quote:

Originally posted by Dusty78:
Works the same as saying Hey Siri on your iPhone or OK google on your android

Except on Apple devices you can limit Siri's listening to only when you press the button. IIRC, Android devices were likewise.

quote:

Originally posted by JimmyRayBob:
Exactly. Lots of folks worry about the Amazon echo or Google home devices, but still carry a smart phone that's always listening. And the phone has a camera and GPS.

1. As noted above: They're not necessarily "always listening" and 2. I kinda sorta need my phone. I certainly don't need an Alexa or whatever, being as I can type and read and stuff.

What is really sad is that these devices could be incredibly useful and if they designed them with privacy in mind everone would want one.

But they went for the additional revenue stream instead and created them to mine personal information for sale.

Now we've gone down that rabbit hole and almost everyone is devided into 3 camps; the clueless, the its not that bad and i have nothing to hide besides you already carry a smart phone, or the I am not going to willing give up privacy in my own home for the sake of a little convenience because this is just tha camel's nose.

Now even if a company was to release one of these with guaranteed privacy built in it would not sell.

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:
Now even if a company was to release one of these with guaranteed privacy built in it would not sell.

Actually, I trust Apple, because Apple has a very clear, unambiguous, customer-oriented privacy policy. But I still don't want listening devices in my home.

I don't understand you guys...carry on about these things but carry a smartphone everywhere you go.

The smart phone is evading your privacy MUCH more than one of these things would be.

You can say you turn off the ability of your smart phone to listen to you all you want, however, the government can turn it on along with the gps and camera if they want to. If the government can spy on the Russians and Chinese they can certainly spy on you.

quote:

Originally posted by LBTRS:
I don't understand you guys...carry on about these things but carry a smartphone everywhere you go.

The smart phone is evading your privacy MUCH more than one of these things would be.

You can say you turn off the ability of your smart phone to listen to you all you want, however, the government can turn it on along with the gps and camera if they want to. If the government can spy on the Russians and Chinese they can certainly spy on you.

Camp # 2.

Just saying.

quote:

Originally posted by LBTRS:
You can say you turn off the ability of your smart phone to listen to you all you want, however, the government can turn it on along with the gps and camera if they want to.

I guess this means, since you're apparently so concerned about these things, you have no wireless phone at all?

I gotta say I've come to like saying "Alexa turn on the tv". It's like having a kid before the 80s but faster.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:
Now even if a company was to release one of these with guaranteed privacy built in it would not sell.

Actually, I trust Apple, because Apple has a very clear, unambiguous, customer-oriented privacy policy. But I still don't want listening devices in my home.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by LBTRS:
You can say you turn off the ability of your smart phone to listen to you all you want, however, the government can turn it on along with the gps and camera if they want to.

I guess this means, since you're apparently so concerned about these things, you have no wireless phone at all?

One of us has a reading comprehension problem...

I'm not concerned enough that I avoid these things...I have a smartphone and have several Amazon Alexa's in my house. I don't understand all the fuss about the Alexa but the same people will carry a smartphone.

I said nothing about me being concerned enough to avoid using either of these devices.

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:
What is really sad is that these devices could be incredibly useful and if they designed them with privacy in mind everone would want one.

Everyone does want them already...it was the number one selling item on amazon for black friday. You act like these things are not selling???

quote:

Originally posted by LBTRS:

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by LBTRS:
You can say you turn off the ability of your smart phone to listen to you all you want, however, the government can turn it on along with the gps and camera if they want to.

I guess this means, since you're apparently so concerned about these things, you have no wireless phone at all?

One of us has a reading comprehension problem...

One of us is being unnecessarily vague.

quote:

Originally posted by LBTRS:
I'm not concerned enough that I avoid these things...I have a smartphone and have several Amazon Alexa's in my house. I don't understand all the fuss about the Alexa but the same people will carry a smartphone.

Apples/oranges.

One device is listening 24x7. The other can be set not to listen unless you tell it to. Or, you assert, without any evidence, the government does.

For one of them there is published evidence some of them have sometimes caught and recorded audio without the trigger phrases having been uttered. For the other there is no evidence that any of them have ever been compromised in such a manner, save for idiots foolishly downloading and installing malware from untrusted repositories.

One of them is specifically designed to be a listening device. For the other: Listening for voice commands is an ancillary function.

One of them, in disabling it's ability to listen for voice commands, becomes a doorstop. The other, when listening for voice commands is disabled, continues to be wildly useful for a variety of functions--it's operation and usability barely reduced at all.

You may be perfectly fine with listening devices scattered throughout your home. That's fine, for you. I am not comfortable with it.

quote:

Originally posted by LBTRS:

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:
What is really sad is that these devices could be incredibly useful and if they designed them with privacy in mind everone would want one.

Everyone does want them already...it was the number one selling item on amazon for black friday. You act like these things are not selling???

My mom used to say to me, when I was a child, "Just because so-and-so jumps off a bridge, does that mean you're going to, too?"

I ain't jumpin' off that bridge with you and the rest of 'em.

So, no: Not everyone "wants one." And, in fact, I know of nobody, personally, that has one in their home.

quote:

Originally posted by LBTRS:

quote:

Originally posted by SpinZone:
What is really sad is that these devices could be incredibly useful and if they designed them with privacy in mind everone would want one.

Everyone does want them already...it was the number one selling item on amazon for black friday. You act like these things are not selling???

To use that they sold a bunch of these on a big sales day to support the claim that everyone wants one is a serious failure in your argument. If everyone truely wanted one this topic would not be up for discussion in the first place. As I suggested, 2 of the 3 groups want/use them so to claim I am acting like these things are not selling is another false conclusion.

You like them, i get that and I never said you were wrong to use them so please stop being so defensive. My point was that there is a group of people who will not use them due to privacy concerns and that they could have designed from the beginning with privacy as part of the system but intead they intentionally gave up the privacy aspect to create additional revenue stream.

And my phone does not listen to me because i removed the voice activation software kernel. I had to give up the voice search function but I'm ok with that.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SpinZone,

I have a "friend" who works for the FBI. His area of expertise is phone surveillance. Without going into details he said the smart phone is the single greatest asset to surveillance in the last 100 years...

He and his family ALL use flip phones for their personal phones...That should tell you all you need to know.

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:
I have a "friend" who works for the FBI. His area of expertise is phone surveillance. Without going into details he said the smart phone is the single greatest asset to surveillance in the last 100 years...

Without going into details that statement is worth what we paid to read it.

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:
He and his family ALL use flip phones for their personal phones...That should tell you all you need to know.

Uh huh. And I know people who are way up in the network and TelCom security stratosphere that use smartphones. That should tell you all you need to know.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

Every time this subject comes up this meme appears. Every. Single. Time. "Hey wiretap..." So funny. Yuck, yuck, yuck. How original.

Also, do you use your cell phone? Then your conversation is subject to be heard by various electronic means. And with GPS it's a tracking device. So I have to question how "private" any of these items are.

This topic came up this weekend, with my SIL convinced that his phone is always listening. Says you can demonstrate this by talking about a product or service you would never normally look into, then open your phone browser and you'll see those related popups.

yeeeeaaaaaaaahhh.

I'm less concerned with the government listening in on me. If I was doing anything unsavory, I'm smart enough to know how to get around all of it.

My issue is about the data mining. The invasiveness of the corporations is more infuriating to me than the government. The gov't would have to have a reason to target me. The corporations 100% want to target me so they can advertise to me better.

Anyone who willingly puts Alexa in his/her home, does not care about privacy. Foolish. No matter what the company says, we just do not know what Amazon is capable of. There is a reason the Pentagon and the NSA are doing business with them.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...tm_source=reddit.com

quote:

Originally posted by FishOn:
Anyone who willingly puts Alexa in his/her home, does not care about privacy. Foolish. No matter what the company says, we just do not know what Amazon is capable of. There is a reason the Pentagon and the NSA are doing business with them.

https://www.reuters.com/articl...tm_source=reddit.com

The juicy details being:

An Alexa user in Germany was mistakenly given access to more than a thousand recordings of another Alexa user when they were simply trying to listen to their own recordings.

The mistake aside, what in the ever-loving-fuck is Alexa doing storing a thousand recordings of anyone's use? I wouldn't let a team of supermodels have access to 1000 recordings of my everyday life even if they gave me blowjobs on demand, 24/7. Some folks, however, are willing to exchange this degree of privacy to order pizza 2min faster.

I think that's crazy as hell.

Different strokes, apparently.

You do you, boo.

Oh, not 1000 recordings of someone else, but 1700 of them.

1700 recordings, of one person's/family's use.

What
The
Fuck

I was surprised to see such a harsh headline from Endgadget (same details as the other):

The Amazon Alexa Eavesdropping Nightmare Came True.