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I'm not comfortable with the idea of everyone having far-field microphones in their homes. Cell phone spying is bad enough. If these become widespread, then ten

I'm not comfortable with the idea of everyone having far-field microphones in their homes. Cell phone spying is bad enough. If these become widespread, then ten years from now instead of a political debate about call metadata it'll be a debate about literally every word ever spoken.

bjt 11y ago
That's a worry that I share. The good thing about hacks like the OP's is that they push us further in the direction of this technology being open and controlled by the user. We need more of that.
njharman 11y ago
> I'm not comfortable with the idea of everyone having far-field microphones in their homes. That's the problem with progress and technology. It will happen regardless of how comfortable you are with it. In fact, if it helps those with power to maintain or extend their power it will happen. If it tends to limit their power it will be squashed and marginalized.
- dopeboy 11y ago
  False. Technology can proceed with privacy in mind. The Echo didn't have to push things to the cloud. It was, however, constructed to do so both for Amazon's benefit (data) and the consumer's benefit (ease of setup and use). The trend you cite will happen because of ignorance, not progress.
  - bsimpson 11y ago
    It adds convenience to most services to connect to the Internet, so most of the do by default. So long as the device is connected, state-sponsored actors will find ways to eavesdrop even if the device wasn't originally designed to send audio over the wire. Citizenfour was eyeopening on this point.
swiley 11y ago
I wouldn't be so upset if the divice firmware was completely open source and easily user modifiable (android does not meet this, 100gb source download is not easy to modify).
Houshalter 11y ago
I don't see how it's different than a smartphone. Everyone carries with them a little microphone and GPS now. Who cares about using voice recognition in the home? And the real voice recognition should be turned off 99% of the time. It should just passively listen for a keyword before using any cloud service.
- pikzen 11y ago
  >I don't see how it's different than a smartphone. Everyone carries with them a little microphone and GPS now. Who cares about using voice recognition in the home? "You already have the flu, why worry about getting gastroenteritis?" >And the real voice recognition should be turned off 99% of the time. It should just passively listen for a keyword before using any cloud service. On tools like OP's link, or Jasper, etc. you have the source and you can verify that it's actually not sending out data permanently. With the Echo, you're just hoping Amazon didn't do exactly that. You could watch the network activity, but that would just tell you that some data is sent back, sometimes.
propogandist 11y ago
it's like this scene from batman: https://youtu.be/kIvEu-XjZ40?t=21 https://youtu.be/kIvEu-XjZ40?t=21 and no different than a telescreen (1984). No one will leave home without one.

bjt 11y ago

That's a worry that I share. The good thing about hacks like the OP's is that they push us further in the direction of this technology being open and controlled by the user. We need more of that.

njharman 11y ago

> I'm not comfortable with the idea of everyone having far-field microphones in their homes. That's the problem with progress and technology. It will happen regardless of how comfortable you are with it. In fact, if it helps those with power to maintain or extend their power it will happen. If it tends to limit their power it will be squashed and marginalized.

dopeboy 11y ago
False. Technology can proceed with privacy in mind. The Echo didn't have to push things to the cloud. It was, however, constructed to do so both for Amazon's benefit (data) and the consumer's benefit (ease of setup and use). The trend you cite will happen because of ignorance, not progress.
- bsimpson 11y ago
  It adds convenience to most services to connect to the Internet, so most of the do by default. So long as the device is connected, state-sponsored actors will find ways to eavesdrop even if the device wasn't originally designed to send audio over the wire. Citizenfour was eyeopening on this point.

swiley 11y ago

I wouldn't be so upset if the divice firmware was completely open source and easily user modifiable (android does not meet this, 100gb source download is not easy to modify).

Houshalter 11y ago

I don't see how it's different than a smartphone. Everyone carries with them a little microphone and GPS now. Who cares about using voice recognition in the home? And the real voice recognition should be turned off 99% of the time. It should just passively listen for a keyword before using any cloud service.

pikzen 11y ago
>I don't see how it's different than a smartphone. Everyone carries with them a little microphone and GPS now. Who cares about using voice recognition in the home? "You already have the flu, why worry about getting gastroenteritis?" >And the real voice recognition should be turned off 99% of the time. It should just passively listen for a keyword before using any cloud service. On tools like OP's link, or Jasper, etc. you have the source and you can verify that it's actually not sending out data permanently. With the Echo, you're just hoping Amazon didn't do exactly that. You could watch the network activity, but that would just tell you that some data is sent back, sometimes.

propogandist 11y ago

it's like this scene from batman: https://youtu.be/kIvEu-XjZ40?t=21 https://youtu.be/kIvEu-XjZ40?t=21 and no different than a telescreen (1984). No one will leave home without one.