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Amazon Echo

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Re: Amazon Echo

#481

Post by zak_mc_kracken »

readerrrr wrote: post #336
freehunter wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You are trading your so far rarely touched privacy Prove it. Seriously, don't speculate like this until it's proven one way or the other. Prove that it violates my privacy and then we will talk.

You must be joking. Why don't you "prove" that all the metadata is not used for commercial purposes, and that metadata isn't available to government agencies.

You are shifting the burden of proof.

You made the positive claim, you are the one who needs to provide evidence. Until you do, a rational mind is well justified in disbelieving your claim.

Re: Amazon Echo

#482

Post by champyoyoza »

mcphage wrote: post #466
memnips wrote: post #426

I'm surprised by the privacy backlash in this thread! I understand why this product is so scary for someone who is concerned about privacy, but how is this that much worse than all the other devices you use? You carry a smart-phone that presumably has GPS, a microphone, and a camera everywhere you go. There's a camera and microphone on your laptop too. Both are cloud connected. If the NSA (or any other super-power) w…

> but how is this that much worse than all the other devices you use? Because the other devices I have have useful purposes besides listening to my speech for sales and advertising purposes. The Echo exists solely for that. It's all it does.

But does that matter? Just because your laptop can also play games/movies/etc. doesn't prevent the NSA or whoever else from tapping into the mic or camera.

Re: Amazon Echo

#483

Post by pyrophane »

How long until Amazon.com ordering gets integrated into this?

For the sake of convenience, I've been shifting more and more of my shopping for "basics" like razors and toilet paper to Amazon, so they have know what brands I use. Pretty soon I'm sure I would be able to have an exchange just like this with Echo:

"Alexa, can you order me more razor blades?"

"Would you like to order 10-pack Gillette Fusion ProGlide razor blades for deliver tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Your order has been placed."

This seems like exactly what Amazon has been driving towards: lowering the friction involved in making a purchase to the point where you only need to utter two sentences at the moment you think about wanting or needing something. You don't even need to reach for you laptop or smartphone.

Re: Amazon Echo

#484

Post by swalsh »

jameshart wrote: post #335
bryanlarsen wrote: post #302

Why I might buy an Echo: - it's a speaker with extra features. At about the same price as a bluetooth speaker, and I need a better one of those, the extra features are basically free as long as the audio quality is good. - it can answer questions at the dinner table. My wife and I both have the annoying habit of pulling out our phones to answer questions that come up during conversation. Asking "Alexa" instead would…

Your three year old probably can't use it. Current voice recognition - Siri, kinect, et al - all seem to struggle with child voices. Maybe something they've expressly worked on for this 'home assistant' scenario, but I don't hold out much hope. It's a general pattern that early releases of human-interaction tech tend to optimize for 50th percentile western males.

As a person, I struggle with 3 year old voices... I think its just that they are still learning how to properly form words.

Re: Amazon Echo

#485

Post by jscheel »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #380

Well it looks like Amazon just did the market research for anyone that's wanted to make an open source version of this. Like these guys have: http://jasperproject.github.io/ I've had this idea sitting in the back of my brain for years, worked up some simple prototypes (just using computer's mic), the technology is already there and surprisingly simple (made simple for the layman by brilliant people)...

I've been working on a personal webapp using cmusphinx for trigger-word detection, google for the rest of the voice recognition, wit.ai for the NLP, and google again for the voice output. Works pretty well, but would probably give most of the privacy-wary folks here a heart attack. Planning on hooking it up to a monitor mounted in a picture frame on our wall.

Re: Amazon Echo

#486

Post by pbhjpbhj »

grey-area wrote: post #342
Karunamon wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A normal, healthy behavior is to be aware of what the devices you own are capable of. Insane paranoia is hearing "cloud-based audio processing device and service" and instantly jumping to "the NSA" absent a single damned fact to support that conclusion. Downvotes don't make me wrong or you right.

Insane paranoia is hearing "cloud-based audio processing device and service" and instantly jumping to "the NSA" absent a single damned fact to support that conclusion. Cell phones are routinely used as listening devices, what makes you think this device would not be? If I were a government agency intent on omniscience (i.e. the NSA), this device, along with televisions and computers with always-on microphones control…

>Cell phones are routinely used as listening devices //

Citation? I'm really interested, presumably there's a hacker convention talk or somesuch where they install a hidden service on a standard phone and upload all voice input even when the phone is off?

Clearly I use burner non-smart phones for my criminal activities (that's a joke!) so they're going to have to use other means. Obviously they can still sniff the data at the operator for phone calls.

Re: Amazon Echo

#488

Post by quinndupont »

rkangel wrote: post #289
chatmasta wrote: post #87

This "internet-of-things" trend coincides unfortunately with the "dragnet surveillance" trend. With every new product launch from a "cloud company," I increasingly feel as if I'm reading the tombstone of modern society. The selling point behind these devices is convenience, but at the cost of security. I don't think I need to explain to HN why an always-on, internet connected voice recording device is something to ke…

> Yes, transmission is triggered on-chip, but who verifies every chip fabrication is performed using the same imprints? You think governments don't have factory floor managers in their pockets? If you're willing to accept changed chip silicon as a possible attack vector, then you need to start worrying about a rather large set of devices. Your laptop is internet connected and has a microphone. So is your phone. Your…

Exactly. Or, just good old fashion spy mics and cameras, perhaps placed by police, NSA, or anyone who has been shopping at the Spy Shop.

Re: Amazon Echo

#489

Post by quinndupont »

rkangel wrote: post #289
chatmasta wrote: post #87

This "internet-of-things" trend coincides unfortunately with the "dragnet surveillance" trend. With every new product launch from a "cloud company," I increasingly feel as if I'm reading the tombstone of modern society. The selling point behind these devices is convenience, but at the cost of security. I don't think I need to explain to HN why an always-on, internet connected voice recording device is something to ke…

> Yes, transmission is triggered on-chip, but who verifies every chip fabrication is performed using the same imprints? You think governments don't have factory floor managers in their pockets? If you're willing to accept changed chip silicon as a possible attack vector, then you need to start worrying about a rather large set of devices. Your laptop is internet connected and has a microphone. So is your phone. Your…

Exactly. Or, just good old fashion spy mics and cameras, perhaps placed by police, NSA, or anyone who has been shopping at the Spy Shop.

Re: Amazon Echo

#490

Post by rtkwe »

gtirloni wrote: post #188

Echo can hear you ask a question even while it's playing music I usually have trouble with the Kinect 2's microphone while I'm playing music or watching TV. It's nice that Amazon is concerned about this. Does anyone know how many microphones the Kinect has?

Kinect 2 has 4 downward facing microphones:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20683610/recording-with-s...

The Echo probably has an advantage in placement as well as number, having them pointed up seems better than pointing down.

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