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The risk is rather low if you don't live in a totalitarian state and you don't engage in extremely subversive or criminal activities. Sure, the government coul

The risk is rather low if you don't live in a totalitarian state and you don't engage in extremely subversive or criminal activities. Sure, the government could force Amazon to let Echo spy on you. But they could force Apple or Google to do the same thing with your phone. Speakerphone isn't as good as far field mikes, but it's pretty good. The government could also just bug your apartment the old fashioned way. The big fear would be that echo is storing audio of your house that a future government could use against you. But there is no indication that Amazon does that. It only sends audio after it's triggered by the codeword. Honestly, my google and bing histories are probably a lot more damning. But if Trump goes all hitler on us, I'd throw mine out.

brian-armstrong 10y ago
You're assuming the device never acts incorrectly/has bugs. Why? Also, the recent findings show it's not just subversive actors who gets surveiled. There are already massive dragnet operations. That's happening right now. So it's not some hypothetical, that's reality. I think the better approach, rather than waiting and finding out too late, is just to avoid these altogether. The world has mostly been pretty safe but the security appears to now be threatened and civil liberties are rapidly eroding. So just for that reason I think our position for ourselves and for friends/family should just be to pass altogether on this type of device
- marchenko 10y ago
  I wonder if, in the future, it will be just as hard to find a "dumb" toaster/lightswitch/thermometer as it is to find incandescent bulbs.
bencollier49 10y ago
And you think you wouldn't be arrested for throwing it out?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
xorcist 10y ago
That's a strange thing to say. "The government" (whatever that may be) doesn't force anything on us. Yet, when everyone has email, that becomes a rather important data source. That draws the interest of those organizations tasked to keep us safe. They certainly wouldn't be doing their jobs very well if they left that trove untrawled, and voilà, soicograms of everybody. When everyone has a live audio feed from their homes to Google, Amazon and Samsung that becomes an even bigger data source. It would be unthinkable not to mine it and I don't think anyone knows what the effects of that will be.
shostack 10y ago
The problem with this logic is you don't know what the future will hold, yet the data is being captured and stored, likely in perpetuity, today. This means a future dictator will have a huuuge corpus of data on everyone with the perfect surveillance apparatus to leverage it. And by then it is too late. I wonder what direction our new Russian-influenced President will take things given Putin's KGB background and savviness in shutting down free speech.
ben_w 10y ago
> subversive or criminal activities My standard counter-argument to this is "drugs". Drugs are a sufficient bug-bear to be used by the UK government as justification for invasive surveillance, but there are so many drug users in the UK that if they tried enforcing that law they would bankrupt the nation three times over from each of prosecution, building and staffing sufficient prisons, and the sheer number of people in prison who would then not earn any money or pay any taxes. And that is just from a thing the government uses as its justification for the surveillance power it now has.
verytrivial 10y ago
> The risk is rather low if you don't live in a totalitarian state and you don't engage in extremely subversive or criminal activities. And what happens when failing to have an Alexa or equivalent devices becomes an act of subversion or at least suspicion? > Sure, the government could force Amazon to let Echo spy on you. But they could force Apple or Google to do the same thing with your phone I think you'll find this is an argument against Google and Apple handing over data wholesale to the government, not an argument in favour of getting another device that does that same thing too. > The government could also just bug your apartment the old fashioned way. You mean with judicial oversight and at some considerable amount of effort and expense that would make dragnet surveillance unpopular both within and without the government meaning its use would be reserved only for the sorts of activities proponents of surveillance say it would be used for? Yes, I'm okay with the old fashioned way. > The big fear would be that echo is storing audio of your house that a future government could use against you. But there is no indication that Amazon does that. The big fear is that by inviting these amoral entities into our lives they CAN (not will) perform these immoral activities at the request of other parties. It enables it. > Honestly, my google and bing histories are probably a lot more damning. Yet you still submit to the surveillance. Good for you. Not everyone is will to make the same compromises.
kriro 10y ago
Even if you trust the state or at least trust it to some degree, security breaches and blackmail are still a concern. Cue Black Mirror S03E03

brian-armstrong 10y ago

You're assuming the device never acts incorrectly/has bugs. Why? Also, the recent findings show it's not just subversive actors who gets surveiled. There are already massive dragnet operations. That's happening right now. So it's not some hypothetical, that's reality. I think the better approach, rather than waiting and finding out too late, is just to avoid these altogether. The world has mostly been pretty safe but the security appears to now be threatened and civil liberties are rapidly eroding. So just for that reason I think our position for ourselves and for friends/family should just be to pass altogether on this type of device

marchenko 10y ago
I wonder if, in the future, it will be just as hard to find a "dumb" toaster/lightswitch/thermometer as it is to find incandescent bulbs.

bencollier49 10y ago

And you think you wouldn't be arrested for throwing it out?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

xorcist 10y ago

That's a strange thing to say. "The government" (whatever that may be) doesn't force anything on us. Yet, when everyone has email, that becomes a rather important data source. That draws the interest of those organizations tasked to keep us safe. They certainly wouldn't be doing their jobs very well if they left that trove untrawled, and voilà, soicograms of everybody. When everyone has a live audio feed from their homes to Google, Amazon and Samsung that becomes an even bigger data source. It would be unthinkable not to mine it and I don't think anyone knows what the effects of that will be.

shostack 10y ago

The problem with this logic is you don't know what the future will hold, yet the data is being captured and stored, likely in perpetuity, today. This means a future dictator will have a huuuge corpus of data on everyone with the perfect surveillance apparatus to leverage it. And by then it is too late. I wonder what direction our new Russian-influenced President will take things given Putin's KGB background and savviness in shutting down free speech.

ben_w 10y ago

> subversive or criminal activities My standard counter-argument to this is "drugs". Drugs are a sufficient bug-bear to be used by the UK government as justification for invasive surveillance, but there are so many drug users in the UK that if they tried enforcing that law they would bankrupt the nation three times over from each of prosecution, building and staffing sufficient prisons, and the sheer number of people in prison who would then not earn any money or pay any taxes. And that is just from a thing the government uses as its justification for the surveillance power it now has.

verytrivial 10y ago

> The risk is rather low if you don't live in a totalitarian state and you don't engage in extremely subversive or criminal activities. And what happens when failing to have an Alexa or equivalent devices becomes an act of subversion or at least suspicion? > Sure, the government could force Amazon to let Echo spy on you. But they could force Apple or Google to do the same thing with your phone I think you'll find this is an argument against Google and Apple handing over data wholesale to the government, not an argument in favour of getting another device that does that same thing too. > The government could also just bug your apartment the old fashioned way. You mean with judicial oversight and at some considerable amount of effort and expense that would make dragnet surveillance unpopular both within and without the government meaning its use would be reserved only for the sorts of activities proponents of surveillance say it would be used for? Yes, I'm okay with the old fashioned way. > The big fear would be that echo is storing audio of your house that a future government could use against you. But there is no indication that Amazon does that. The big fear is that by inviting these amoral entities into our lives they CAN (not will) perform these immoral activities at the request of other parties. It enables it. > Honestly, my google and bing histories are probably a lot more damning. Yet you still submit to the surveillance. Good for you. Not everyone is will to make the same compromises.

kriro 10y ago

Even if you trust the state or at least trust it to some degree, security breaches and blackmail are still a concern. Cue Black Mirror S03E03