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The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

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Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#421

Post by ranger_danger »

TriangleEdge wrote: post #393
bentt wrote: post #351

I know this single bit of news isn't the biggest deal. However we were talking at the dinner table, my wife and two kids and I. We just decided we're done with Amazon and Alexa. My wife has always been skeeved out by the devices, and I've reassured her that the wake word is the only time it's recording. Whether this is true or not, it's obvious that the company can no longer be trusted. So yeah we're just going to ge…

Alexa listens to more then the wake word. I've had this recommend products on Amazon while my wife and I were having a conversation at the dinner table. It also recommended calling 911 while I was talking about fire. It's a spying device people willingly put in their homes for the convenience of a timer you can active with your voice. Edit: It could be that it activated mishearing "Alexa". I don't have hard evidence…

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#422

Post by dionidium »

everdrive wrote: post #186

People don't really care about privacy, it's as simple as that. Yes, they worry about privacy, and complain about violations of privacy. But if they cared, they never would have purchased this product in the first place. There are bits of technology which violate privacy, but are extremely difficult to fully avoid: Social Media, (I know a lot of HN isn't on it, but how about most of your family and friends?) smart ph…

What I think is hard for a lot of tech people to understand is that people don't care about privacy in the abstract. "Your data is being read and stored" isn't interesting to most people unless they know what it's being used for. And, often, to the surprise of the kind of person reading this, they are totally fine with how their data is being used. They don't care that the government is listening in for anti-terror activities. They don't care that corporations are aggregating their data to sell ads. They don't think it's a big deal.

There are things they would care about, but they don't care about those things.

And they don't care about privacy in the abstract.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#423

Post by ethbr1 »

ranger_danger wrote: post #421
TriangleEdge wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alexa listens to more then the wake word. I've had this recommend products on Amazon while my wife and I were having a conversation at the dinner table. It also recommended calling 911 while I was talking about fire. It's a spying device people willingly put in their homes for the convenience of a timer you can active with your voice. Edit: It could be that it activated mishearing "Alexa". I don't have hard evidence…

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Should not the burden of proof be on Amazon to prove it's not always recording?

In 2025, it feels like we're 5 to 10 years past the time a consumer should default to assuming their cloud-connected device isn't extracting the maximum possible revenue from them.

Assume all companies are amoral, and you'll never be disappointed.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#424

Post by edoceo »

diggan wrote: post #363
tiahura wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems kinda paranoid. I've yet to meet anyone, who's met anyone, who's been harmed by not turning that setting off, or been harmed by any assistant listening.

You're never met anyone who been able to prove harm. If your insurance payments increases 5% because Amazon sold the data to some broker, who then sold it to your insurance company, who figures you're living a slightly more risky life because you go outside 7% more than the average person, how would you even begin to prove this?

Have to start with a lawsuit (after fighting arbitration clause) then mountains of discovery. It would take years and cost lots of money.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#425

Post by gopher_space »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #122
rvense wrote: post #65

Thinking about that picture from a (UK?) hospital breakroom with the sign that said "Please turn off the Echo before discussing sensitive patient information."

I will never have anything voice controlled in my house if I can help it. I mean I have them but they're all turned off. Except for the teenager's iphone, but we troll him by saying stuff like "Hey Siri, how do I stop being annoying?" or something like that.

Hey Siri, delete all music.

That was an interesting feature to discover.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#426

Post by SteveJS »

bentt wrote: post #351

I know this single bit of news isn't the biggest deal. However we were talking at the dinner table, my wife and two kids and I. We just decided we're done with Amazon and Alexa. My wife has always been skeeved out by the devices, and I've reassured her that the wake word is the only time it's recording. Whether this is true or not, it's obvious that the company can no longer be trusted. So yeah we're just going to ge…

Is there firmware to turn the Bose Alexa into just a Bluetooth speaker? I see there is a bose-dfu utility on github, but its list of supported devices is short (because the person who made it didn’t have other devices).

The bose speaker is sufficiently nice i might try to salvage it.

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#427

Post by CharlesW »

dylan604 wrote: post #390
smeej wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother got rid of his when he saw the listening light on his Alexa devices turn on every time he asked Siri a question. His house is all Siri devices now. I don't know when else they're listening, but that was enough to make him uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable with one brand, yet not another. So, not really that uncomfortable?

They're night and day in terms of privacy. https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/alexa-help-me-which-s...

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#429

Post by Aurornis »

swayvil wrote: post #409
Aurornis wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why anyone in tech believes the myth that their devices are streaming everything. It’s trivial to inspect traffic from a device. You can see that your devices aren’t constantly streaming data somewhere. You can see a burst of activity after a command. Beyond that, it would require a massive conspiracy for everyone who ever worked on these programs to never leak details about always-on surveillance record…

So record everything and upload it along with the legit uploading. Just hide it in there. Seems trivial. You could even convert to text first to make the packet super tiny.

> So record everything and upload it along with the legit uploading. Just hide it in there. Seems trivial.

You really think this would go unnoticed?

> You could even convert to text first to make the packet super tiny.

This entire debate came up in the context of them having to upload audio clips for server side processing.

So which is it? They’re uploading Audi clips? Or they’re converting everything to text?

Re: The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available

#430

Post by dml2135 »

HideousKojima wrote: post #408
dml2135 wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And... why does that matter?

Because the comment I was replying to was wondering if there was any relationship between the GDP per capita of each location and the life expectancy?

To me your comment seems to be implying one of two things: 1) Black people are biologically hardwired to have a shorter life expectancy than white people 2) A shorter life expectancy among black people doesn't count -- it's only life expectancy among white people that matters

Could you clarify further if you meant one of these, or if you meant something else that I was not able to pick up on?

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