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Wait a minute, we'd already know if Alexa was recording everything by the network traffic that obviously has already been sniffed. We can assume that Amazon is storing every "Alex,..." query that you've ever done. So what is there to know?
"Hey Alexa, how do I dispose of a dead body". Maybe the cops are just hoping to get lucky.
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People have the rights they have agreed to. What does the EULA state? Privacy policy?
When will people finally understand that laws are above EULAs or ToS and other toilet paper?
When every house is IoT connected, we will be very close to a 'post-crime' world.
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> What about other stuff that gets uploaded prior to NLP & validation? I would be very surprised if Amazon sends everything up to the cloud; it would be very expensive to do so. Looking for "Alexa" in the audio is done locally, and probably triggers recording then.
I don't think the expensive part is accurate. Voice sounds okay using the G.729 VOIP codec at 8kbps. Capturing and storing that amount of data, for every Echo user, 24 hrs a day would be trivial for company the size of Amazon. As others have pointed out, network monitoring has shown the Echo only transmits after it's heard the wake-word, so it would appear Amazon doesn't capture everything.
I'm curious if the police will push this, as it could reveal how much voice information is actually stored. Amazon has declined to answer how much voice information is stored online[1] and how much if that is tied to your identity. We do know that Alexa stores a list of queries you've spoken, and you can "delete" these records, but it is unknown if this impacts the actual voice data behind them. [1] https://www.amazo…
Wait a minute, we'd already know if Alexa was recording everything by the network traffic that obviously has already been sniffed. We can assume that Amazon is storing every "Alex,..." query that you've ever done. So what is there to know?
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If I have a conversation about coffee without once saying the word Alexa, will that conversation be stored by Amazon
As others are posting here, the Echo is obvious about when it's recording: when the onboard hardware detects the wake-word, the LED rings light up blue and it begins streaming audio to Amazon until the Alexa service determines that the query has been completed or that there's nothing more to hear. People have monitored the network activity of their Echoes to verify this (and if you don't trust that, well, nothing I s…
Because the wake word is able to be processed offline, there is no need for the Echo device to record and transmit audio all the time. While the hardware is physically capable of doing this (and therefore, it will never be possible to fully eliminate doubt in the device's security) it would not be in Amazon's or the customer's best interest. Talk about a waste of resources, and a privacy nightmare!
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If I have a conversation about coffee without once saying the word Alexa, will that conversation be stored by Amazon
Or if you have a conversation about coffee[1] including the word Alexa[2], but that cannot be parsed or validated as a "query" and produces no response from the device, does that audio get stored somewhere? Could it be captured in transit by other actors? Seems like an important distinction to me. [1] Or, y'know, about some subject more subpoenable or privacy-sensitive. [2] Or, y'know, not including the word Alexa bu…
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I don't understand your rebuttal. Are you disputing that LE does not have the ability to request a wire tap from a judge with a warrant? Wouldn't you want the police be able to intervene when they hear or observe shouting or fighting through an open door or window? Are you suggesting that a network-attached microphone is not equivalent to an open window? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_doctrine )
>Wouldn't you want the police be able to intervene when they hear or observe shouting or fighting through an open door or window? Different things. In a closed room, there is expectation of privacy. It is not the same for what can be seen from an open window. Also, there is no assurance that LE won't misuse this to crush any dissent or silence somebody they don't like. It is easy to take something said at home out of…
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but, are they storing every voice recording? How would you know?
So we know that they have a record of every query that Alexa has detected. I'm guessing what you're questioning is whether they're storing the actual voices so that they can differentiate between different people that have queried Alexa.
I would never put a closed source hot mic in my house. You can trust big brother all you want, but I'm going to stay clear.