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Amazon Echo

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Re: Amazon Echo

#141

Post by chaostheory »

skorgu wrote: post #78
Someone1234 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grow tired of this pathetic baseless fear mongering every single time anything is posted with voice control. You people completely ignore the mode of operation and start making idiotic claims about "well NSA!" In this case, as the website makes clear, you have to say the word "Alexa" for it to start listening. If you had been paying attention to the mobile scene even a little bit you'd know that this is on-chip lis…

The website makes clear that the listen-and-answer /behavior/ isn't activated unless triggered. That's absolutely not evidence in either direction for what happens in the non-triggered case. For example the idea that there's a debug mode that dumps the whole audio stream for troubleshooting isn't exactly tinfoil-hat paranoia.

How do you really know? How do you know that it won't be processing sound without the trigger when they get served with some government request? Is this in the terms and conditions? Is this in the privacy policy?

Yes the original post is making an assumption, but you are as well.

Re: Amazon Echo

#142

Post by rstupek »

spacefight wrote: post #93
Someone1234 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grow tired of this pathetic baseless fear mongering every single time anything is posted with voice control. You people completely ignore the mode of operation and start making idiotic claims about "well NSA!" In this case, as the website makes clear, you have to say the word "Alexa" for it to start listening. If you had been paying attention to the mobile scene even a little bit you'd know that this is on-chip lis…

Unless the chip design, the firmware, the OS, the software is 100% open source, there is no way to confirm "Nothing will be transmitted to the cloud". It could be an update check, or it could be the transmission of a new voice fingerprint. Same shit with cellphones, I have to admit.

It is certainly possible to wireshark it and know whether it is transmitting anything. You don't need anything to be open sourced.

Re: Amazon Echo

#143

Post by Someone1234 »

sehugg wrote: post #133
Someone1234 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grow tired of this pathetic baseless fear mongering every single time anything is posted with voice control. You people completely ignore the mode of operation and start making idiotic claims about "well NSA!" In this case, as the website makes clear, you have to say the word "Alexa" for it to start listening. If you had been paying attention to the mobile scene even a little bit you'd know that this is on-chip lis…

With a tiny little tweak to the firmware, it could be always-on. With the seven far-field microphones it would be a very nice audio surveillance device indeed. No thanks.

Right. Cellphone's baseband also. Hope you don't have any in the room with you otherwise that would be hypocritical. Most have a speakerphone which will pick up the whole room's audio.

Re: Amazon Echo

#144

Post by fomb »

With the ability to add a remote mic and speaker setup so I can hide the unit, along with a trigger word of "Computer" this could be awesome.

Re: Amazon Echo

#145

Post by meritt »

giarc wrote: post #79

Interesting how in the video the family has the Echo placed in about 3 or 4 different rooms (kitchen, living room, dining room, bedroom). Are they expecting people to buy multiple units or move it around the house?

Buy multiple units. Sonos does this pretty well.

Re: Amazon Echo

#146

Post by irishcoffee »

r0h1n wrote: post #105
Someone1234 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grow tired of this pathetic baseless fear mongering every single time anything is posted with voice control. You people completely ignore the mode of operation and start making idiotic claims about "well NSA!" In this case, as the website makes clear, you have to say the word "Alexa" for it to start listening. If you had been paying attention to the mobile scene even a little bit you'd know that this is on-chip lis…

> you have to say the word "Alexa" for it to start listening Incorrect. The device is always listening, waiting for you to say "Alexa" so that it can start acting upon your commands. I'd take Amazon's claim that no data is transmitted or stored without the wake word "Alexa" purely at face value. There have been enough examples of devices and corporations collecting/sending data they weren't meant to in the past few y…

If you have a smartphone with Siri or the equiv app on it (Android, Windows) your device is already 'always listening.' I fail to see the difference.

People carry around a GPS tracking device with a mic and camera built-in. They use it to post their entire lives on social networks. And they're worried about privacy.

Hilarious.

Re: Amazon Echo

#147

Post by muraiki »

giarc wrote: post #79

Interesting how in the video the family has the Echo placed in about 3 or 4 different rooms (kitchen, living room, dining room, bedroom). Are they expecting people to buy multiple units or move it around the house?

If they put motorized wheels and a cute LED face on the device, I bet it would sell a bit more. Although there's the whole problem of stairs...

Re: Amazon Echo

#148

Post by jaxbot »

Someone1234 wrote: post #59
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #4

> With enhanced noise cancellation, Echo can hear you ask a question even while it's playing music. I read: "Our cloud servers can hear you, no matter what." It's a killer idea. It's too bad privacy concerns might lead it to an early grave.

I grow tired of this pathetic baseless fear mongering every single time anything is posted with voice control. You people completely ignore the mode of operation and start making idiotic claims about "well NSA!" In this case, as the website makes clear, you have to say the word "Alexa" for it to start listening. If you had been paying attention to the mobile scene even a little bit you'd know that this is on-chip lis…

Ok, since everyone here is making baseless claims about privacy, why don't we just buy one for science and monitor the network traffic on it? Problem solved.

Getting really tired of HN stating obvious paranoia instead of talking about innovation these days. Yes, I get that privacy concerns exist, and this should always be kept in mind. But when more than 90% of the comments are about that, and circulating on completely theoretical claims, we've lost all value in the conversation.

Re: Amazon Echo

#149

Post by yourad_io »

isu89 wrote: post #54
mtrn wrote: post #5

Always on. Connected to the cloud. In a recent talk Bruce Schneier called our times the golden age of surveillance.

Privacy is possibly becoming a generation gap issue; throw enough of these against the wall and people will just stop caring until they can quantize a real world impact

> people will just stop caring until they can quantize a real world impact

By which time it'll be way too late.

When all of your data is in all databases (rather than most of your data in some, as is now) and a Google search could result in some marketer cold-calling your landline about what you just searched, well... that'll be when people realize the outcome of the game they lost years ago.

Re: Amazon Echo

#150

Post by lbearl »

untog wrote: post #119
Someone1234 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grow tired of this pathetic baseless fear mongering every single time anything is posted with voice control. You people completely ignore the mode of operation and start making idiotic claims about "well NSA!" In this case, as the website makes clear, you have to say the word "Alexa" for it to start listening. If you had been paying attention to the mobile scene even a little bit you'd know that this is on-chip lis…

You people completely ignore the mode of operation and start making idiotic claims about "well NSA!" In this case it wasn't even the NSA I was thinking about, rather Amazon themselves. "Hey, I'm heading to the grocery store, do you need anything?" "Yeah, get some milk?" Nothing will be transmitted to the cloud unless it is the word "Alexa" or sounds similar enough to the term. You don't know that. This is not going t…

Its not really a black box, you still conceivably own the network it is running on. Last I checked Wireshark was pretty good at capturing network traffic. Even if the connection is encrypted, if the device isn't sending oodles of data to Amazon when you are chatting chances are good it isn't send "every word" to them.

Granted, being able to audit this directly ourselves instead of observing it in other ways would be nice.

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