude »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #67
lima wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Android phones have always-on "Ok Google" hotword detection that works exactly like the standalone devices. Source: Mine does, very useful!

You'll note that "OK, Google" works when your phone is on flight mode. Google aren't constantly sending your microphone data to their servers, the recognition of that phrase happens on your device.

Mine was activated many times in the past when it shouldn't have been, e.g. while watching TV (no, nobody said "OK Google"), and my mom has a tendency to somehow activate my phone by just talking...

Once it is activated, it starts recording and sending audio data to google.

Every such device has a false positive rate on keyphrase activations, and of course the do, there is only limited processing available in those phones (that also try to conserve power), and people tend to mumble sometimes so you have to be a little generous and balance false positives against false negatives - the latter of which people refer to as "shit don't work".

Devices in lawyers' home offices aren't any different. And if the device encounters a false positive and activates, somewhere on some server some recording of your confidential conversation may get stored. Or worse, you buy 100 copies of "The Art of the Deal" off amazon by accident.

Even worse if your client's name, or their wife's or mom's name, is Alexa... or Alexandra/Alexander, which also cause a lot of false positive activations, or so I heard from a friend of a friend with that name.

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

#90

Post by matz1 »

charlesism wrote: post #88
matz1 wrote: post #14

I want and expected it to listen to everything. Sure it can be used to harm me but it won't be a good business decision, on the other hand they can use the data improve the product and service for me.

> it won't be a good business decision You don't think it might be better to assume all this data will leak or be hacked? You most likely have decades of life ahead of you, and once a file is free on the net, it's there forever.

Yes it will be leaked or hacked eventually. That is given.
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