That is a serious security issue, many apps and webpages have permission to use speaker.
Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
71–80 of 149 posts
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#72I see a tremendous future in direct-to-voice-response advertising. Particularly for purchase-capable systems.
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#73I don't understand why would anyone think having a remote control system without any form of encryption or authentication is a good idea.
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#74Wow, 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".
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
reminds me of this:
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#75I think they need to pick a different name. 'Alexa' is very easy to trigger with other names, and reliably activates when I am watching any show with a character named 'Alex', 'Alexy', etc. One side effect I've noticed is that they seem to have tried to account for it, which has made the Echo less responsive to actual requests; a few times I've stood in front of it yelling 'ALEXA' trying to get it to stop and it does…
There are three options for trigger words. There's Alexa, Amazon, and Echo. We have ours set to Alexa (default) and when the neighbor girl comes over (Alexis) the Echo frequently wakes during conversations.
My Moto X let me set the keyword to whatever I wanted it to be: I used "OK, Computer."
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#76Earlier 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
Similarly, I recall an Xbox One commercial with Aaron Paul which ended in him jumping onto his sofa and saying "Xbox on!" ...you can figure out what happened to anyone who already owned an Xbox One.
Xbox shut off trolling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuGDhZorlQ0
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Imagine the mayhem if someone were to do this on, say, the Super Bowl. Imagine a pop star paying Apple to give their newest single free to everyone (a la Songs of Innocence), and then a 10-second Super Bowl ad that's just "Hey Siri, play ___" with a dancing silhouette.
That would be one hell of a Rick-roll.
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Directions require more than your satellite coordinates. Map services are frequently polling servers for traffic conditions, new tiles for the map, and so on. You'd hope that these can fall back gracefully but I wouldn't put it past them to not. If you activate airplane mode and disable your phone's cellular connection, even if your phone doesn't disable the GPS receiver, directions may stop working.
Works fine on my Android. I regularly lose cellular reception in the mountains, and it continues to work. Sometimes the tiles are low-res, but still readable. I would expect Apple would design around the same contingency, along with poor cellular service along more remote areas of the Interstate.
Android allows you to pre-save areas for offline use also, not sure if Apple does that. I don't have a mobile data plan on my phone, so if I need navigation, I just save the map area before I get off WiFi.
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#79Wow, 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".
>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". reply You can change the default from alexa to something else.
Can you send a "donation" by text message using this?
Re: Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat
#80Wow, 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.
Not the original source, but this is the joke, along with its real-world counterpart:
http://grumpytech.blogspot.co.uk/2007/02/joke-becomes-true.h...
Also, don't forget "Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all":