3 ms·

> Sure I believe Amazon when they say they only send clips of the actual commands I worked on speech parsing software at Audible, where much of the data was or

> Sure I believe Amazon when they say they only send clips of the actual commands I worked on speech parsing software at Audible, where much of the data was originally gathered to make Alexa and the Echo possible. They are not telling the truth when they say that they only send clips of the actual commands. EDIT: This is not to say that they constantly stream audio data, either. But they send much more than just the voice extractions of the commands themselves. They have to in order to build a profile of the users' voices, habits, etc., which aid in the quick processing of incoming speech data. The service is not selective enough to only pick up on voice information proceeded by a correct utterance of "Alexa." Amazon is "customer-obsessed" - and one of the product execs asked on a phone call: > I am an Alexa user, and call out her name but stutter slightly. I still intended to say "Alexa," so why shouldn't she respond to me? That's a bad user experience. Customers want to be understood, not ignored. This is paraphrased, but the consequences of this question were enormous. It basically ensured that Alexa users would not ever have privacy again.

spdustin 11y ago
I do not believe you. Please elaborate.
- spdustin 11y ago
  Legitimately confused by the downvotes on this one... Is there another way I should express disbelief and request more information? A drive-by claim that Amazon is lying to its customers about what Echo sends to the Amazon mothership is a substantial accusation that should be supported with either evidence for or a method for independently confirming the veracity of said claim. So, I'll try another pass: Dear AndrewUnmuted: would you kindly elaborate on what else, other than the audio that follows the wake word, is transmitted to Amazon that ensures "[Echo] users would not ever have privacy again." I think we can all stipulate to the fact that there is an audio transmission beginning after the wake word and ending when we see the spinning light pattern that indicates Echo is waiting for a server-side response.
  - SyneRyder 11y ago
    While I can't speak to what AndrewUnmuted is referring to with Amazon, I know Google Now transmits more than just the command / audio after the wake word: it actually transmits 2 - 3 seconds before and including the wake word. You can confirm this yourself: if you visit this page at Google, you can hear every Google Now voice query you've made, and verify it includes audio before & including the "OK Google" trigger phrase: https://history.google.com/history/audio https://history.google.com/history/audio
  - AndrewUnmuted 11y ago
    I believe that I have provided sufficient background from which you can acquire your own evidence. My involvement with Amazon's speech services is something I regret and wish to help others make better sense of, but I also am bound to contractual obligations that prohibit me from going into the explicit detail that you ask for. If you've ever worked for Amazon, you'd know how dangerous it would be to go into the level of specificity that you are demanding. I refuse to satisfy some loud-mouthed internet user just because of the "seriousness" of my claim. It would be extremely easy for you to test my claims yourself.
    - spdustin 11y ago
      Please refrain from suggesting I'm some "loud-mouthed" internet user. You do not know me. I, as well, do not know you, so I'm unable to accept a drive-by accusation that having an Echo means I'll "not ever have privacy again", a bold claim indeed. Lots of people shout out things that seem plausible, even flash a bit of confidence-inspiring bravado, and have no intention of actually helping clear the air on a topic like this. I stand corrected on one thing; I do see that Echo transmits a fraction of a second of audio before the wake word. I also know, from when I was doing my own debugging/hacking a while back, that there are requests made in cleartext to download packaged code during firmware updates, and based on the limited console hacking I did way back then (though I don't know enough about signal processing to have gotten more than that from the test pads on the bottom), Echo appears to have two bootable partitions, and swaps between them upon a successful upgrade - pretty standard stuff, it didn't appear that one partition was hiding anything, just that it had older packages. My network analysis at the time was inconclusive in some respects due to some traffic being encoded/encrypted in a way I didn't immediately recognize -- frankly, my efforts at that time were focused on what was coming back to the Echo, and I will certainly investigate more of what's going out. Your commentary thus far does not suggest anything privacy destroying (they know who I am and what I've bought? So?) but I will be happy to share what I find if I find anything. I know of many people smarter than I who've intercepted and analyzed the traffic and didn't find anything that suggests users "would not ever have privacy again", so I don't have high hopes of finding enlightenment without the assistance of someone who professes to have the answers.
roel_v 11y ago
Does the audible/amazon stt engine train its own language model and thus 'learn' the user's speech peculiarities? If so, how does it know what the user really meant and thus should train towards?
- AndrewUnmuted 11y ago
  I can't speak to the training of the models. I'm not a data science guy, I specialize in signal processing and feature extraction. What I can say, though, which may give good insight into your question is this: The "Hushpuppy" project, which became known as the WhisperSync and Immersion Reading technologies, were not self-trained or self-reinforced. QA engineers in India were contracted to ensure synchronization between the book and the audiobook. These technologies, though, were the building blocks upon which Alexa was developed. The data collected from these operations became essential knowledge for the engineering team that developed Alexa. EDIT: As an aside, Amazon bases all of its services around that Amazon account that almost everyone in the civilized world now has. Alexa is not the first, and certainly not the last Amazon service that learns and improves based upon the user's Amazon account.
  - roel_v 11y ago
    ", I specialize in signal processing and feature extraction." In this context, do I speculate in the right direction when I think about isolating voice from background noise? Any tips to share that could help my diy tinkering?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

spdustin 11y ago

I do not believe you. Please elaborate.

spdustin 11y ago
Legitimately confused by the downvotes on this one... Is there another way I should express disbelief and request more information? A drive-by claim that Amazon is lying to its customers about what Echo sends to the Amazon mothership is a substantial accusation that should be supported with either evidence for or a method for independently confirming the veracity of said claim. So, I'll try another pass: Dear AndrewUnmuted: would you kindly elaborate on what else, other than the audio that follows the wake word, is transmitted to Amazon that ensures "[Echo] users would not ever have privacy again." I think we can all stipulate to the fact that there is an audio transmission beginning after the wake word and ending when we see the spinning light pattern that indicates Echo is waiting for a server-side response.
- SyneRyder 11y ago
  While I can't speak to what AndrewUnmuted is referring to with Amazon, I know Google Now transmits more than just the command / audio after the wake word: it actually transmits 2 - 3 seconds before and including the wake word. You can confirm this yourself: if you visit this page at Google, you can hear every Google Now voice query you've made, and verify it includes audio before & including the "OK Google" trigger phrase: https://history.google.com/history/audio https://history.google.com/history/audio
- AndrewUnmuted 11y ago
  I believe that I have provided sufficient background from which you can acquire your own evidence. My involvement with Amazon's speech services is something I regret and wish to help others make better sense of, but I also am bound to contractual obligations that prohibit me from going into the explicit detail that you ask for. If you've ever worked for Amazon, you'd know how dangerous it would be to go into the level of specificity that you are demanding. I refuse to satisfy some loud-mouthed internet user just because of the "seriousness" of my claim. It would be extremely easy for you to test my claims yourself.
  - spdustin 11y ago
    Please refrain from suggesting I'm some "loud-mouthed" internet user. You do not know me. I, as well, do not know you, so I'm unable to accept a drive-by accusation that having an Echo means I'll "not ever have privacy again", a bold claim indeed. Lots of people shout out things that seem plausible, even flash a bit of confidence-inspiring bravado, and have no intention of actually helping clear the air on a topic like this. I stand corrected on one thing; I do see that Echo transmits a fraction of a second of audio before the wake word. I also know, from when I was doing my own debugging/hacking a while back, that there are requests made in cleartext to download packaged code during firmware updates, and based on the limited console hacking I did way back then (though I don't know enough about signal processing to have gotten more than that from the test pads on the bottom), Echo appears to have two bootable partitions, and swaps between them upon a successful upgrade - pretty standard stuff, it didn't appear that one partition was hiding anything, just that it had older packages. My network analysis at the time was inconclusive in some respects due to some traffic being encoded/encrypted in a way I didn't immediately recognize -- frankly, my efforts at that time were focused on what was coming back to the Echo, and I will certainly investigate more of what's going out. Your commentary thus far does not suggest anything privacy destroying (they know who I am and what I've bought? So?) but I will be happy to share what I find if I find anything. I know of many people smarter than I who've intercepted and analyzed the traffic and didn't find anything that suggests users "would not ever have privacy again", so I don't have high hopes of finding enlightenment without the assistance of someone who professes to have the answers.

roel_v 11y ago

Does the audible/amazon stt engine train its own language model and thus 'learn' the user's speech peculiarities? If so, how does it know what the user really meant and thus should train towards?

AndrewUnmuted 11y ago
I can't speak to the training of the models. I'm not a data science guy, I specialize in signal processing and feature extraction. What I can say, though, which may give good insight into your question is this: The "Hushpuppy" project, which became known as the WhisperSync and Immersion Reading technologies, were not self-trained or self-reinforced. QA engineers in India were contracted to ensure synchronization between the book and the audiobook. These technologies, though, were the building blocks upon which Alexa was developed. The data collected from these operations became essential knowledge for the engineering team that developed Alexa. EDIT: As an aside, Amazon bases all of its services around that Amazon account that almost everyone in the civilized world now has. Alexa is not the first, and certainly not the last Amazon service that learns and improves based upon the user's Amazon account.
- roel_v 11y ago
  ", I specialize in signal processing and feature extraction." In this context, do I speculate in the right direction when I think about isolating voice from background noise? Any tips to share that could help my diy tinkering?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]