This is just facebook all over again. Why can't people see trouble-tech? I never used facebook and won't ever use an alexa, nor whatever google's thing is.
Do you use a cell phone? You seem to be wearing a tin-foil hat living under a rock.
Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person
201–210 of 424 posts
Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's reasonable to embed motive into these suspicions. My confidence in iPhone not listening to me is linked to the fact that Apple's ad network is a fraction of the size of Amazon's and Google's, and that to the best of our knowledge, it doesn't require extensive access to personal data to run effectively. Same with GE appliances and countertop makers. One of the most reliable ways for me to believe a company will n…
True but... 1- Apple might not be interested in listening to its users but I'm sure other businesses are. Apple users are loyal customers who can pay twice for a piece of technology and some of them will happily spend a night in line to be able to do that. Most advertisers would pay big money to Apple to know who those people are and what they want; that information is like gold. 2- unfortunately advertisers aren't t…
> Most advertisers would pay big money to Apple to know who those people are and what they want; that information is like gold.
I think its laughable that this money would be tempting to Apple when they have a business that almost sees customers buying 700-1000 dollar plus devices on an annual or bi-annual subscription, especially when the privacy stance is one of the core pillars of the marketing message.
There is likely no commercially viable business model Apple could adopt to sell that data that would be remotely worth risking a 60-70 billion dollar a quarter in revenue money printing machine. That information is practically worthless in the context of iPhone revenue.
Should iPhone sales start to falter, this is absolutely something I would consider a concern, but the iPhone has a long way to fall.
Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person
#203I am baffled by how many people have no problems adding always listening and recording Google and Facebook devices to their living rooms. Some are considered tech people who should know stuff like this could happen, but they just don't care or don't think it will happen to them. Somewhere there is an ex-Stasi officer who is thinking "I wish we were that good and had people fooled to voluntarily install listening devi…
This is exactly why we are building the first 100% on-device and private-by-design open-source Voice AI at https://snips.ai (and we have cloud-matching performances: https://medium.com/snips-ai/snips-brings-cloud-level-spoken-... ) Disclaimer: I'm a co-founder We believe that people want more natural interaction and AI at home, but that it should never be at the cost of their privacy. You never know what a company, o…
Hey, your product looks super cool but I’m a bit stumped as to why you’re trying to force a token into it. It looks like it’s a simple payments token, which doesn’t usually turn out to be a great idea if you look at the remnants of blockchain projects that did the same in 2018.
Is this just a way to fundraise or do you have other ideas to make your product ‘decentralized’ aside from using a cryptocurrency?
For the record, everything else about the product looks amazing and I’m really excited to see an open and privacy conscience alternative in this space :)
Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person
#204There is an alternative to the spying devices of Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft:
"Our technology runs on-device, works offline and guarantees Privacy by Design"
Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I am baffled by how many people have no problems adding always listening and recording Google and Facebook devices to their living rooms. I am baffled by people that think anyone cares about their conversation about Jeff at work or what Monica and Ross just did on the 75th viewing of an episode of friends, or that they talk to their stuffed rabbit named Bun that they've had since about a week after they were born ab…
You know, if nobody cares about this, then why are people constantly up in arms whenever yet-another-Facebook-privacy-scandal surfaces? Why people object to have e.g. their financial or medical information disclosed? Yes, there are people who are "sheep" in the sense that they would do anything if there is some voucher or discount for it. But most people would also object to a camera in their bedroom or photos of the…
> then why are people constantly up in arms whenever yet-another-Facebook-privacy-scandal surfaces?
Who is? Outside of HN I haven't heard a single thing about it. People don't care.
Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person
#206I am baffled by how many people have no problems adding always listening and recording Google and Facebook devices to their living rooms. Some are considered tech people who should know stuff like this could happen, but they just don't care or don't think it will happen to them. Somewhere there is an ex-Stasi officer who is thinking "I wish we were that good and had people fooled to voluntarily install listening devi…
1) It's always listening for a keyword, and then it starts recording. It's a voice interface for a computer. 2) Your phone is doing the same thing except for it follows you around everywhere you go and records your map location, what apps you use, who you are talking to and what your web searches are. Your phone isn't recording just what you say...its recording what you do and where you do it and when you do it. It's…
I would love to have an always-on always-listening home assistant which did not ship my audio stream off to a cloud I don't control.
The fact that all the current listening assistants do ship the audio stream to the cloud has nothing to do with CPU power and everything to do with a desire to collect as much personal data as possible, and as far as I'm concerned they can pound sand.
Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person
#207I've never seen a demographic breakdown of HN, but I'm 37 years old. I'm definitely not the oldest guy here, but I see history repeat itself regularly. I remember when people used location tracking as a reason to not own a cell phone. I'm talking about flip phones, mind you, not even iPhones with GPS receivers. I recall the bulk of complaints in that vein died down around the time Google Maps for phones came out. If…
There's a big difference: having a GPS in my phone means I never have to worry about buying or carrying a map with me ever again, at the cost of potentially revealing my location to someone who I'd rather not know it.
Having a voice assistant means I don't have to spend a few seconds typing, at the cost of having everything I say potentially overheard by someone who I'd rather didn't hear it.
By my quality metric, the first is a big win at a small cost while the second is a tiny win at a huge cost. YMMV.
Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
But with Apple's entire ecosystem being closed and intentionally locking you in, is Apple really a better choice. All it takes is one decision from the board that it would be more profitable to start violating privacy. The board's legal mandate is to make as much money as possible. As soon as privacy is no longer a fad that makes more money and growth than the opportunity cost to not violating it, Apple will flip a s…
> The board's legal mandate is to make as much money as possible. Why do people keep repeating this falsehood? https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co... Per SCOTUS in US v. Hobby Lobby: > While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else,…
The key there being 'so long as it's owners agree'
Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am in my 30s too, and I remember reading articles saying that DHS had hundreds of thousands of hours of wiretapped conversations they would never get to because they all needed to be manually reviewed. When the company selling a suspiciously cheap home speaker ('stocking stuffer') is the same company that boasts of having infinitely scalable computing ability and is the only cloud vendor that meets the Pentagon's p…
Just so I'm clear here, you're proposing a conspiracy theory where Amazon, the DHS, and The Pentagon are in collusion to collect and transcribe audio from Amazon Echos -- in such a way that none of the many people who have hacked and extensively reverse-engineered them would be able to tell? I can't find any holes in that theory.
What hacking and reverse engineering have been done on the servers that back the Alexa network?
Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person
#210I am baffled by how many people have no problems adding always listening and recording Google and Facebook devices to their living rooms. Some are considered tech people who should know stuff like this could happen, but they just don't care or don't think it will happen to them. Somewhere there is an ex-Stasi officer who is thinking "I wish we were that good and had people fooled to voluntarily install listening devi…
And somewhere there's an active intelligence officer ready to respond "thanks!"