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Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

electronupdate.blogspot.com

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Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#91

Post by blackoil »

HourglassFR wrote: post #79

Yes that is the technical conclusion. But maybe the most important thing is that we have to do an actual teardown of the product in order to have some confidence that Amazon is not lying on it's Echo capabilities. To be clear, I am not saying we should trust Amazon & Co, I'm saying that if that's the level of trust we have with home assistance devices, why even bother with the stuff ?

We have options of either to trust the company or some other auditor. We can try getting some laws made to ensure honesty, but I personally don't like that route this early in the technology.

What we need a completely independent organisation like EFF to audit and certify basic guarantees around privacy/safety. The companies should also prefer this route as it would give take some heat off in EU/Congress without creating bureaucratic bottlenecks.

One problem I see that such an organisation can act as front for the cartel to prevent entry of new startups/players.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#93

Post by blackoil »

tobr wrote: post #84
chaboud wrote: post #15

Disclosure: I'm an Amazon Devices PE, but not on Alexa devices. Jeff (and others) have spoken publicly about this in the past, and this teardown is correct. The hardware is designed such that, if the privacy LED is on, the microphone is unpowered. In order to compromise that, one would need to physically alter/damage the hardware.

Which “Jeff” are you referring to here, and if it’s Bezos, why are you using his first name as if we all hang out with him on a regular basis?

Maybe in company he is referred on first name basis. In my company we always refer CEO by first name, even when we had never met him personally.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#94

Post by panta »

systemvoltage wrote: post #29
e9 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not physical debounce switch? I get it is more expensive but no one would question it twice.

In order to use a physical debounce switch, there are several steep challenges. You can imagine OP presenting to an audience of 14 people at Amazon Devices group with a slide titled "New BOM proposal" entailing 6 million devices x [$0.0273 (switch price at 100k qty) + $0.05 assembly cost] + $50k engineering NRE (650 engineering hours) + $35k tooling NRE + $22k FCC re-cert + 7k ESD cert + another $100k in various cert…

It's $0.11 per device. If the change was merged with another batch of changes, it would be just the $0.07 for switch + assembly.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#95

Post by speedgoose »

jobigoud wrote: post #70
speedgoose wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title gives all the information you need : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... If it was not a real mute, it would not be a question in the title but a statement such as "Amazon Echo Flex Teardown: The Microphone Mute is Fake".

The title is not a yes/no question. You can't answer "is it real or fake?" by "no", the law doesn't apply and you have to take the bait to get the answer.

You got the point, if it was fake the title would very very likely be different.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#96

Post by PeterStuer »

maigret wrote: post #69
sdfaeagaca342 wrote: post #61

I'm also worried about echo devices scanning my home network

Then don't buy one.

With Alexa and it's ilk being integrated in ever more home electronic devices, not buying one is becoming increasingly impossible.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#97

Post by chaboud »

dom96 wrote: post #80
chaboud wrote: post #15

Disclosure: I'm an Amazon Devices PE, but not on Alexa devices. Jeff (and others) have spoken publicly about this in the past, and this teardown is correct. The hardware is designed such that, if the privacy LED is on, the microphone is unpowered. In order to compromise that, one would need to physically alter/damage the hardware.

What’s the PE in “Amazon Devices PE” stand for?

Sorry for the jump straight to the abbreviation. "PE" stands for "Principal Engineer".

Amazon's Software Engineer level progression is:

SDE1->SDE2->SDE3->PE->SPE (Senior Principal, Director Level)->DE (Distinguished Engineer, VP Level).

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#98

Post by appleflaxen »

chaboud wrote: post #15

Disclosure: I'm an Amazon Devices PE, but not on Alexa devices. Jeff (and others) have spoken publicly about this in the past, and this teardown is correct. The hardware is designed such that, if the privacy LED is on, the microphone is unpowered. In order to compromise that, one would need to physically alter/damage the hardware.

Your statement really isn't any different than saying "Amazon says the mute button is real".

Which we already knew.

The problem is that many people don't trust the good faith of the company you work for, and by extension they won't trust you either.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#99

Post by sokoloff »

alias_neo wrote: post #90
pansa2 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes write articles describing investigations similar to this one. Do you think this article’s structure is appropriate? Or would it be better to reduce the need for comments like this one by putting the conclusion much earlier in the piece? I understand not putting the conclusion in the title, but perhaps in the first paragraph, in the spirit of BLUF [0]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication)

I have noted this with several high ranking posts on HN. I wonder whether it's a case of the author being unaware of BLUF, or simply that they want you to read their work before finding the conclusion?

I see it a lot at work and chalk it up to some people having learned/internalized a legalistic way of building up a pattern of facts and basing each on the previous. It’s not so much that they want you to read 2 pages but that they want you to believe every newly introduced bit of the story.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#100

Post by sokoloff »

stdbrouw wrote: post #71
systemvoltage wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to use a physical debounce switch, there are several steep challenges. You can imagine OP presenting to an audience of 14 people at Amazon Devices group with a slide titled "New BOM proposal" entailing 6 million devices x [$0.0273 (switch price at 100k qty) + $0.05 assembly cost] + $50k engineering NRE (650 engineering hours) + $35k tooling NRE + $22k FCC re-cert + 7k ESD cert + another $100k in various cert…

You'd make this change alongside others that would require recertification and retooling anyway, and presumably a lot of those engineers have a full-time contract so that's not an additional cost. Overall assembly cost may be higher or lower depending on those other changes. It really is just that $0.0273 for the switch, which compared to the very steep marketing and branding challenge of convincing privacy-minded fo…

I agree with you on excluding certification costs if you’re going to respin the device anyway, but part, assembly, and NRE labor are real costs of this change.
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