I tell you, if you have one of these things, get rid of it. Lord knows where your private conversations end up.

"A Portland family contacted Amazon to investigate after they say a private conversation in their home was recorded by Amazon's Alexa -- the voice-controlled smart speaker -- and that the recorded audio was sent to the phone of a random person in Seattle, who was in the family’s contact list.

"My husband and I would joke and say I'd bet these devices are listening to what we're saying," said Danielle, who did not want us to use her last name.

Every room in her family home was wired with the Amazon devices to control her home's heat, lights and security system.

But Danielle said two weeks ago their love for Alexa changed with an alarming phone call. "The person on the other line said, 'unplug your Alexa devices right now,'" she said. "'You're being hacked.'"

That person was one of her husband's employees, calling from Seattle.

"We unplugged all of them and he proceeded to tell us that he had received audio files of recordings from inside our house," she said. "At first, my husband was, like, 'no you didn't!' And the (recipient of the message) said 'You sat there talking about hardwood floors.' And we said, 'oh gosh, you really did hear us.'"

Danielle listened to the conversation when it was sent back to her, and she couldn't believe someone 176 miles away heard it too.

"I felt invaded," she said. "A total privacy invasion. Immediately I said, 'I'm never plugging that device in again, because I can't trust it.'"

Danielle says she unplugged all the devices, and she repeatedly called Amazon. She says an Alexa engineer investigated.

"They said 'our engineers went through your logs, and they saw exactly what you told us, they saw exactly what you said happened, and we're sorry.' He apologized like 15 times in a matter of 30 minutes and he said we really appreciate you bringing this to our attention, this is something we need to fix!"

But Danielle says the engineer did not provide specifics about why it happened, or if it's a widespread issue.

"He told us that the device just guessed what we were saying," she said. Danielle said the device did not audibly advise her it was preparing to send the recording, something it’s programmed to do."

https://www.kiro7.com/www.kiro...om-contact/755507974

Good thing Alexa wasn't in the bedroom!

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:
Good thing Alexa wasn't in the bedroom!

quote:

Every room in her family home was wired with the Amazon devices to control her home's heat, lights and security system.

I'm sure the cameras would never do this either.



People that have these are nuts, IMO.

But it’s so convenient!

I've been saying it for quite some time. I would not have this crap in my home.

Furthermore, when I have sex with my wife, all cellphones and tablets are off, or they are in some other room. I ain't kiddin'.

Ain't nobody's damn business

Every device is hackable. We have near zero privacy anymore. AMZN is selling cloud services to the military, and the NSA, I believe. You don't think they might be interested in monitoring Alexa somehow? Who knows.

I have a friend who is very high up at Boeing. Being groomed for the C-Suite. When he has a party he takes his cell phone and locks it in his safe. And it is not to prevent theft. Cell phones are microphones.

quote:

Originally posted by FishOn:
Every device is hackable.

Hacks? Forget about hacks. If you put an Alexa or the equivalent in your house, you are voluntarily placing a listening device in your home.

"Well, if you have nothing to hide..."

People who say this stuff have missed the point completely. If you're OK with putting a bug in your own home, be my guest.

My tin foil hat moment:

We have an Amazon Fire tablet on which I allowed Alexa to install so I could demonstrate the tech to my elderly mother. In order to use Alexa, I have to activate her first, instead of the always on mode.
I mostly keep the wireless on the device "off" so the battery lasts longer. One day while we were eating, while the tablet was in standby on the other side of the room, I hear a noise and then Alexa saying "Having trouble connecting".

If someone gave one of these things to me as a gift, I'd fire up the grill and toss the damned thing on it.

"Alexa, you're on fire. Alexa, you're melting."

I keep looking for ways to completely disable in HW things like Cortana, Alexa, Siri and the like.

Seems like there is really no way to really turn these things off. Corporate America doesn't give a shit about violating privacy.

Never would EVER have one of these devices.
The fact that they actually have logs of what happens is plenty proof of the invasion.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
I keep looking for ways to completely disable in HW things like Cortana, Alexa, Siri and the like.

Do you own a grill?

Guess I'm just old. It astounds me how incredible lazy people are today. Is it really a huge improvement in people's lives for them not to have to get up to turn off a light or change the thermostat? And Google is always there on my laptop should I need to research something.

Automation has its place, but at this point I think its no longer a net positive for society.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
I keep looking for ways to completely disable in HW things like Cortana, Alexa, Siri and the like.

Do you own a grill?

Yes. But Cortana is embedded in Windows on my work computer, Alexa is there in Fire TV and Siri is in the iPhone (which to me is the lessor evil vs Android; also a work device).

most of that stuff can be turned off in settings and if all else fails the device can be turned off.

I'm with Para, these things are a privacy nightmare, no need to have it in my house.

You're gonna have a Hell of a time gettin' that TV onto the grill.

"Danielle listened to the conversation when it was sent back to her, and she couldn't believe someone 176 miles away heard it too"

anything I might say would be considered critical and/or unkind.

I've heard some conversations face to face that mimic this same delusional pretense.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
You're gonna have a Hell of a time gettin' that TV onto the grill.

Are you a member of an outdoor rifle range?

So, I guess a Karma for an Amazon Echo wouldn't be well received here then?