quote:

Originally posted by Aquilon:
I'm having a hard time figuring out where I fall on this issue. I had the same obvious privacy concerns about these devices that many of you express. But aren't most of us surrounded nearly constantly with devices that have the exact same snooping capability? Our laptops and tablets, and the smartphones that most of us keep within reach daily, all have audio (and video) recording capability that can be used to record and store volumes, can fairly easily be hacked, and can fairly easily be remotely accessed without our knowledge or consent. I'm not suggesting it's a remotely good idea to voluntarily subject yourself to additional surveillance, but these things have just insidiously crept into our day to day lives with common devices. Unless you really make it a point to shun technology to protect yourself on this front, how do you avoid the near constant threat? The exposure is an almost unavoidable side effect of current technology. Do you guys draw any distinctions between devices like Amazon Echo, Google Home, the forthcoming Apple HomePod, and your smart phone?

I would have to agree with you Aquilon, and maybe someday get an Echo or similar device.

The Google settings on my phone. No one is listening to me in my home. What I see is that people are rationalizing their conscious choice to bug their own home by saying "Oh, well, we can't escape it."

Oh yes you can.

quote:

Do you guys draw any distinctions between devices like Amazon Echo, Google Home, the forthcoming Apple HomePod, and your smart phone?

Yes, large distinctions - even, with no tin-foil whatsoever.

I and others have already commented on the differences in this and the other threads.

But, again, briefly:

First, the current crop of doodads don't do enough to be very interesting or useful for many folks. I already have systems in place that pull the weather for several locations I monitor, and my music system is already 1,000 fold more sophisticated and of higher quality and doesn't need the internet to use, and I don't need to ask it to answer banal and basic questions like how to covert tablespoons to ounces or the like nor do I see value in it tracking what pizza I like to order or that I ordered toilet paper two weeks ago, so - primarily - they're premature and uninteresting at this juncture, a novelty, at best, before even factoring in any other concerns.

Which start with: I'd no more place one of these things in my house than I would a valet or servant who worked for someone else - whose primary purpose (shrouded in the idea of cool and convenient) is to sell me shit or sell my information to others who can sell me their shit... Any devices/systems of a similar nature need to work for and be loyal and be controlled by me, not some mega corp who wants to sell me shit like a carnival carney under the guise of neato.

And then... then there are the privacy concerns.

Etc.

Sure, I'd like my own Jarvis, too, but the bastard will work for me, be loyal to me, and be far more controllable and configurable - by me, for me, and no one else, as - helping me buy shit is one of the least possibly useful things I'd ever want such a system for, again, all of which comes before the legitimate privacy concerns many have brought up.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
The Google settings on my phone. No one is listening to me in my home. What I see is that people are rationalizing their conscious choice to bug their own home by saying "Oh, well, we can't escape it."

Oh yes you can.

I hear what you're saying Para, however, you're trusting that switch does actually do what it says and doesn't listen to you when you turn it to the off position.

Similar to those of us that chose to use the Echo. We're trusting that Amazon is telling us the truth that it isn't always "listening" and sending our conversations to the cloud. They say it only does that when the wake word is detected and the device lets us know (by lights and a sound if you want) when it is actively listening and sending conversations to the cloud.

We're both operating on trust here. I do understand your concerns though as I have the same concerns.

Oh, bullshit. Incredible, absolutely incredible.

Oh, I can't trust the settings on my phone is what you're saying, therefore, bugging your own home is fine. You guys are out of your minds. I demonstrate to you how easy it is to access and disable this crap, and the response is "Well, yeah, if the buttons actually do what they say they do."

Holy freakin' cow, man!

Don't waste my time

Just unbelievable

quote:

We're both operating on trust here.

No. Flat-out no. What I'm doing and what you're doing are two different things entirely.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Oh, bullshit. Incredible, absolutely incredible.

Oh, I can't trust the settings on my phone is what you're saying, therefore, bugging your own home is fine. You guys are out of your minds. I demonstrate to you how easy it is to access and disable this crap, and the response is "Well, yeah, if the buttons actually do what they say they do."

Holy freakin' cow, man!

Don't waste my time

Just unbelievable

I'm not saying the buttons don't do what they say they do. I think they do exactly what they say they do. Just like I believe Amazon when they tell me it isn't actively "bugging" my home and is only listening for the "wake word". Once it hears that then it is "bugging" my home but I know about it and I've accepted that risk.

What I don't think is happening is that it constantly "bugging" my home.

At anytime I can hit the "mic off button" just like you have or I can unplug the thing, throw it in the pool in the backyard, move to another room, etc.

You and I are not having this conversation. You've thrown in the towel with that post of yours. You're using the tactics of the Left.

You guys need to get this through your heads: You're talking about what some gov't agency might be able to do with my phone, and I am pointing out to you- once again- that this is NOT the same as you going out and buying bugging devices for your home, the sole function of which is to listen all the time.

Now, just what in the world is so freakin' hard to understand about that???

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
You and I are not having this conversation. You've thrown in the towel with that post of yours. You're using the tactics of the Left.

Sorry you feel that way...I was attempting to convey my feelings on the subject.

Shouting someone down when you don't agree with them is actually the tactic of the left.

Have a great day, I'll leave the conversation then.

Who is shouting you down? I told you that I'm not fooling with trying to have a conversation about this when you go pulling stuff out of your ass, like "OK, the buttons may not do what they say they do."

Good grief. You negate my argument with nonsense, and I'm mistreating you?????

Now you're pissing me off.

I'm sure any data collected by Amazon is clearly laid out in their 30 page "End License User Agreement" you are forced to sign in order to use the product you paid for.

I would never have an Echo in my house. Yes I have a piece of tape over my computer's camera. (So does Mark Zuckerberg and others that know what can be done as far as hacking and watching/listning). My friend is high up at Boeing, working with computers. When he has a party, he puts his cellphone in his safe.

The device doesn't listen to everything you say. It just doesn't. It can't. It has a chip designed to listen all of the time for a trigger word. One of I believe two or three options for the trigger words. Alexa, or Echo. There may be a third. It listens all of the time for just those words. Activation words I think they are called. When it hears that, THEN it lights up like a Christmas tree and streams the next few seconds of the audio it hears to the cloud service that does NLU "Natural Language Understanding". It interprets the phrasing it hears and executes some commands.

This is a big difference than what might be (reasonably) misunderstood to occur, which is that these devices listed by streaming everything to the cloud for interpretation, action, recording..... whatever.

The device itself doesn't have anywhere near the horsepower required to do anything but "mask" the audio looking for "Alexa" or "Echo" and then VoIPing off a stream to the cloud. And also, playing some music streamed in. That's it.

And this I think is the disconnect between our two camps of thought --- and why we say, that it'd have to be hacked to stream everything back to the NLU Cloud, for the bugging concern to be viable. And therefore why we feel it is the same to say anything (like a laptop or phone) could be hacked for ill intent the same way. But in my opinion, based on these facts, i think we're accurate in that statement.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
The device doesn't listen to everything you say. It just doesn't. It can't. It has a chip designed to listen all of the time for a trigger word. One of I believe two or three options for the trigger words. Alexa, or Echo. There may be a third. It listens all of the time for just those words. Activation words I think they are called. When it hears that, THEN it lights up like a Christmas tree and streams the next few seconds of the audio it hears to the cloud service that does NLU "Natural Language Understanding". It interprets the phrasing it hears and executes some commands.

Interesting discussion.

I presume someone skilled in IT network sniffing would easily see continual data being uploaded, wouldn't they, sort of like streaming video: it has to consume network bandwith?

Additionally, if a neighborhood suddenly purchased these devices and they all began to continually steam data to the cloud, would the ISPs, who are not beholden to Amazon or Google necessarily, see a consistent, very noticeable spike in bandwidth usage?

Just curious from a networking/data perspective.

quote:

Originally posted by MrToad:
Interesting discussion.

I presume someone skilled in IT network sniffing would easily see continual data being uploaded, wouldn't they, sort of like streaming video: it has to consume network bandwith?

Additionally, if a neighborhood suddenly purchased these devices and they all began to continually steam data to the cloud, would the ISPs, who are not beholden to Amazon or Google necessarily, see a consistent, very noticeable spike in bandwidth usage?

Just curious from a networking/data perspective.

Yeah, you could see the encrypted stream with a packet sniffer like Ethereal. You wouldn't have access to the audio to reconstruct, but you could see the low bandwidth pps (packets per second) of control data (keepalive, if you will) then a relatively significant uptick in pps when the channel comes alive and commands are relayed. Even then it wouldn't be enough for your ISP to care. A few kilobits per second. And it's going up -- a direction for which they have oodles of unused bandwidth in the residential networks.

Siri, Echo, Dot... it's all just part of the slow drip, drip, drip erosion of personal privacy.

Easypass, computer browser history, "last accessed file" list on your computer... drip, drip, drip.

Cellphone GPS data, kids constantly texting where they are and who they're with and what they're doing. Drip, drip, drip.

Each drip entails a trade-off: You give up "a little" privacy, you get some convenience or some fun. Pretty soon, you don't remember what privacy used to mean.

I, personally, haven't found the Dot or Echo to be useful enough to motivate me to get one. But if there was a killer app for me... I'd let one listen to me for the "wake word" 24x7 in a heartbeat.

I'm with the cyber warfare dude... there's already sooooo much stuff that's capable of spying on you, adding a Dot for me would be inconsequential. There's little difference to me between a hacker mispurposing my cell phone to find and listen to me and Amazon or a hacker mispurposing a Dot to listen to me. The cell phone mic is SUPPOSED to be off. The Dot is SUPPOSED to stop recording when it doesn't hear the wake word.

For me, I either trust this crap, or I don't.

And I don't.

And it still doesn't stop me from using it. I just assume the rules will not be followed and the data will be abused. But I ain't giving up my cell phone, or my Easypass, or anything else I enjoy, because of it.

quote:

Originally posted by PeterGV:


I'm with the cyber warfare dude... there's already sooooo much stuff that's capable of spying on you, adding a Dot for me would be inconsequential. There's little difference to me between a hacker mispurposing my cell phone to find and listen to me and Amazon or a hacker mispurposing a Dot to listen to me. The cell phone mic is SUPPOSED to be off. The Dot is SUPPOSED to stop recording when it doesn't hear the wake word.

To Para's point, I think he's drawing the distinction between a hacker breaking the law to do this, a government entity using legal (ethical or otherwise)loopholes or writ to do this, versus consumers in a sense legally allowing Amazon or other to do this by virtue of their ever-changing terms of service.

In any case, these ultimately all are drip, drip , drip erosion, except the latter are end-user choices.

quote:

Originally posted by MrToad:
To Para's point, I think he's drawing the distinction between a hacker breaking the law to do this, a government entity using legal (ethical or otherwise)loopholes or writ to do this, versus consumers in a sense legally allowing Amazon or other to do this by virtue of their ever-changing terms of service.

In any case, these ultimately all are drip, drip , drip erosion, except the latter are end-user choices.

Well- and succinctly-stated.

It's akin to not locking your doors because a determined bugler can get in, anyway.

Today's Delbert cartoon.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

Well- and succinctly-stated.

It's akin to not locking your doors because a determined bugler can get in, anyway.

I wonder how many of you use this method of thought when it comes to your internet usage and what is tracked and followed there?

Most of us are much more vulnerable with our computer usage (finances, business, medical, written communications, etc.) then we are with the conversations taking place in our home but for some reason that is an acceptable risk.

I use the internet, i have an Amazon Echo, I own guns, I rip the mattress tags off my mattresses, I drive a gas guzzling pickup truck, I drink Whisky, I smoke cigars, I drink water from the garden hose, I use salt, I eat red meat, I eat butter, etc. I guess I'm a risk taking rebel all the way around.

quote:

Originally posted by MrToad:
...the distinction between a hacker breaking the law to do this, a government entity using legal (ethical or otherwise)loopholes or writ to do this, versus consumers in a sense legally allowing Amazon or other to do this by virtue of their ever-changing terms of service.

In any case, these ultimately all are drip, drip , drip erosion, except the latter are end-user choices.

If you read my post on how the technology works, the only thing Amazon gets to hear is:

Alexa turn on Den Lamp -or- Alexa, set a timer for 30 minutes. Or, Alexa, play Rockwell.



For anyone to get an ear into my home to hear everything I say, they have to hack the system. And the same goes then for any and every Internet connected computing device with a microphone.