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Wait a minute, we'd already know if Alexa was recording everything by the network traffic that obviously has already been sniffed. We can assume that Amazon i

Wait a minute, we'd already know if Alexa was recording everything by the network traffic that obviously has already been sniffed. We can assume that Amazon is storing every "Alex,..." query that you've ever done. So what is there to know?

Flammy 10y ago
We know they are streaming it to do all the NLP in the cloud. This is obvious from the computational costs alone of doing NLP. The important question here is "What happens to the audio data streamed to the cloud, a few seconds AFTER the query has been identified (or not identified) and the results sent back to the Alexa device?" The nieve assumption is "all audio data is deleted after processing". The reality is that data is still valuable to Amazon for a variety of uses such as (1) further training their voice recognition software (2) advertising data mining [how many people are in the room, things they are talking about --- note, Facebook's mobile app infamously does this] If they just store the query text, that is 'best case' from a privacy perspective. If they just store query text and query audio, that is less than ideal, but not too bad. If they store all audio, ever recorded, for an indefinite period of time... that is what this police request could reveal: Audio data stored for a non-keyword-trigger, and for days/weeks after the fact.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- FrancoDiaz 10y ago
  I deleted my other reply to you. I understand the difference now. It's about the actual voice vs the query text.
- Fnoord 10y ago
  I guess a way around this is: 1) Put the speech to text. 2) Put the text to speech. 3) Send the data over Tor. Although #3 would use a Tor exit node and would allow packet sniffing/logging/mangling etc, it'd at least be more anonymous. Thing is, this is in nobody's interest. Not in the police or Amazon's interest. For the owner, it'd depend on if they are the defendant/suspect or the victim. The victim is not always the person who owns the Amazon Echo. But an Amazon Echo is a nice point of defense because the proof cannot be deleted anymore. All one has to say during a robbery is "Alexa, call the cops". That's quicker than having to dial the number. And at any point, if you do say Alexa, you can also trigger a warning or proof. Ultimately, if you could change the keyword to something more generic you could trigger it without a robber noticing, or by tricking them. A keyword like "put your hands up"? I don't know.
- frik 10y ago
  > computational costs alone of doing NLP The speech recognition part could run on a Pentium 133 in the nineties (Nuance software, Dragon naturally speaking), the Echo device has probably a more powerful CPU than that. The NLP part could run on the device as well, it's mainly a storage problem, you need dozens of GB, at least 32GB sdcard. Ideally only the search phrases would be sent to Google/Amazon/etc. That's also how Bill Gates vision was described in his 1995 book The Road Ahead. A personal agent in a wallet PC would surf the information super highway for you. ...well we are "almost" there but with a different solution.
  - matthewmacleod 10y ago
    Speech recognition in the 90s was absolutely turd.
    - DemiGuru 10y ago
      So true - I vividly recall my attempt to dictate "Dear Sir" that ended up appearing on the screen as "Down Server" no joke.
    - frik 10y ago
      Speech recognition worked fine in the late 90s. You could optionally train it for 15min with your own voive to improve the results. The Nuance software was better back then than what shipped with Win Vista inbuilt by default in 2006 and later. The same Nuance software runs nowadays on servers to power Siri, Google Now, Cortana. And who in the right mind would think every user gets its on dedicated super-computer. In reality, cloud based speech recognition and NLP has the advantage of a central database to collect different voice samples (to train) and a multi Gigabyte central NLP database, etc. But you won't get more CPU cycles than what would be available on a modern smartphone or a Smart TV or (what would fit in) an Echo like device. An offline-available software assistant as kind of premium feature for people who care.
  - Marazan 10y ago
    And that software in that era ha to be painstakibgly trained for each individual voice. Echo "just works", and is clearly doing it by punting to the cloud.
- gordyf 10y ago
  No need for speculation: you can open the Alexa app and play back your own queries, audio and all. There's even a help section titled, "How do I delete Alexa voice recordings", which reads: "You can delete specific voice recordings associated with your account by going to History in Settings in the Alexa App, drilling down for a specific entry, and then tapping the delete button. Or, you can delete all voice recordings associated with your account for each of your Alexa-enabled products, by selecting the applicable product at the Manage Your Content and Devices page at www.amazon.com/mycd or contacting customer service."
  - ajross 10y ago
    Once more though: that's just the audio flagged as a "query" by Amazon and stored as such. What about other stuff that gets uploaded prior to NLP & validation? It's a serious question, and one that I think Amazon (and anyone else streaming audio to the cloud, Siri and Google Voice Search are only slightly less constrained) needs to have an answer for.
    - gordyf 10y ago
      I think you may be making a distinction where none exists. Can you give me an example of what "other stuff" you're referring to? (Disclosure: I worked at Amazon on a related product.)
      - chipperyman573 10y ago
        If I have a conversation about coffee without once saying the word Alexa, will that conversation be stored by Amazon
        ajross 10y ago
        Or if you have a conversation about coffee[1] including the word Alexa[2], but that cannot be parsed or validated as a "query" and produces no response from the device, does that audio get stored somewhere? Could it be captured in transit by other actors? Seems like an important distinction to me. [1] Or, y'know, about some subject more subpoenable or privacy-sensitive. [2] Or, y'know, not including the word Alexa but triggering the on-device recognition anyway. "Alex, uh, here's your payment for murder."
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  > Facebook's mobile app infamously does this Ummm source? I know there has been a bunch of paranoid conspiracy theories about this that are mostly backed by confirmation bias, but I don't believe anyone has actually came out with any proof. Facebook as denied they are doing this, so I guess you're saying they're lying? http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/3/11854860/facebook-smartphone-listening-eavesdrop-microphone-denial http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/3/11854860/facebook-smartphon...
darkstar999 10y ago
> We can assume That doesn't solve a murder.
sharemywin 10y ago
but, are they storing every voice recording? How would you know?
- FrancoDiaz 10y ago
  So we know that they have a record of every query that Alexa has detected. I'm guessing what you're questioning is whether they're storing the actual voices so that they can differentiate between different people that have queried Alexa.
  - hillz 10y ago
    I'm quite confident that they store the voice data. It's very valuable to them as a source of training data for future versions of 'Alexa'-like products.
    - FrancoDiaz 10y ago
      Definitely, as well as being able to eventually differentiate between mom, dad, and the kids.
- ewindisch 10y ago
  you know because they let you access and replay the recordings from their app.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    But we don't know that's every recording that they have. They very well could have a "allow_user_to_see_recording" toggle.
    - watty 10y ago
      No, from day one people have been sniffing Echo traffic to see if it sends any non-triggered data. It does not.
jbigelow76 10y ago
"Hey Alexa, how do I dispose of a dead body". Maybe the cops are just hoping to get lucky.
- mejari 10y ago
  I guess Tina didn't like her roses.
wcummings 10y ago
"Alexa, remind me to murder John tomorrow evening."

Flammy 10y ago

We know they are streaming it to do all the NLP in the cloud. This is obvious from the computational costs alone of doing NLP. The important question here is "What happens to the audio data streamed to the cloud, a few seconds AFTER the query has been identified (or not identified) and the results sent back to the Alexa device?" The nieve assumption is "all audio data is deleted after processing". The reality is that data is still valuable to Amazon for a variety of uses such as (1) further training their voice recognition software (2) advertising data mining [how many people are in the room, things they are talking about --- note, Facebook's mobile app infamously does this] If they just store the query text, that is 'best case' from a privacy perspective. If they just store query text and query audio, that is less than ideal, but not too bad. If they store all audio, ever recorded, for an indefinite period of time... that is what this police request could reveal: Audio data stored for a non-keyword-trigger, and for days/weeks after the fact.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
FrancoDiaz 10y ago
I deleted my other reply to you. I understand the difference now. It's about the actual voice vs the query text.
Fnoord 10y ago
I guess a way around this is: 1) Put the speech to text. 2) Put the text to speech. 3) Send the data over Tor. Although #3 would use a Tor exit node and would allow packet sniffing/logging/mangling etc, it'd at least be more anonymous. Thing is, this is in nobody's interest. Not in the police or Amazon's interest. For the owner, it'd depend on if they are the defendant/suspect or the victim. The victim is not always the person who owns the Amazon Echo. But an Amazon Echo is a nice point of defense because the proof cannot be deleted anymore. All one has to say during a robbery is "Alexa, call the cops". That's quicker than having to dial the number. And at any point, if you do say Alexa, you can also trigger a warning or proof. Ultimately, if you could change the keyword to something more generic you could trigger it without a robber noticing, or by tricking them. A keyword like "put your hands up"? I don't know.
frik 10y ago
> computational costs alone of doing NLP The speech recognition part could run on a Pentium 133 in the nineties (Nuance software, Dragon naturally speaking), the Echo device has probably a more powerful CPU than that. The NLP part could run on the device as well, it's mainly a storage problem, you need dozens of GB, at least 32GB sdcard. Ideally only the search phrases would be sent to Google/Amazon/etc. That's also how Bill Gates vision was described in his 1995 book The Road Ahead. A personal agent in a wallet PC would surf the information super highway for you. ...well we are "almost" there but with a different solution.
- matthewmacleod 10y ago
  Speech recognition in the 90s was absolutely turd.
  - DemiGuru 10y ago
    So true - I vividly recall my attempt to dictate "Dear Sir" that ended up appearing on the screen as "Down Server" no joke.
  - frik 10y ago
    Speech recognition worked fine in the late 90s. You could optionally train it for 15min with your own voive to improve the results. The Nuance software was better back then than what shipped with Win Vista inbuilt by default in 2006 and later. The same Nuance software runs nowadays on servers to power Siri, Google Now, Cortana. And who in the right mind would think every user gets its on dedicated super-computer. In reality, cloud based speech recognition and NLP has the advantage of a central database to collect different voice samples (to train) and a multi Gigabyte central NLP database, etc. But you won't get more CPU cycles than what would be available on a modern smartphone or a Smart TV or (what would fit in) an Echo like device. An offline-available software assistant as kind of premium feature for people who care.
- Marazan 10y ago
  And that software in that era ha to be painstakibgly trained for each individual voice. Echo "just works", and is clearly doing it by punting to the cloud.
gordyf 10y ago
No need for speculation: you can open the Alexa app and play back your own queries, audio and all. There's even a help section titled, "How do I delete Alexa voice recordings", which reads: "You can delete specific voice recordings associated with your account by going to History in Settings in the Alexa App, drilling down for a specific entry, and then tapping the delete button. Or, you can delete all voice recordings associated with your account for each of your Alexa-enabled products, by selecting the applicable product at the Manage Your Content and Devices page at www.amazon.com/mycd or contacting customer service."
- ajross 10y ago
  Once more though: that's just the audio flagged as a "query" by Amazon and stored as such. What about other stuff that gets uploaded prior to NLP & validation? It's a serious question, and one that I think Amazon (and anyone else streaming audio to the cloud, Siri and Google Voice Search are only slightly less constrained) needs to have an answer for.
  - gordyf 10y ago
    I think you may be making a distinction where none exists. Can you give me an example of what "other stuff" you're referring to? (Disclosure: I worked at Amazon on a related product.)
    - chipperyman573 10y ago
      If I have a conversation about coffee without once saying the word Alexa, will that conversation be stored by Amazon
      - ajross 10y ago
        Or if you have a conversation about coffee[1] including the word Alexa[2], but that cannot be parsed or validated as a "query" and produces no response from the device, does that audio get stored somewhere? Could it be captured in transit by other actors? Seems like an important distinction to me. [1] Or, y'know, about some subject more subpoenable or privacy-sensitive. [2] Or, y'know, not including the word Alexa but triggering the on-device recognition anyway. "Alex, uh, here's your payment for murder."
madeofpalk 10y ago
> Facebook's mobile app infamously does this Ummm source? I know there has been a bunch of paranoid conspiracy theories about this that are mostly backed by confirmation bias, but I don't believe anyone has actually came out with any proof. Facebook as denied they are doing this, so I guess you're saying they're lying? http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/3/11854860/facebook-smartphone-listening-eavesdrop-microphone-denial http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/3/11854860/facebook-smartphon...

darkstar999 10y ago

> We can assume That doesn't solve a murder.

sharemywin 10y ago

but, are they storing every voice recording? How would you know?

FrancoDiaz 10y ago
So we know that they have a record of every query that Alexa has detected. I'm guessing what you're questioning is whether they're storing the actual voices so that they can differentiate between different people that have queried Alexa.
- hillz 10y ago
  I'm quite confident that they store the voice data. It's very valuable to them as a source of training data for future versions of 'Alexa'-like products.
  - FrancoDiaz 10y ago
    Definitely, as well as being able to eventually differentiate between mom, dad, and the kids.
ewindisch 10y ago
you know because they let you access and replay the recordings from their app.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  But we don't know that's every recording that they have. They very well could have a "allow_user_to_see_recording" toggle.
  - watty 10y ago
    No, from day one people have been sniffing Echo traffic to see if it sends any non-triggered data. It does not.

jbigelow76 10y ago

"Hey Alexa, how do I dispose of a dead body". Maybe the cops are just hoping to get lucky.

mejari 10y ago
I guess Tina didn't like her roses.

wcummings 10y ago

"Alexa, remind me to murder John tomorrow evening."