Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 149 posts

Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat

#101

Post by fencepost »

robterrell wrote: post #41
cowsandmilk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

siri has itself trained to a single user's voice. I've never had anyone else's voice activate my phone with "Hey Siri". Admittedly, it usually takes me saying "Hey Siri" 3 times before it recognizes my voice, but I'm 100% certain a radio ad would get no response from my phone.

Siri is definitely not trained to a single voice. And yes, the car radio can turn it on. I've had a podcast discussion of Siri trigger it. It became such a joke that some podcasters have another phrase they say when they mean "hey Siri".

As a sample of the alternate term, Merlin Mann's assorted podcasts generally use "Ahoy Telephone."

Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat

#102

Post by mattbeckman »

scott_s wrote: post #25

This happens to me with Siri and podcasts - I listen to podcasts in my car, through my iPhone. Occasionally what people say will sound close enough to "Hey, Siri" that it stops the podcasts and and answers whatever question it could extract from the talking following what it thought was "Hey, Siri". It's repeatable, too. One time it happened right as I was parking, on an episode of This American Life. (Or Serial. Or…

I believe it was This American Life, as I came here to write the same post you did. I had my iPhone mounted to an external speaker at the time, which triggered Siri, so we're probably referring to the same episode.

Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat

#103

Post by jeff_tyrrill »

cloudjacker wrote: post #100
jchendy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That actually seems kind of dangerous. It could cause people to pull out their phones to check whether the ad actually turned airplane mode on.

It would only work if the iPhone was plugged into power AND they had turned on the capability for Siri to be activated by voice, which is limited to when the iPhone is plugged in. I know Android users might not understand this limitation, but there it is.

The iPhone 6s, and the Apple Watch, are always listening (if enabled) for "Hey Siri", even on battery.

Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat

#104

Post by return0 »

mmanfrin wrote: post #4

I think they need to pick a different name. 'Alexa' is very easy to trigger with other names, and reliably activates when I am watching any show with a character named 'Alex', 'Alexy', etc. One side effect I've noticed is that they seem to have tried to account for it, which has made the Echo less responsive to actual requests; a few times I've stood in front of it yelling 'ALEXA' trying to get it to stop and it does…

plus it really rings of "website analytics"

Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat

#105

Post by [deleted] »

pkamb wrote: post #92
mmanfrin wrote: post #4

I think they need to pick a different name. 'Alexa' is very easy to trigger with other names, and reliably activates when I am watching any show with a character named 'Alex', 'Alexy', etc. One side effect I've noticed is that they seem to have tried to account for it, which has made the Echo less responsive to actual requests; a few times I've stood in front of it yelling 'ALEXA' trying to get it to stop and it does…

Strange that she's "Alexa" to begin with. "Echo" seems like a pretty strong brand, good enough for the hardware at least, and would be a perfectly fine name for the AI as well.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat

#106

Post by jessaustin »

jdminhbg wrote: post #81
sliverstorm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Works fine on my Android. I regularly lose cellular reception in the mountains, and it continues to work. Sometimes the tiles are low-res, but still readable. I would expect Apple would design around the same contingency, along with poor cellular service along more remote areas of the Interstate.

They do, although in my experience Google Maps is better at this. I actually find Apple Maps to be perfectly usable for everything, but always use Google Maps for directions to the boonies if I'm going hiking or something -- it's much better at caching tiles and keeping them around for directions back once I'm out there as well.

Yes offline maps is nice but the infuriating limitation is that it will save map tiles but not locations or areas that I've saved in "My Maps". One would expect a couple of coordinates to require much less storage than a bunch of map tiles...

Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat

#108

Post by icelancer »

vessenes wrote: post #66
imglorp wrote: post #6

Wow, this is a new DDOS attack vector. Get an ad on broadcast radio saying stuff like "alexa, order more milk", or "okay google, send a text to xxxxx".

Children's advertisements did this in the 1980s in the US with pay-per-minute numbers. The ad would offer to connect children to Santa if they held a phone up to the television. DTMF -> 900 number -> profits.

Ha! True commercial phreaking. I love it.

Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat

#109

Post by mirimir »

jkot wrote: post #71

That is a serious security issue, many apps and webpages have permission to use speaker.

It's far worse than that. Devices talk to each other at ultrasonic frequencies, telling each other what you're doing. Cross-device tracking. Plus they all hear what you say. So much for privacy ;)

Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat

#110

Post by dredmorbius »

gh02t wrote: post #83
dredmorbius wrote: post #72

I see a tremendous future in direct-to-voice-response advertising. Particularly for purchase-capable systems.

Ugh, if it gets out of hand I hope the FCC/congress step in to ban it like how they require commercials to not be excessively louder than the rest of the program. I can remember how awful and widespread this was in the 90's and the subsequent rise of televisions that have built in volume filters, followed by the actual ban of it a few years ago. Seems like a very similar sort of abuse, except potentially much more da…

I already disable voice on any tech I can. Something tells me this war will be bloody.
Post reply on HN