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Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

electronupdate.blogspot.com

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Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#191

Post by PeterStuer »

mvanbaak wrote: post #118
PeterStuer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Alexa and it's ilk being integrated in ever more home electronic devices, not buying one is becoming increasingly impossible.

Put them on their own network, make sure that network is not routed/connected with the internet. Or, if possible, dont connect to a network at all.

There is ISP provided 'free roaming' wireless internet access nearly everywhere here. Very hard to block devices that really want and have deals with ISP's from accessing the internet even if your own network is secured.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#192

Post by PeterStuer »

nisa wrote: post #123
PeterStuer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Alexa and it's ilk being integrated in ever more home electronic devices, not buying one is becoming increasingly impossible.

sed -i 's/impossible/inconvenient/g' The power of convenience is probably also the reason to place a megacorp microphone in your home in the first place.

Finding out whether an 'assistant' is present is not always straightforward form the product information before you buy.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#193

Post by cmiles74 »

ballenf wrote: post #147
randomsearch wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it different from having a mobile phone on the table?

I think the issue is one of the consumer's intent: are you buying a phone with a bunch of extra capabilities or a microphone hooked to a data center around the world? And that explicit decision is what is jarring to people who value privacy. Of course they both have microphones hooked to data centers, but the Alexas/Echos are almost worthless without the microphone enabled. Many people I know have turned off listenin…

I don't think any consumer is buying a smart phone with the expectation (or intent) that it's recording them all the time, or sometimes, or at the behest of law enforcement, etc. They aren't really thinking about this when they buy a product like the Echo, either, I don't think. Also: a phone without a microphone will be of limited utility on calls. ;-)

The only way to be sure these devices aren't listening to you is to not have one at all. Or, as the person in this article did, take it apart and de-cap the chips to make sure.

In the case of smart phones, I think it's a mistake to assume that switching some of these functions off in the settings will actually have the desired effect: preventing the phone from recording audio without making the owner aware of this recording.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#194

Post by cmiles74 »

HourglassFR wrote: post #178
BurningFrog wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But maybe the most important thing is that we have to do an actual teardown of the product in order to have some confidence that Amazon is not lying on it's Echo capabilities. Isn't it also the most obvious thing? To be confident something is true, you need to confirm it. How else would the universe and human perception work?

From a hackers perspective I guess it makes sense yes, and as we are on HN this is perhaps not surprising. Still, this is not how humans usually interact. I trust there is no poison in my food without analysing it, I trust people to no shot me as I walk in the street, I trust the shopkeeper to accept that I have paid if the card reader says so… As ethno points out [1], some social work is needed here for our collecti…

I disagree with the idea that people, on average, take the word of business or corporate entities on faith. In the US we have organizations that vet drugs and medication (FDA) as well as to verify the safety of foods (USDA). I believe most US states license restaurants and have a process to ensure they aren't poisoning customers.

In my opinion, it's only in the case of electronic and software products where we are supposed to take so much functioning of the device on faith. Perhaps this is a bad idea and we need an organization to vet these products as well.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#195

Post by DaniloDias »

verbify wrote: post #162
rubyfan wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stakes are so high for Amazon to tell the truth here. If they were lying then there would be outrage among users, media, competition, etc. I’ve dealt with many people from Amazon in my professional life and based on their handling of customer data I believe Amazon take seriously the trust customers place with them. Amazon believe the Alexa and Echo platform will grow their retail and service relationships with cu…

Couldn't they have implemented mute in software? There would be little outrage if they had (users don't care about the difference) but spy agencies (e.g. NSO Group) would have a backdoor. The fact that they used a hardware switch means they did it the right way. By contrast my Logitech camera has a light to show when the camera is running - but the light can be disabled via their software which makes me uncomfortable…

Software based mute means a compromise of the kernel would destroy the control provided by a software mute.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#197

Post by Shared404 »

sib wrote: post #190
verbify wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't they have implemented mute in software? There would be little outrage if they had (users don't care about the difference) but spy agencies (e.g. NSO Group) would have a backdoor. The fact that they used a hardware switch means they did it the right way. By contrast my Logitech camera has a light to show when the camera is running - but the light can be disabled via their software which makes me uncomfortable…

When we discussed this - at long length - during the original Echo development program, we consistently came to the conclusion that it should be hardware, not software, to maintain customer trust.

IMHO, This was the correct choice.

No one I know would trust a software mute.

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#198

Post by lemonspat »

cyphar wrote: post #154
jstanley wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least it sounds like the red light would go out in this case, so you'd have some indication that something is up.

That assumes you check whether the mute light is active on a fairly regular basis. If you just turn it off and don't check on it, the light is pretty much useless as an indicator.

The boot up sequence does an audible musical tone and says "Hello", so an attacker is not silently going to reboot it and listen in

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#199

Post by lemonspat »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #110
jeffrallen wrote: post #86

The fact that the mike defaults to on after power on is completely understandable from a user interface perspective, but from a security perspective it makes the mute switch useless. Why? Because any attacker that has penetrated far enough to be able to control the SOC in order to snoop can also trigger a SOC reset in order to make sure that the mike is enabled before they start snooping. A physical switch would have…

> The fact that the mike defaults to on after power on is completely understandable from a user interface perspective A compromise would be to play a message after turning the device on, requiring user to take action and unmute it or leave muted. This shouldn't be a problem in most scenarios as Echo is meant to be powered once and run for a long time, so it would be just a minor inconvenience.

> would be to play a message after turning the device on

It does this already

Re: Amazon Echo Flex: Microphone mute button appears to be real and functional

#200

Post by WClayFerguson »

It's likely there are microphones in Echo that even an electronics expert can't "recognize" as a microphone. Any object that is flimsy and can 'vibrate' due to sound, can have it's position used to alter an electrical signal, and anything monitoring that signal can convert the signal easily back into sound. Even a non-data carrying wire with current can do this.
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