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

51–60 of 149 posts

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

#51

Post by Analemma_ »

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".

This has been a running joke on the Verge's main podcast for the last few months. People have confirmed that "Hey Siri", "OK Google" "Hey Alexa" and "Hey Cortana" all work on their respective platforms when the hosts blurt them out, and can trigger various mischievous actions. And that's a podcast listened to by comparatively few people. Imagine the mayhem if someone were to do this on, say, the Super Bowl.

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

#52

Post by zyxley »

jandrese wrote: post #37
eddieroger wrote: post #12

What's really great about this is that it's a joke on the future that's been predicted so many times already, my favorite of which being the last vignette on Disney's Carousel of Progress. The future family is talking about points in a video game, and the oven hears it and turns the temperature way up, ruining another family Christmas dinner - the joke being that this convenience was finally going to make Dad able to…

I remember this joke going way back to the DOS days. The story goes that a developer was demoing his new voice control system for the computer when from the back of the room a voice shouted "FORMAT C COLON", followed by another voice shouting "YES".

It's a joke in one of the old Dilbert strips, too. "I hope you don't accidentally DELETE a FILE!"

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

#53

Post by 21 »

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".

Like those radio ads which use police sirens in their background to catch your attention.

Or TV ads with Skype/Facebook notification sounds embedded in them for the same reason.

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

#54

Post by cbhl »

imglorp wrote: post #32
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.

Doesn't she say something about "okay, turning off" when that happens?

If you watch the video you see that the ad actually answers the warning prompt with "Yes" as well.

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

#55

Post by cbhl »

rat87 wrote: post #23
teej wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota ran an anti-distracted driving radio ad where they did this. The ad narrator says "Hey Siri, please turn airplane mode on." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqZBVTMrgFA

Fuck that shut. If airplane mode is turned on and my GPS disabled as I'm close to the my right turn you better believe I'll be distracted. A better solution would be a true hands free mode that prevented touch input from working while driving.

Waze has a prompt that asks if you're a passenger while in motion for precisely this reason.

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

#56

Post by Artemis2 »

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".

Since the iPhone 6S, Hey Siri is activated by a dedicated chip in the SoC. This enables low-power real-time detection of trigger words. Before, Hey Siri only worked with phones in the process of charging, because it was done with software, so a lot less efficient.

These voice-activated chips can be trained (as seen in a lot of other phones), but I'm not sure the software-powered Siri can be trained.

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

#58

Post by joeblau »

I had a pretty funny story a few months ago. I was watching San Andreas and there is one part where Paul Giamatti (Dr. Lawrence Hayes) yells "ALEXI..." and sure enough Amazon Echo turns on. I had to stop the movie and turn the Echo off because the it subsequently tired to process everything the movie was saying after the trigger word.

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

#59

Post by newman314 »

Analemma_ wrote: post #51
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".

This has been a running joke on the Verge's main podcast for the last few months. People have confirmed that "Hey Siri", "OK Google" "Hey Alexa" and "Hey Cortana" all work on their respective platforms when the hosts blurt them out, and can trigger various mischievous actions. And that's a podcast listened to by comparatively few people. Imagine the mayhem if someone were to do this on, say, the Super Bowl.

Lol. I just imagined a hilarious but possibly effective use case.

Imagine this happening in movie theaters during trailers.

"Hey Siri, turn off"

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

#60

Post by ipsin »

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".

The idea of this vector has been around for a while.

I recall an apocryphal story about a demo of a voice-controlled OS from the 1990s. The idea was that in the middle of this demo someone shouted out a sequence of destructive commands, like

"FORMAT C!", "YES!" (I'm sure)

or

"FILE", "DELETE", "NO" (Don't save)

Really wish I could find the original source.

Post reply on HN