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Amazon Echo

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Re: Amazon Echo

#591

Post by mkal_tsr »

superuser2 wrote: post #537
hackuser wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people don't care because they're not culpable enough to feel paranoid. Maybe you didn't mean it literally but it's a popular expression in this context. I don't think a desire for privacy is paranoid; it is normal, healthy behavior. But to address the gist of what you say, I think you assume an understanding of data security that is far beyond most end users. How many even know what "metadata" means, or how '…

>I don't think a desire for privacy is paranoid; it is normal, healthy behavior. We on Hacker News spend our free time criticizing anyone we perceive as complicit in surveillance, bemoaning centralization, and championing Bitcoin and Uber for disrupting authority. To HN, a desire for privacy is literally normal: it is a social norm of this community. That doesn't mean that people outside this community do (or should)…

Keep in mind, within this community, there is a large portion of developers, and thus, more likely than the average person to be able to affect positive change through their work / side-projects. As such, it's a critical issue that I think HN is smart to not shy away from. The same systems that can gamify an action can be used oppressively. Thus, one has a varying degree of personal responsibility to what one builds or contributes to.

Re: Amazon Echo

#592

Post by mkal_tsr »

anilshanbhag wrote: post #529
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…

I feel the general the fear about "dragnet surveillance" is misplaced and uncalled for. As long as you haven't done anything wrong, hearing your conversations should be a total waste of time for whoever made the effort to do so. There are 100 million+ people in America, don't think people from NSA will waste their time on going over family conversations of every family.

Post your browsing history for the last month / 30 days. I cannot explain why I must have this data, but I must have it. It will keep everyone safe. You have not done anything wrong, that is why you have no reason to not immediately produce said browsing history.

Re: Amazon Echo

#593

Post by irishcoffee »

Shamanmuni wrote: post #418
irishcoffee wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe my point was unclear. Anyone who elects to put their personal information in a public forum or any kind has willingly surrendered that information. They made a choice to make private information public. How then, can they be concerned about privacy?

So, for you this is an all or nothing thing. If I made some things public through Facebook then I'm automatically OK with Echo possibly sending data to Amazon about the things I didn't want to make public? Perhaps I want to be in charge of what can and can't be known about my personal life. I know, a radical thought... Maybe I want other people to know some things and not others. Why so many people seem OK with notio…

No, what I'm saying is, what you choose to share is public. People share so much every day, nobody needs to spy on you at all.

Everyone thinks the govt./bigco is out to get them. If they are, they don't even need to do any actual work, people give the information away hand over fist.

Re: Amazon Echo

#594

Post by irishcoffee »

izacus wrote: post #386
irishcoffee wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe my point was unclear. Anyone who elects to put their personal information in a public forum or any kind has willingly surrendered that information. They made a choice to make private information public. How then, can they be concerned about privacy?

I think you're (either willfully or out of ignorance) ignoring the most imporant aspect of privacy: it's about CHOOSING what to share. I CHOOSE what to share on a social network. Devices spying on me rob me of that choice and my ability of filtering what public knows about me.

No, I agree with you.

>No, what I'm saying is, what you choose to share is public. People share so much every day, nobody needs to spy on you at all. Everyone thinks the govt./bigco is out to get them. If they are, they don't even need to do any actual work, people give the information away hand over fist. [1]

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8570568

Re: Amazon Echo

#595

Post by Nicholas_C »

walden42 wrote: post #247
rdrey wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the only solution is to develop "personal AI" that runs on personal hardware... or an anonymous AI running 'in the cloud' but paid with cryptocurrency. Hopefully we'll be able to control what runs locally and what gets farmed out to the cloud on a more granular level one day.

Are there open-source voice recognition projects in the works that could replace the likes of Google Now and the others? If not, there should be.

This is what I started thinking about as I was reading the paranoid HN comments. I believe there's open source voice recognition but the challenging part is taking commands and making them actionable.

Re: Amazon Echo

#597

Post by bduerst »

theseoafs wrote: post #587
aeturnum wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not really worried about privacy, but this smacks of false equivalency. > 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) wants to spy on you, they can and will. People are regularly discovering and shaming companies for transmitting more information t…

As long as your phone's on, it can store whatever data it wants locally and shoot it off to Google/Apple/wherever so they can accomplish their nefarious purposes the next time it connects to the internet. If you're not extremely uncomfortable with the idea of a megacorporation leveraging your cellphone to gather info about you, you should also not be uncomfortable with Echo -- it can't do anything your phone can't al…

Conversely, consumers can and do watch the data leaving such devices.

The open-sourciness (while not complete) also eludes to what is being stored and shipped to these "megacorps" who have "nefarious" purposes.

I would be more worried about a small third-party flashlight app dev selling your ocntact list and gps history, as opposed to a company with a billion active users.

Re: Amazon Echo

#598

Post by joemi »

jarin wrote: post #552
mamikonyana wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from the video: "..it only hears you when you use the wake word we chose..", so you can definitely chose "Computer" as your wake word

Now they just need a Paul Bettany voice pack.

That's pretty good, but it's second place to my desire for a Majel Barrett voice pack.

Re: Amazon Echo

#599

Post by jsmthrowaway »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #441
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…

> why don't you trust Amazon I think you're asking the wrong question. It's about the company's motivation. Google makes money from your data, and by showing you ads. Amazon makes money by creating services and devices that sell you products. Apple makes money just by selling you services and devices. Looked at this way, I certainly trust Apple more than Google or Amazon, and this is borne out by Apple's recent "A me…

Yes, this. My gripe is not privacy-related. It's that we've built an entire society that puts things to spend money on in my face, and studies me to better learn how to do that. Google and Amazon are both problematic in this regard.

It takes most people aback when I say that Facebook is probably a much richer intelligence agency than the NSA. And people offer that information to them. Data is far too valuable and it creates the wrong incentives throughout life.

Re: Amazon Echo

#600

Post by Nicholas_C »

IgorPartola wrote: post #320

I recently bought into the Sonos ecosystem. While it is pretty limited in some ways (I can't just stream stuff playing on my phone to the Sonos speakers, for example if I am playing a random YouTube video), it has one really good thing going for it: it can sync playback between an arbitrary number of speakers. This is my new standard for this type of thing: speakers that cannot do this are inferior to Sonos. In that…

Do home automation systems like this exist? I was very tempted to create a simple one using RPi and Python to control my lights and I did a cursory search and found nothing too impressive. I could see why this could be really expensive and thus not drive a lot of demand but it seems like something you see in most sci-fi movies that is very possible and a few rich people would enjoy.
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