Alexa and Google Home expose users to vishing and eavesdropping
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Re: Alexa and Google Home expose users to vishing and eavesdropping
#2TIL "vishing" is a word.
If like me you were wondering what it meant:
"Vishing is the telephone equivalent of phishing. It is described as the act of using the telephone in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft."
Re: Alexa and Google Home expose users to vishing and eavesdropping
#3Do these devices record all the time or only after the trigger word (they would need to be always listening for the trigger word) until the end of the statement?
Re: Alexa and Google Home expose users to vishing and eavesdropping
#4TIL "vishing" is a word. If like me you were wondering what it meant: "Vishing is the telephone equivalent of phishing. It is described as the act of using the telephone in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft."
vishing is defined as using social engineering with the intention to get access to the user's vi session. The article is obviously using the term incorrectly.
Re: Alexa and Google Home expose users to vishing and eavesdropping
#5Do these devices record all the time or only after the trigger word (they would need to be always listening for the trigger word) until the end of the statement?
They record only after the trigger word. It's the same as Android phones and iPhones that have "OK Google" or "Hey Siri" enabled.
In practice we know that trigger words for all these devices occasionally misfire (There was also an issue with one type of google home device a while ago which was shipped with a faulty physical button that caused it to be turned on at intervals as if the user had pressed the physical button to start speaking).
Re: Alexa and Google Home expose users to vishing and eavesdropping
#6Do these devices record all the time or only after the trigger word (they would need to be always listening for the trigger word) until the end of the statement?
The more important question is: how do we know whether these devices (or a particular subset of them) record all the time or only after the trigger word?
Re: Alexa and Google Home expose users to vishing and eavesdropping
#7[deleted]
Re: Alexa and Google Home expose users to vishing and eavesdropping
#8All hardware with a microphone (or speaker since it too can be used as a mic) needs a hardware switch to disable ... Which will only land once open hardware Linux mobiles take off in next year or two ... Until then I just assume nothing is private
Re: Alexa and Google Home expose users to vishing and eavesdropping
#9All hardware with a microphone (or speaker since it too can be used as a mic) needs a hardware switch to disable ... Which will only land once open hardware Linux mobiles take off in next year or two ... Until then I just assume nothing is private
You don't need linux support to put a switch on a microphone
Re: Alexa and Google Home expose users to vishing and eavesdropping
#10> Amazon or Google review the security of the voice app before it is published. We change the functionality after this review, which does not prompt a second round review
How is this not a massive red flag?