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So now we're putting always-on amazon microphones everywhere in our companies too? How exactly are companies going to be ok with private, trade-secret conversa
by atonse 9y ago
So now we're putting always-on amazon microphones everywhere in our companies too?
How exactly are companies going to be ok with private, trade-secret conversations? How about confidential meetings? How about Amazon competitors? How about employee law about potentially being eavesdropped on, all day?
- Bhilai 9y agoMost companies already use Skype for business/Slack/Hipchat for private conversations.
- rightos 9y agoMaybe at startups, but most enterprises self-host things - including Skype for Business (formerly Lync).
- sigi45 9y agoIf you mean companies smaller than 100 people, you might be right. Otherwise i know enough small companies != startups using skype and whatever was used at the beginning and/or someone was using before.
- andrewguenther 9y agoThe same way they're okay with all of their current audio and video conferencing equipment? If we're going to hypothesize that any device with a camera or microphone can watch you at all times, why aren't people afraid of Cisco?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ceejayoz 9y agoPlenty of people are probably afraid of their Cisco devices. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/cisco_shipping_.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/03/cisco_shippin...
- outworlder 9y agoAmazon has a device that is always listening, that's true. It's listening for the trigger word. If it did more than that, do you think companies deploying these devices wouldn't notice?
- raisedbyninjas 9y agoOutside of monitoring everything these devices store to flash and send across the the network, how would anybody notice? If an enterprising hacker gained control of these you may need to analyse side channels like ultrasonic messaging too.
- outworlder 9y ago"...send across the the network" You know, major companies don't just plug ethernet cables to routers and forget about them. They WILL notice the traffic.
- atonse 9y agoNo, we've always assumed that it's just waiting for the trigger word. But wasn't there that murder case where the police wanted recordings from the victim's Echo and they got them? I don't remember the specifics. Everyone here is absolutely right about "why are you complaining when you carry a phone" etc. Yes it's also risky. It's just such a bizarre normal we're in nowadays.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> But wasn't there that murder case where the police wanted recordings from the victim's Echo and they got them? Well, strictly speaking, no, it was the suspect’s Echo. And the suspect agreed to allow Amazon to release them. But I can't find any indication that it involved any recordings except ones triggered by the wake word. See, e.g., http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/30/us/amazon-echo-arkansas-murder-case-dismissed/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/30/us/amazon-echo-arkansas-murder...
- outworlder 9y ago
- mc32 9y agoMaybe eventually they will come out with an AVC, like a GVC but more betterer.
- burger_moon 9y agoIsn't Siri and Google's 'Ok google' thing basically the same? Everyone in the room has that running all day everywhere they go.
- mikeash 9y agoI bring this up every time someone complains about devices like the Echo. Unless you ban cell phones, you must not be worried too much about having tons of always-on microphones around.
- Spooks 9y agoIf you allow cellphones and don't use a noise generator like rabbler, your meeting isn't secretive enough
- lostboys67 9y agoso do opsec like tony in the sopranos and leave all you mobiles out side the room
- jagermo 9y agoYou mean, where someone can easily get to them to install a sniffer/ copy all content?
- elicash 9y agoIt's a thing that people have noise generators running while they have meetings? Isn't that annoying?
- raisedbyninjas 9y agoI was going to say that modern phones don't have the resources to perform recognition/recording outside of a trigger phrase without an obvious hit to battery life. But then there is the Pixel 2 which can identify a few thousand songs with little performance impact. All of the wired assistants don't even have this issue.
- cJ0th 9y agoAlexa, would you mind signing this NDA?
- jrs95 9y agoMaybe this will lead to a modern equivalent to the Enigma machine ;)
- InvisibleCities 9y agoI would imagine that most companies that are in the market for this have already decided to trust Amazon with most, if not all, of their most sensitive applications and data.