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Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

nytimes.com

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Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#61

Post by crowbahr »

jackhack wrote: post #57
sailfast wrote: post #44

I can't recommend highly enough that everyone at least turn on the audible sound when their assistants are listening. At a minimum you should know the kinds of things that end up triggering the device. There's a really wide area of detection and it's interesting to see where that is. I would also recommending changing your default word at a minimum. Then again, I might also recommend ditching the device entirely but…

but "Hey Spybot-Listening-To-Every-Conversation-In-This-Household-And-Building-A-Transcript-For-The-NSA" doesn't roll off the tongue the same way.

Come now, on a tech and hacking website of all places we should all be better informed than this. There is a voice activation only chip tied directly into the lights that only listens for commands. Once the activation is heard it sends it off to the servers to get processed etc.

With everyone scrutinizing the web traffic around them trying to prove NSA/Google spying with them we'd definitely have found something by now.

So it's probably just yours that is sending off to the NSA. I'd send it back to them for repairs, see if they don't give you a free home mini in compensation!

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#62

Post by framebit »

djsumdog wrote: post #30
banku_brougham wrote: post #13

Serious off-topic question: Are there docs for Siri so that i can learn what it can/can’t do? I have tried skipping songs, playing a genre, set random play, and similar in iTunes — generally a failure, often initiates an unwanted phone call. On the phone I can successfully call the intended contact about 50% of the time, possibly because I have ~250 contacts. I suspect that if i knew the right words to interact with…

It makes me think of old text based adventure games where you type in "open door" or "draw gun". All these complex "A.I." based voice assistants still break down to the vocabulary problem. They try to solve the general case by not giving humans/customers the language spec. There is probably more than just an AI that does speech to text and then a second phase interpreter. I suspect there is some AI in the first layer…

To be fair, in Thy Dungeonman if you asked three times to "Get ye flask" it was revealed that it was a load-bearing flask.

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#63

Post by ComputerGuru »

djsumdog wrote: post #34
Shivetya wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for me it kills all desire to have a voice assistant. I am already in the camp of taping over the camera's in my computers now will I need to worry about the microphone or what comes from the speakers? so the question is, shouldn't they be able to detect the wavelength of what they are processing to weed out some of the more obvious tricks? with voice recognition could it also not be limited to a voice it is trained…

I don't bother taping over stuff. If you think about it, there are probably 10+ microphones in your room (Samsung TVs, phones, laptops, tablets, etc.) I run 3rd party roms, Linux on all my dev/tv machines, disable Cortana on my gaming laptop, and hope there isn't something listening in all that trusted, untrusted and oss code I'm running. I told my roommate I'd move out if he ever got an Alexa or Google home device.…

Without commenting on anything else you said, sending voice to the cloud isn’t necessarily for processing power reasons as much as it is for access to a dynamically tuned ML model that is constantly changing and improving based off of the samples it receives on a daily basis. In theory, anyway.

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#64

Post by ComputerGuru »

freehunter wrote: post #51
djsumdog wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't bother taping over stuff. If you think about it, there are probably 10+ microphones in your room (Samsung TVs, phones, laptops, tablets, etc.) I run 3rd party roms, Linux on all my dev/tv machines, disable Cortana on my gaming laptop, and hope there isn't something listening in all that trusted, untrusted and oss code I'm running. I told my roommate I'd move out if he ever got an Alexa or Google home device.…

You should bother taping over cameras you're not using though. It's way too easy to hijack them and keep the light from turning on when you do.

As of now, I don’t believe any OS’s AV framework allows for multiple video sinks with the default stack and drivers; ie if you are able to use the camera in an app, it can be taken as a sign that no other app is using it at the same time. Which can be a source of some consolation/reassurance.

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#65

Post by ComputerGuru »

iOS now has a “text to siri” feature that can disable spoken interfacing but retain the “smart” capabilities of the digital assistant.

Not that digital assistants are worth the risk they bring. Until now I can’t get Siri to do anything useful that isn’t very artificially and carefully phrased.

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#66

Post by [deleted] »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #65

iOS now has a “text to siri” feature that can disable spoken interfacing but retain the “smart” capabilities of the digital assistant. Not that digital assistants are worth the risk they bring. Until now I can’t get Siri to do anything useful that isn’t very artificially and carefully phrased.

[deleted]

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#67

Post by mkirklions »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #65

iOS now has a “text to siri” feature that can disable spoken interfacing but retain the “smart” capabilities of the digital assistant. Not that digital assistants are worth the risk they bring. Until now I can’t get Siri to do anything useful that isn’t very artificially and carefully phrased.

I got an iphone from work and I was shocked at how little Siri could do.

Given all the hype from my friends and the commercials, I expected something outstanding.

Nope, significantly worse than google's assistant.

That was the start of my complete disappointment in apple as I continued to use an iphone and wonder- Why is anyone buying this?

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#68

Post by hunter2_ »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #63
djsumdog wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't bother taping over stuff. If you think about it, there are probably 10+ microphones in your room (Samsung TVs, phones, laptops, tablets, etc.) I run 3rd party roms, Linux on all my dev/tv machines, disable Cortana on my gaming laptop, and hope there isn't something listening in all that trusted, untrusted and oss code I'm running. I told my roommate I'd move out if he ever got an Alexa or Google home device.…

Without commenting on anything else you said, sending voice to the cloud isn’t necessarily for processing power reasons as much as it is for access to a dynamically tuned ML model that is constantly changing and improving based off of the samples it receives on a daily basis. In theory, anyway.

Can't that model be pushed out to each local device on a regular basis, and sending back the dynamic enhancements of the local copy (from your own usage) could be opt-in? The master wouldn't grow nearly as quickly, but it could be a decent compromise. Or maybe it would grow almost as quickly, if its owner also had a fully hosted option that enough people used.

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#69

Post by mkirklions »

sailfast wrote: post #44

I can't recommend highly enough that everyone at least turn on the audible sound when their assistants are listening. At a minimum you should know the kinds of things that end up triggering the device. There's a really wide area of detection and it's interesting to see where that is. I would also recommending changing your default word at a minimum. Then again, I might also recommend ditching the device entirely but…

I want to get rid of my alexa, but my wife uses it as a kitchen timer.

We literally dont use it for anything else.

Might get one of those philips light sets since our living room is weird... Tbh, id rather not use alexa..

Re: Alexa and Siri Can Hear Hidden Commands

#70

Post by kfrzcode »

mkirklions wrote: post #67
ComputerGuru wrote: post #65

iOS now has a “text to siri” feature that can disable spoken interfacing but retain the “smart” capabilities of the digital assistant. Not that digital assistants are worth the risk they bring. Until now I can’t get Siri to do anything useful that isn’t very artificially and carefully phrased.

I got an iphone from work and I was shocked at how little Siri could do. Given all the hype from my friends and the commercials, I expected something outstanding. Nope, significantly worse than google's assistant. That was the start of my complete disappointment in apple as I continued to use an iphone and wonder- Why is anyone buying this?

The same reason people buy Coach bags etc... status and brand.
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