Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#391

Post by grkvlt » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 1:16 PM UTC

justtopost wrote: post #308

jacquesm wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone has one of these in their house I will leave. Recording without permission of all participants is forbidden in many places anyway.

I do as well. I used to politely ask they unplug it, bit invariably there were more in other rooms. I just explain my concerns, and avoid those people if they cannot grasp or honor them. So far it seems a good strategy, as I have doged a few 'bullets' both security-wise and socially.

Yeah, I'm extra happy I have my Amazon Echo now, if it also works as a way of preventing paranoid conspiracy-theorist lunatics from interacting with me!

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#392

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 1:35 PM UTC

llampx wrote: post #390

snibsss wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the fuck do they need to be networked? Don't give me some bullshit answer about, "Oh, search, oh the web..." And don't give me that bullshit about, "Oh, but natural language processing needs computational power that won't fit in your pocket." I only need the internet for a few specific things. The things I could use a voice interface aren't hard, and don't always involve the internet.

These speakers could well be built without the ability to spy on you. However they aren't, and this should tell you all about Google and Amazon's motivations. Also, they could easily charge 2x or 3x the price they currently do and still find plenty of takers. The fact that they chose to sell it as a loss-leader is also telling.

Telling inasmuch as they are gateways to both companies’ paid offerings? Indeed. Sometimes the answer is simple and doesn’t require FUD, guys.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#393

Post by Karunamon » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

summadat wrote: post #256

Kiro wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the best thing I've ever bought. Whatever bad thing can happen is still worth it. It's a trade-off I'm actively choosing.

What if a trade-off was that your Echo was actively recording and indexing every single word you've said within its range?

And while we’re talking about ridiculous what-ifs with no basis in reality, 5G could be giving you cancer!

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#394

Post by phlipski » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

lkrubner wrote: post #386

lsc wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Having a voice assistant means not having to learn to change application contexts inside an operating system follwed by a few seconds typing. You are ignoring the hundreds/thousands of hours you've spent learning which software is appropriate for which contexts. Not to mention the latency of instantiating them, or possibly even installing them, migrating data between them, etc. So, it's interesting. I resisted the i…

About this: " I mean, essentially it's a command line interface with a wonky input method, no? " This is precisely the feedback we got from salespeople, when we were working on a Natural Language Programming interface for Salesforce. Initially, I got angry and denied the comparison. But after several people made the same comparison, I came to appreciate how true it was. Unless NLP is perfect, it is really just a Comm…

NLP will only continue to improve in the years ahead. I've got a few echo's around the house, and yes the current implementation of NLP is not perfect. It requires some modification of how the user speaks, but the first time you say "Alexa what's the weather today?" and Alexa comes back with the day's forecast is a jaw dropping moment (at least for me it was). I believe voice activated devices will ultimately be placed all over the house and we'll communicate with our computers for a lot of various tasks through voice - it's just natural for humans. Think of all the mundane tasks you do typing into a computer - setting calendar appointments in outlook for example - and then think how many mouse clicks and typing are required. It's so much easier to just tell a computer using a voice command.

The privacy issue is easily solvable IMO. Google already requires a physical mute button on their devices to disable the mics in hardware not just software. It will require either user trust (admittedly in short supply with tech companies lately) or some government regulations but there is no reason even today for devices to have to "record" your conversations in order to process. As long as you require a "wakeword" to tell the device to start listening to your next commands the device doesn't need to record all audio all the time.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#395

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

grkvlt wrote: post #391

justtopost wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do as well. I used to politely ask they unplug it, bit invariably there were more in other rooms. I just explain my concerns, and avoid those people if they cannot grasp or honor them. So far it seems a good strategy, as I have doged a few 'bullets' both security-wise and socially.

Yeah, I'm extra happy I have my Amazon Echo now, if it also works as a way of preventing paranoid conspiracy-theorist lunatics from interacting with me!

If there is one thing you could have learned from the post Snowden era it is that your paranoid hacker colleagues may (1) know more than you do and (2) tend to be right in the longer term about what you today consider to be ridiculous lunacy and (3) usually are still too mild in their delusions compared to reality.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#396

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #376

jacquesm wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That could be an optional enhancement. And it still does not require your exact position to be sent to Google.

It requires the route you will take and the time at which you are estimated to be at certain points along it. I would say that this is even worse than your current exact position.

No, it does not require that at all. You can implement it that way, but you can also just request traffic information for a whole 'cell' without revealing your exact location, just a cell ID, then do the processing locally.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#397

Post by reitanqild » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 2:35 PM UTC

mattwad wrote: post #274

dlandis wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Getting a voice assistant was life-changing for me Can you expand on that? In what way?

For people that are already into the IoT space, I think it's a no-brainer. I have smart bulbs (Lifx). They look great but have little to no support for physical switches, and the app works OK until you want to have two phones controlling them. Suffice to say, voice control has made the experience 10x better especially for guests. Now, we also have a Roomba and some other smart things. Rather than get a new app for ev…

> ather than get a new app for everything, it's all controlled by once interface.

Makes sense.

But why does that interface have to be the clumsy, always listening crap that we see today?

And why can no one except Apple[0][1] give any guarantees with regards to what they use my data for?

[0]: No, I'm not a Apple fanboy. I just can't stand their UX, seriously, which is sad since I value their current stanace on privacy.

[1]: And for what it's worth, Apple seems happy with selling out if the alternative is leaving the Chinese market behind as documented elsewhere in this thread. Although I'll admit that from what I read they where up front with their Chinese users about the change.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#398

Post by marcosdumay » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 2:53 PM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #331

marcosdumay wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mobile phone that doesn't leak your position is impossible, but a voice activated assistant that doesn't spy on you on by the orders of some company is pretty much possible.

> but a voice activated assistant that doesn't spy on you on by the orders of some company is pretty much possible You're missing the part where said company has no motivation to not spy on you. There's absolutely nothing preventing companies from doing so today (in the US), while on the upside the opportunity and motivation for them to collect all your data for possible profit gains later is extremely high.

There's nothing stopping a competitor from launching a non-spying version either. People are more eager to live with problems when there is no alternative.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#399

Post by stevenleeg » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

oulipo wrote: post #367

stevenleeg wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 re…

Hi! Thanks! We are not so much forcing the token as realizing it is a technology which can answer some needs: - it allows to build a really decentralized marketplace - it allows people to not share what are the apps they are buying, so to keep this private

Have you found that your users really want a decentralized marketplace vs what the one you've built already (which I think is really good!)? Additionally, remember that all transactions on ETH are public, so if anything transactions would be less private than if you were to contain them to a normal web2 marketplace.

Re: Amazon Sends 1,700 Alexa Voice Recordings to a Random Person

#400

Post by matte_black » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 3:26 PM UTC

bzbarsky wrote: post #342

matte_black wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live under a government where those examples are a reason to hide, then in the eyes of that government you are technically a criminal. Doesn’t describe my government. Even under the most oppressive governments though, there will still be a sizable majority that doesn’t have anything to hide and can feel secure using most technology, and they’ll be fine.

First, having talked a lot to people who actually lived under a somewhat oppressive government (USSR, and by the 80s it wasn't even that oppressive), most people _did_ in fact have something to hide. Second, just because it doesn't describe your government now doesn't mean it won't in the future, unfortunately. Consider examples of a 1920s German, or a 1960s Iranian (the old regime was oppressive too, but in differen…

> Second, just because it doesn't describe your government now doesn't mean it won't in the future, unfortunately. Consider examples of a 1920s German, or a 1960s Iranian (the old regime was oppressive too, but in different ways), or a 2000s citizen of Poland.

This is the risk averse argument against certain technologies. If you believe your government won’t change and are willing to take that bet, you can lean into technologies very hard and reap the benefits.

Of course, if you think there may be a day where your government will change and use technologies against you, you could live out in the boonies and never even touch a computer, and thus get no benefits from emerging tech.

It’s a trade off between being at the bleeding edge and being as secure and private as possible. Personally, I have made my decision. Could it be my undoing one day if government decides I’m guilty of everything? Sure, but I doubt it will happen. I’ll take the bet.