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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

#501

Post by Aurornis »

photonthug wrote: post #457
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…

> It would be a bombshell revelation and you’d see it everywhere. What a strange idea. From what I remember about the "privacy nightmare on wheels" disclosure [1], Americans have apparently already consented to being recorded at all times by simply being within range of cameras and microphones in cars they don't own, passengers consent to losing control of their DNA by sitting in the car, etc. It's better for Europea…

> What a strange idea. From what I remember about the "privacy nightmare on wheels" disclosure [1], Americans have apparently already consented to being recorded at all times by simply being within range of cameras and microphones in cars they don't own,

Your memory is incorrect, or at least misguided. There's nothing special about cars, doing things in public places does not come with a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The flip side of this debate is public photography: Should photographers (including people using their phone) lose their right to take photos in public places because they can't collect consent from everyone around to have their photo taken?

> passengers consent to losing control of their DNA by sitting in the car, etc.

I don't know where you're getting this one. It's definitely not supported by the article you linked.

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

#502

Post by yubblegum »

margalabargala wrote: post #406
EGreg wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait until people start buying Tesla’s optimus robots! Cheap and ubiquitous surveillance will be the norm in the future.

Cheap and ubiquitous surveillance is the norm in the present.

Everyone carries a little snitch on them. Even if you opt out of using a mobile device, the chances of the person you are talking to having it on them is effectively 100%. And I am nearly certain that one way or another 'they' have voice biometrics on all of us. Thank god we live in a country with strong checks & balances...

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

#503

Post by williamcotton »

ethbr1 wrote: post #423
ranger_danger wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit.

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

#504

Post by ranger_danger »

guntars wrote: post #456
nix0n wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This claim is not extraordinary. The anecdotes have added up, and it is now an ordinary claim.

Only in circles that don’t understand technology and frankly logic. To prove that it’s happening _one_ hacker needs to show that there’s constant flash drive / network traffic while the mic is enabled that also correlates with the entropy in the audio.

I have personally verified that my device most certainly does not send constant internet traffic... however I think we can't rule out the possibility that it might buffer the data and send it later.

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

#505

Post by seethedeaduu »

djeastm wrote: post #477
Zamaamiro wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence is the idea that Big Tech companies are not spying on you any time they can.

Ah, so Amazon needs to prove a negative, now. I get the lack of trust, but at some point logic has to prevail.

That's pretty easy, just open source it.

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

#507

Post by Zamaamiro »

djeastm wrote: post #477
Zamaamiro wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence is the idea that Big Tech companies are not spying on you any time they can.

Ah, so Amazon needs to prove a negative, now. I get the lack of trust, but at some point logic has to prevail.

Never mind "proving", there are plenty of low-effort steps they could take to foster trust (as outlined elsewhere in this thread) that they choose not to do. They choose not to meet even the bare minimum.

We are in a thread that is literally about how Amazon plans to disable the option to not send voice recordings. I get playing devil's advocate, but at some point logic has to prevail, eh?

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

#508

Post by sitkack »

margalabargala wrote: post #406
EGreg wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait until people start buying Tesla’s optimus robots! Cheap and ubiquitous surveillance will be the norm in the future.

Cheap and ubiquitous surveillance is the norm in the present.

Every Tesla is constantly recording, so if anyone has been within 50 feet of a Tesla, they already have your picture.

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

#509

Post by ethbr1 »

williamcotton wrote: post #503
ethbr1 wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Semper necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui agit.

Victori spolia.

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

#510

Post by zyberzero »

mixermachine wrote: post #439
zyberzero wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Timers works fine. Music - yes, albeit a bit finicky to set up. There's an addon called Music Assistant that controls the music, you can connect it to your provider of choice (local files, Spotify, etc), and you can let it connect to several types of sinks. OOB the HA only knows a few commands (pause, next, etc) but there are some community driven effort to improve the support, such as "Play the album Dark side of th…

Thanks, good info. I read nothing about the multi-room-music-feature. Do you by chance know if it can be done?

Yes, there is functionality to create groups in music assistant. You can even create groups between different types of sinks (so you can combine say Chromecasts together with home assistants media player together with airplay). However, I have not played around with that too much so I don’t know how well the players will sync with each other.
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