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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

#671

Post by s_dev »

eadmund wrote: post #194
tanepiper wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laughs in European Consumer Protection How's that "break regulation to innovate" working out for US?

Well, the per-capita GDP of the poorest U.S. state — Mississippi — is greater than that of the U.K., France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Poland and many others, and within 10% of Finland, Germany, Belgium and Austria. 34 of the 47 European states have lower per-capita GDPs than Mississippi. The median per-capita U.S. state GDP is $78,649; the median per-capita European state GDP is $28,713. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.or…

The fact that Mississipi and Bavaria Germany have the same GDP per capita tells you a lot about GDP.

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

#672

Post by autoexec »

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…

> People don't really care about privacy, it's as simple as that. Yes, they worry about privacy, and complain about violations of privacy.

Your second sentences proves that the first is a lie. People very clearly care about their privacy. These surveillance systems are designed so that users never see the line between the collection of their private data and the consequences. People are upset when they know that their privacy has been violated, but Amazon tells them that they are safe and they never see the contractor working for Amazon listening to them having sex so they don't have the sense of outrage that they should.

Amazon is exploiting well known and researched limitations of human's brain/perception and they've crafted their marketing to be as manipulative and reassuring as possible to keep people bugging their own homes with their devices. It's a little unfair to blame the public being fleeced and not the multi-billion dollar corporation who has devoted unimaginable resources into manipulating the customers they are screwing over. You and I know better than to fall for their bullshit, but it's easy to see how most will struggle.

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

#673

Post by akimbostrawman »

firefax wrote: post #464
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…

>People don't really care about privacy Then why are they willing to pay a premium for Apple Products, which do as much locally as possible? (Without going into detail, I know this because a very skilled engineer I worked with was hired by them.) Also, even if "people" don't care (I'd love to see a peer reviewed study on the # of folks who meet this criteria you claim), why should the preference of those people overr…

Nobody buys apple because of privacy they buy it because its a status symbol and stupidly easy to use. All the privacy marketing is there just to feel even more superior to those plebian android user that can have a factually and verifiably private OS with android forks like GrapehenOS for people who actually care.

Majority user care about privacy the same way they care about the environment with apples greenwashing. One marketing line is sufficient.

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

#674

Post by 63stack »

TZubiri wrote: post #604
63stack wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The framework that exists is crap and should be replaced with something where you as a consumer should not have to watch the eula changes like a hawk, and then the onus should not be on you as a consumer to do extra work to get refunded for a bait and switch.

The legal system is crap and should be replaced? I'm out of this discussion, go do a revolution or keep me out of it.

Not allowing giant corporates to do bait and switches with impunity is not a revolution.

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

#675

Post by IsTom »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #304
IsTom wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Poland I don't know much about others, but perhaps you should be comparing ratio of GDP in the last 20 years, not absolute values. With Poland coming very poor out of communism and all.

Communism ended in Poland 35 years ago (1989). That's one or two generations ago. That's long enough for everyone aged about 50 in 1989 to have aged out of the system. How many decades should pass before we stop blaming present circumstances on the past?

It takes time to create an economy. Even with consistent 5% yoy growth that's a few decades to catch up when you're starting with a few times less GDP per capita.

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

#676

Post by bsenftner »

balamatom wrote: post #576
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I have some level of appreciation of what you seem to be trying to do, I can't help but wonder as to what you believe you gain by this exchange. I don't automatically disagree with what you are saying, but you seem intent on riling people up. Is there a larger purpose behind it?

Yes, thanks for asking! You see, all this combining words in ways that people are taught to have a negative reaction to is actually part of my super secret plan to take over the world. (But don't worry, I promise to not be any better then the extant network of disavowed power relations maintained by recursive Pavlovian conditioning!) Less facetiously (though only a smidgen less so), bold of you to assume that I think…

I'd enjoy hanging with you.

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

#677

Post by shostack »

bsimpson wrote: post #627
reverendsteveii wrote: post #481

"You know that boundary that we agreed upon a while back? We're gonna violate that boundary now. This is not an opportunity to negotiate a new agreement, we're gonna do whatever we want to you because we're big and you're little." Stuff like this is why I've cut amazon out of my life entirely. No more new devices, no more new purchases, cancelled prime, all of it gone.

I honestly wonder how legal that is. If you bought something under the pretense that you could disable cloud stuff and then it silently starts uploading to the cloud, that's a violation of your agreement. If they start dropping all requests until you assent to their shrinkwrap agreement, that still feels like a violation of the promises they made when you bought it, but unfortunately has precedent. See also: all the…

"Legal" requires judges that will view the case in a certain way and often needs the force of a government agency to back it. This administration has gutted both those things. Expect it to get worse, not better.

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

#678

Post by firefax »

akimbostrawman wrote: post #673
firefax wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People don't really care about privacy Then why are they willing to pay a premium for Apple Products, which do as much locally as possible? (Without going into detail, I know this because a very skilled engineer I worked with was hired by them.) Also, even if "people" don't care (I'd love to see a peer reviewed study on the # of folks who meet this criteria you claim), why should the preference of those people overr…

Nobody buys apple because of privacy they buy it because its a status symbol and stupidly easy to use. All the privacy marketing is there just to feel even more superior to those plebian android user that can have a factually and verifiably private OS with android forks like GrapehenOS for people who actually care. Majority user care about privacy the same way they care about the environment with apples greenwashing.…

>Nobody buys apple because of privacy they buy it because its a status symbol and stupidly easy to use.

I had a friend who used to joke "Linux is free if your time has no value" -- when I went off to college I settled on a Macbook because it had a CLI paired with actual hardware/software support.

I keep my phone as long as it gets security updates -- despite talk about price, I've found I can hold onto an Apple laptop for at least four years as long as I make sure to go heavy on the ram when I buy initially buy it.

Also I'm confused how you can jump from legit crits of Apple's closed source to indicating a preference for Android, an OS that will beam a great deal of telemetry to GOOG.

I tend to treat my phone as an inherent privacy risk and lock down my laptop -- it's my understanding that at the end of the day the LTE stack is gonna be closed even on a pine phone.

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

#679

Post by jart »

hn_acc1 wrote: post #611
seltzered_ wrote: post #513

Related, here's a comment from 2019 from at the time of writing from someone claiming to be a principal engineer at Amazon, talking about how "I'm proud of the approach that Amazon takes to privacy. Privacy of customer data is considered the most important thing to Amazon, and this customer obsession (the #1 leadership principle) permeates the organization." The comment further talks about the mute button on the orig…

Yeah, companies are like that - they'll lie and pretend to be "the good guys" at the start, right up until they're not and change their motto to something besides "don't be evil". As far as I can tell, it's all part of the plan to attract idealists for cheaper and get better bang-for-buck from their "committed" workers until such time as they can no longer deny their shady practices. By the time the original engineer…

It's not possible to work for a moral company because it's the government that's immoral and is responsible for corrupting them. Tech is basically the whipping boy for all the government's misdeeds. The government forces tech companies to be dirty (it's against the law to say no to them) and then inflames the public to blame the tech companies for doing it, so that people hate tech and love the government. It's like blaming the hand of the person whipping you while kissing their feet. So until the government stops being evil, there's no ethically safe space for tech workers. We'll just continue to be passed around and used as spoils of war by one twisted regime after another.

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

#680

Post by nix0n »

guntars wrote: post #600
ranger_danger wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We can, in fact, rule it out by dissecting the device and monitoring chip traffic. That’s my whole point - people who understand technology know that it’s nearly impossible for Amazon devices to routinely spy on conversations in people’s homes without detection.

> We can, in fact, rule it out by dissecting the device and monitoring chip traffic

Has this been done?

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