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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

#131

Post by bo1024 »

pansa2 wrote: post #107
Birkalo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that BLUF is definitely the better way of writing most informational pieces, particularly articles such as this. It's a similar concept to the 'Topic Sentence' which would be used to sum up the ideas of the following paragraph. The only reason I could see for actively choosing not to use BLUF - would be to force users to read more of your article for the sake of it, which seems (to me) like a 'cheap' tactic.

Do you think presenting the conclusion up-front could detract from the “story-telling” of the piece? By walking the reader through the investigation and its findings in chronological order, perhaps the article aims to make the reader feel like they are performing the investigation themselves?

Some readers could prefer the story-telling style, but others prioritize getting the information. To contrast, a novel wouldn't give away the ending on the first page, but a scholarly article absolutely has to give the take-away in the abstract.

I personally think for informative reporting, it's maximally respectful of the reader's time and attention to give a quick summary up front. Then they can decide if they want to continue for the full details and story-telling experience. Many people won't, but those people would probably skip the story in the first place and click through to the comments for the punch line.

Thanks for bringing up this discussion!

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

#132

Post by cool_dude85 »

mhaymo wrote: post #121
dvdkhlng wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a minor hardware re-design may change mic switch behaviour in the future without that change being noticeable to the buyer. You'd really need regular tear-downs of a sufficient sample-size of devices to make sure that you can actually trust newly bought devices with sufficiently high confidence.

It depends how paranoid you are. If you believe your audio is so valuable that Amazon would create a separate hardware model for you and those like you, and would succeed in keeping that a secret, then yeah you still shouldn't buy an Echo. You will also not want any other always-on devices with microphones and network connections, like a phone or laptop. 99.9% people are not in this category.

I think you may not be worried about targeted attack here necessarily.

Suppose for example that Amazon wants to know how many people talk about some topic or brand, and wants to sell that information, but they think that the mute switch will get in the way of collecting the data.

All it would take is a relatively small sample - maybe 1/1000 Alexas randomly built in such a way that the mic can't be muted - and they would be able to sell these aggregated statistics with reasonable confidence intervals.

Not that I think this is happening, but it is a possible reason I might not trust a single teardown, and it doesn't require worrying about a targeted attack against me personally.

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

#133

Post by bald42 »

ovi256 wrote: post #112
stdbrouw wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Engineers, with contracts or not, have about 2200-2500 hours to spend per year. Those hours can presumably be allocated to this task (that doesn't add any new capability) or to a task that adds capabilities (which will bring in new revenue).

2200-2500h? Where did you pull that number from? That's like 6 days per week with no vacation.

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

#134

Post by randomsearch »

KraftKacke wrote: post #125
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 ?

To me it's unfathomable to have such a device around. I even feel uncomfortable with my neighbor having one (which I _hear him talking to). I assume it's like reading the side effects of medication and think they are other people's problems somehow. How do people trade core privacy for setting the alarm or getting the weather report by voice command. I don't respect them. Same with off the shelf IP cameras in one's b…

How is it different from having a mobile phone on the table?

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

#135

Post by stdbrouw »

ovi256 wrote: post #112
stdbrouw wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Engineers, with contracts or not, have about 2200-2500 hours to spend per year. Those hours can presumably be allocated to this task (that doesn't add any new capability) or to a task that adds capabilities (which will bring in new revenue).

Clearly it does add a new capability: it gives people an additional assurance that the mic is muted in a tamper-proof way whenever the switch is toggled, which is something that according to the article many are currently wary of.

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

#136

Post by dbuder »

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 ?

I'd want the source and the build chain for all the mcus on that board, you can turn many things into a microphone. I wouldn't put it past FAANG to get cute with it.

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

#137

Post by _flux »

aeternum wrote: post #64
texasbigdata wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with their solution / implemention? Why do they have to defend against a tear down?

The design allows the SOC to unmute via software. This is a significant security vulnerability. Yes the light will turn off, but who constantly monitors the lights on their devices?

So I guess this calls for a led monitor project!

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

#138

Post by rubyfan »

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 ?

The stakes are so high for Amazon to tell the truth here. If they were lying then there would be outrage among users, media, competition, etc.

I’ve dealt with many people from Amazon in my professional life and based on their handling of customer data I believe Amazon take seriously the trust customers place with them. Amazon believe the Alexa and Echo platform will grow their retail and service relationships with customers.

I don’t think they would throw that away to fool us all into believing a fake mute button - for what?

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

#139

Post by Fethbita »

pansa2 wrote: post #81
jessriedel wrote: post #20

Conclusion: > But, basically if one presses the switch it causes the flip-flops to change state and to then either add or remove power from the microphones. > The 'mute' button appears to be very real and functional. When the button glows 'red' the power is removed from the microphones.

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)

As far as I can see from the blog, it's a technical blog. I would expect its regular users to read to the end and it kind of makes sense to put the conclusion at the bottom.

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

#140

Post by jstanley »

jeffrallen wrote: post #86

The fact that the mike defaults to on after power on is completely understandable from a user interface perspective, but from a security perspective it makes the mute switch useless. Why? Because any attacker that has penetrated far enough to be able to control the SOC in order to snoop can also trigger a SOC reset in order to make sure that the mike is enabled before they start snooping. A physical switch would have…

At least it sounds like the red light would go out in this case, so you'd have some indication that something is up.
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