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A Sleeping Alexa Can Listen for More Than Just Its Name

150 points by teklaperry 9y ago

crankylinuxuser 9y ago
In the end, we don't know what Alexa is listening to. If we do dead-listing style analysis with teardowns and eeprom dumps, it can only tell us what it was listening to at that time.. and sometimes not even that. How do we know what [.0076162328 3.27617819 91817.111121123 -65.2129] is listening to, especially when combined with complicated neural network weights? We can only check and verify every possible input, and that's effectively infeasible. We chose not to buy these types of devices for our house, because of the great deal of unknowns.
- nathanaldensr 9y ago
  Exactly. Wouldn't we have to have access to all the relevant source code, both for the devices and the server-side components, to tell what Alexa and other home assistant devices are actually doing and storing?
  - eckza 9y ago
    And rolling hashes of every build. And a device to constantly cross-check the hashes. And a device to constantly verify that the cross-checker was working. And a workflow to show diffs of each commit. And time to read through them, grok them, and sandbox-test that they weren't doing anything nasty in an obfuscated way. At the end of the day, you really can't trust anything completely, and the only real solution is to 1) trust Amazon (which doesn't seem like a great bet right now), or 2) don't own one.
    - GhostVII 9y ago
      Or 3) just don't worry about it
      - macintux 9y ago
        Isn't 3 the same as 1?
- majormajor 9y ago
  I considered the "don't buy" strategy, but I'm not willing to go all the way to the "don't buy a phone" point, where we've got the same situation, which leaves me with little other choices. :|
  - baxtr 9y ago
    Siri can be turned off on iPhones. I don’t see how buying a phone gets you in the same situation as buying a device that has a voice-only interface.
    - jasonkostempski 9y ago
      Just because some UI element labeled "Enable Siri" can be toggled doesn't mean it works exactly as you, or even Apple devs, expect it to. And even phones without digital assitant technology can be turned into remote listening devices.
      - majormajor 9y ago
        Yeah, exactly. You can tell the software to disable the feature, but the hardware is still wired up, and it could still be doing everything but the user-facing bits, or a future update could flip that on even if it's not presently doing it. I have an Android phone and I trust Google somewhat less in terms of personal-info-collecting than Amazon. :|
        jasonkostempski 9y ago
        I have an Android too but I lost all trust in Google when I realized the default keyboard sends my keystrokes to Google by default. And the number of times ive had to re-disable highly undesired defaults after an update is infuriating.
      - baxtr 9y ago
        That is of course correct from a technical perspective, but not from a trust perspective. I can’t remember that Apple has done anything like that on purpose. Sure, devs get wild, people hack, but I’d never expect them to do this systematically. With amazon, I’m not so sure. But maybe that’s just me
- r00fus 9y ago
  That's my big concern as well. Hidden trigger phrases and self-incrimination issues (i.e., valid trigger phrase + sending potentially incriminating speech) - either separately (or worse, combined) are something I'd rather not worry about in my own home.
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    I'm surprised we haven't seen any warrants from police/FBI that would require wire tapping using one of these devices.
    - CharlesW 9y ago
      https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/prosecutors-get-warrant-amazon-echo-data-arkansas-murder-case-n700776 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/prosecutors-get-warran...
    - marnett 9y ago
      Not for wire tapping, but just in case you weren't aware, there was a case where law enforcement wanted all recordings from an Alexa in a homicide case[1] https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-bentonville-arkansas-murder-case/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-benton...
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      http://5newsonline.com/2016/12/28/bentonville-police-use-smart-water-meters-as-evidence-in-murder-investigation/ http://5newsonline.com/2016/12/28/bentonville-police-use-sma...
  - crankylinuxuser 9y ago
    I've played around with microphone arrays with a Kinect and http://hark.jp http://hark.jp and it's amazing what you can do even with 4 microphones. ----------------- I can figure out where people are talking spatially. I can figure out how people are moving around when speaking. I can voiceprint people. I can cancel voices individually, or mute all noise past a certain distance from the center of the mic array. I can 3d map rooms by recording over time how people talk and how they move. I can connect multiple nodes together to create wider areas of coverage of above. I can convert all sounds to text if appropriate. I can send tiny messages that include voiceprint, position, and content. I can tell how many people are in your house at any one time. I can tell if you have friends over, and when. If they have similar system, can collaborate backend data across all of above ------------ So yeah, there's plenty of things people aren't thinking of. I doubt they even have the experience to know how possible it is with open source tooling and cheap hardware. But all of these things are possible, and my guess is being done. The distinction with phones is hard. Apple has stayed within the "we support privacy" aspect. And with things like limeSDR being cheap and common, wouldn't be as hard to attack and prove. Android is tricky, but with some of the anti-crapware systems and basebuild efforts going on, can be considered possibly trustworthy (if edited). And in general, phones move a lot. Amazon tunacan/tomatocan doesn't. Just add a $1 accelerometer, and detection of movement is trivial. Phones can have this, but doing the above would be a magnitude harder.
- Digital-Citizen 9y ago
  You have good reason not to trust it or any device like it; proprietary software (which is always untrustworthy) + mic and/or camera + Internet connection equals spy device that doesn't respect your software freedom, pure and simple. You deserve to have as much control over your computers as you wish and no device like that will respect your privacy. The alleged convenience is highly overrated (everyone who has one has lived most of their lives without one and apparently been able to do just fine without) and, more importantly than any alleged convenience, not a good trade-off in light of paying with your freedom and privacy. But the same can be said of the tracker devices residing in many pockets. Some call it a cell phone or mobile phone, but its primary job and the job it does most of the time is to geolocate or track itself. And a tracker's mic has no indicator when it's listening, or a way for the user to vet the captured data, or control where the captured data goes. Those trackers that also have cameras are even worse in this regard. And they all run non-free, user-subjugating, proprietary software. So none of them respect a user's software freedom or privacy. I suspect that those with user-unmodifiable batteries aren't truly ever off except for when all of the batteries run down. But most users never turn their trackers off anyhow, so that's a bit of a moot point. What other freedoms can proprietors convince you to do away with in exchange for some minor convenience or possibly a little innumerate fear-baiting (such as "you'll want this tracker in the case of an emergency!").
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- secabeen 9y ago
  We don't know what alexa is listening to, but we do know that the data it transmits to the cloud is roughly proportional to the amount of time that you are talking to it. https://www.iot-tests.org/2017/06/careless-whisper-does-amazon-echo-send-data-in-silent-mode/ https://www.iot-tests.org/2017/06/careless-whisper-does-amaz...
snowwolf 9y ago
I've been thinking about this recently. I have multiple Echo's in the house with really good microphones, as well as smart smoke alarms with farsight[0] which senses motion. This could be turned into a pretty sophisticated home security system that could alert you when sleeping (wakes up the Echo in your bedroom) or out (notify you via the app) when suspicious activity occurs - like the window glass breaking example, or motion is detected when everyone has gone to bed or are out of the house. With machine learning/AI systems these could potentially be more accurate than traditional home security systems. [0] - https://nest.com/uk/support/article/What-is-Farsight https://nest.com/uk/support/article/What-is-Farsight
- EADGBE 9y ago
  That page makes it seem like only the Thermostat has Farsight. You mention smoke alarms. I do know that my Nest Protects (smoke alarms) have motion detection though. Very handy nightlight in the middle of the night. Though if tied into the sole source of an alarm system I know it'd be a problem because my dogs can activate the nightlights in the Protects. Pets really make home security hard, I'd bet.
- tomcam 9y ago
  I don’t understand why this was downvoted
nfoz 9y ago
I was in a small group of people having an intimate (private) conversation in a church. Out of nowhere we were interrupted by a Windows computer sitting in a cabinet, connected to the booming AV system: "I'm sorry, I didn't get that. I'm sorry, I didn't catch that." I hate these things.
- EADGBE 9y ago
  Was this Cortana, or Alexa?
  - nfoz 9y ago
    Cortana, didn't mean to conflate it with Alexa -- more the product category as a whole and its (presumably) unintended consequences.
- JoshMnem 9y ago
  I'm still baffled why anyone would put those voice-activated devices in their houses. Smartphones are bad enough, and I'm hoping to get rid of mine soon.
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    Same here. I told my roommate/landlord I'd be totally against a Alexa/Google/Siri mic/speaker in the house. I see so many people in tech who have them that it's scary. I've thought about making my own open source version using something like Jarvis.
    - scotu 9y ago
      have you heard of https://mycroft.ai/ https://mycroft.ai/ ? Opinion?
      - Vendan 9y ago
        It still (by default) uses cloud STT, and there's no good local STT that's anywhere near simple to set up. It's hardly any better.
blacksmith_tb 9y ago
I have been waiting for some kind of audio fingerprinting for security systems for years. Though personally I'd prefer a training model which would also let you teach the device other sounds (like "this beeping means the stove is on"), I'd rather be able to set up notifications for those, but even having my phone tell me "I heard breaking glass at home" is a start. Otherwise I don't see much here that is new, presumably there's still no voice recognition on the non-wake-word speech (it's just noticing there are people around, talking to each other, or that you talk to yourself, your pet, etc).
dynofuz 9y ago
i think the article misses some details. from what i understand, here's how alexa operates in the superbowl ad context: - ad plays on tv - alexa hears its name - alexa sees that name contains the digital fingerprint - (maybe alexa sends this to amzn servers so they know how may people r watching the sb & have alexa on) - alexa stops listening for additional commands therefore alexa is still only listening for its name
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  You missed a few points. In order for "alexa hears its name" to work, Alexa needs to be able to hear sounds and actively process them.
  - wvenable 9y ago
    The echo has a separate processor that listens for the wake word; when it hears the wake word it fires up the main processor to start doing the actual audio processing. Some simple commands are processed directly on the Echo without going to Amazon's servers but the rest are sent over the Internet to be processed.
    - ajvpot 9y ago
      From my experience reverse engineering the first generation Echo, there was no coprocessor. However, wake word detection was done offline. There was a software controlled hardware switch to disconnect the microphone when it was muted.
      - wvenable 9y ago
        I don't know how accurate this is but this what I found on how the Echo works: " Echo is built on Texas Instruments DM3725 Digital Media Processor. This TI SoC has two key pieces inside, first is ARM Cortex-A8 MPU, and the second one is TMS320DM64x+ DSP. The ARM core should be running Linux and the DSP is running firmware. When idling, the ARM core is taken to lowest possible power state and Linux is completely suspended. At this time the DSP and 64KB On-Chip RAM are active. The DSP firmware processes noise coming in from the mics and attempts to identify if a keyword (e.g., Alexa) is spoken. As soon as it identifies there's a keyword, DSP sends an interrupt to wake up the ARM core which in turn resumes Linux. "
almiron10 9y ago
I unplug it when I don't want to listen to music or put together a shopping list. Also, I wouldn't have one if it wasn't given as a gift. I can't believe these are even for sale. They are clearly not ready for consumers. Nearly 90% of the commands I try to give result in Alexa not knowing or misunderstanding. Why should anyone pay to beta-test the product?
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  > I unplug it when I don't want to listen to music or put together a shopping list. Do the Echo devices not have a hard mute switch? I have a Google Home mini and it's usually on mute unless we want it for the same reasons, or to play trivia. It is muted for weeks at a time, sometimes. Of course I wonder how much of a hard mute it is. If you touch the thing while it's on and muted it will kindly remind you it's muted and can't hear you. It would be nice to gain more insight.
  - wickawic 9y ago
    Yes, you can mute an echo and it will glow red.
    - tostitos1979 9y ago
      No programmatic interface to do it as far as I know.
      - jaclaz 9y ago
        Sort of: https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2273 https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2273
- 3pt14159 9y ago
  Security minded people should install more physical switches to outlets for this type of thing.
  - 9y ago
daodedickinson 9y ago
In the community I live in, we think people have gone insane by marketing or technophilia if they allow one of these in their home and we are trying to back away from cell phones.
- NoImAnIdiot 9y ago
  what's it like being Amish?
- wickawic 9y ago
  What community is this?
- marnett 9y ago
  where are you living?
WalterBright 9y ago
Alexa should come with a physical switch on the top of it to turn the mike on/off. Not a software switch. It should also have an LED that glows when the mike is on. If it had that, I'd buy one.
- shogun21 9y ago
  Would you still trust that it's off when it says that it's off?
  - pmiller2 9y ago
    If you could open the case and verify that the switch does what it's supposed to do, why not?
    - WalterBright 9y ago
      Yup. That's the point of a physical switch.
      - craftyguy 9y ago
        Since the board schematic is presumably proprietary, and the board could be multi-layered, you'd have to do some fairly destructive investigating in order to confirm that the switch is actually doing what it says it is doing.
        drdaeman 9y ago
        Not as long as it cuts the wire that breaks all connections between board and the microphone(s) (and board is somehow audited to not contain any extra microphones or otherwise sound-sensitive components). <tinfoil hat on>But this is only as long as you actually can verify or trust that the switch is actually a switch and not a device that pretends to be one. A transparent casing where one can visibly confirm the actuator operation is a good idea.</tinfoil hat off>
paxy 9y ago
According to the article, "can" = has the capability to. Isn't that obvious though? Any internet connected device with a microphone has the capability to always listen to what you say. Whether they choose to or not is up to the manufacturer, and you're placing your trust in them. And it's funny to me that people freak out about smart speakers when your cellphone is within listening distance of you all the time.
- woodrowbarlow 9y ago
  according to security principles, "can" = we must assume that it will or has been, given the proper motivation. the iphone has a low-power asic whose sole purpose is to listen for "hey siri" with relaxed confidence intervals. the real voice processing isn't done until the main cpu is woken by this asic. because of this, we can identify discrete modes of operation in the iphone, one of which is incapable of doing arbitrary "spying". based on the article, it sounds like the alexa doesn't have this affordance. while unsurprising in this case, i don't think we must accept that anything with an internet-connected microphone has the capability to always listen to what you say.
  - paxy 9y ago
    Alexa and all other "always-listening" devices do have the standard on-chip processing mechanism. The article is about how the trigger can be expanded from a single word to a broader range of sounds.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - DSMan195276 9y ago
    I'm not sure the distinction is as notable as you're making it. The iPhone as you describe it is perfectly capable of listening to everything you say, it just has to never release control of the mic to the low-power ASIC. I'm also not sure the article actually indicates what you're saying, it's kind-of vague. For example, it never states that anybody was able to actually program Alexa with a new wake-word, just the possibility of being able to create different signatures that could be used as wake-words. And the description of how they prevent things like the superbowl ad could all be done after Alexa detects the wake-word wakes up the main processor, but before Alexa actually responds to the user. I don't see anything in the article that indicates Alexa can't be using a separate chip dedicated to listening to the wake-word. To that end, not to long ago a Reddit user claimed that Alexa did have two separate modes it operated in [0]. Which, it is entirely possible they could be lying, but you could always just open the thing up and take a look. But even if it does have a separate chip my previous point about the iPhone still applies, so besides power-usage I don't think it is extremely notable. [0] https://np.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/7m91u9/if_google_devices_only_start_listening_once_you/drsdxe1/?sh=c90d0649&st=JBO70BSD https://np.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/7m91u9/if_go...
throwawazqq 9y ago
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/amazon.jobs-public-documents/1485anav.pdf https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/amazon.jobs-public-docume...
hendersoon 9y ago
My echos answer the TV all the time whenever it hears phonemes remotely similar to Alexa like "electric". Amazon doesn't allow users to set their own arbitrary wake words, which would fix the problem, and the only other two wake words they allow, "Echo" and "Computer" are much more common than Alexa so they're useless. I also have a Google Home and it never, _ever_, answers by accident. "Hey Google" doesn't sound like other phonemes. Simple as that.
- outworlder 9y ago
  Have you gone through voice training? I have not had this problem after that.
  - hendersoon 9y ago
    Yep, doesn't fix it for me.
lerie82 9y ago
The article starts with talking about Alexa but quickly moves into other devices. The writer also assumed that other devices with microphones were just like Alexa, which of course, they are not.
jrcii 9y ago
Anyone who understands the fundamentals of computer security , namely, that there is no such thing, would have to be crazy to have a closed-source always-on computer with a mic controlled by an ad agency (Amazon/Google) in their house.

150 points by teklaperry 9y ago

In the end, we don't know what Alexa is listening to. If we do dead-listing style analysis with teardowns and eeprom dumps, it can only tell us what it was listening to at that time.. and sometimes not even that. How do we know what [.0076162328 3.27617819 91817.111121123 -65.2129] is listening to, especially when combined with complicated neural network weights? We can only check and verify every possible input, and that's effectively infeasible. We chose not to buy these types of devices for our house, because of the great deal of unknowns.

nathanaldensr 9y ago
Exactly. Wouldn't we have to have access to all the relevant source code, both for the devices and the server-side components, to tell what Alexa and other home assistant devices are actually doing and storing?
- eckza 9y ago
  And rolling hashes of every build. And a device to constantly cross-check the hashes. And a device to constantly verify that the cross-checker was working. And a workflow to show diffs of each commit. And time to read through them, grok them, and sandbox-test that they weren't doing anything nasty in an obfuscated way. At the end of the day, you really can't trust anything completely, and the only real solution is to 1) trust Amazon (which doesn't seem like a great bet right now), or 2) don't own one.
  - GhostVII 9y ago
    Or 3) just don't worry about it
    - macintux 9y ago
      Isn't 3 the same as 1?
majormajor 9y ago
I considered the "don't buy" strategy, but I'm not willing to go all the way to the "don't buy a phone" point, where we've got the same situation, which leaves me with little other choices. :|
- baxtr 9y ago
  Siri can be turned off on iPhones. I don’t see how buying a phone gets you in the same situation as buying a device that has a voice-only interface.
  - jasonkostempski 9y ago
    Just because some UI element labeled "Enable Siri" can be toggled doesn't mean it works exactly as you, or even Apple devs, expect it to. And even phones without digital assitant technology can be turned into remote listening devices.
    - majormajor 9y ago
      Yeah, exactly. You can tell the software to disable the feature, but the hardware is still wired up, and it could still be doing everything but the user-facing bits, or a future update could flip that on even if it's not presently doing it. I have an Android phone and I trust Google somewhat less in terms of personal-info-collecting than Amazon. :|
      - jasonkostempski 9y ago
        I have an Android too but I lost all trust in Google when I realized the default keyboard sends my keystrokes to Google by default. And the number of times ive had to re-disable highly undesired defaults after an update is infuriating.
    - baxtr 9y ago
      That is of course correct from a technical perspective, but not from a trust perspective. I can’t remember that Apple has done anything like that on purpose. Sure, devs get wild, people hack, but I’d never expect them to do this systematically. With amazon, I’m not so sure. But maybe that’s just me
r00fus 9y ago
That's my big concern as well. Hidden trigger phrases and self-incrimination issues (i.e., valid trigger phrase + sending potentially incriminating speech) - either separately (or worse, combined) are something I'd rather not worry about in my own home.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  I'm surprised we haven't seen any warrants from police/FBI that would require wire tapping using one of these devices.
  - CharlesW 9y ago
    https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/prosecutors-get-warrant-amazon-echo-data-arkansas-murder-case-n700776 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/prosecutors-get-warran...
  - marnett 9y ago
    Not for wire tapping, but just in case you weren't aware, there was a case where law enforcement wanted all recordings from an Alexa in a homicide case[1] https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-bentonville-arkansas-murder-case/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-benton...
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    http://5newsonline.com/2016/12/28/bentonville-police-use-smart-water-meters-as-evidence-in-murder-investigation/ http://5newsonline.com/2016/12/28/bentonville-police-use-sma...
- crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  I've played around with microphone arrays with a Kinect and http://hark.jp http://hark.jp and it's amazing what you can do even with 4 microphones. ----------------- I can figure out where people are talking spatially. I can figure out how people are moving around when speaking. I can voiceprint people. I can cancel voices individually, or mute all noise past a certain distance from the center of the mic array. I can 3d map rooms by recording over time how people talk and how they move. I can connect multiple nodes together to create wider areas of coverage of above. I can convert all sounds to text if appropriate. I can send tiny messages that include voiceprint, position, and content. I can tell how many people are in your house at any one time. I can tell if you have friends over, and when. If they have similar system, can collaborate backend data across all of above ------------ So yeah, there's plenty of things people aren't thinking of. I doubt they even have the experience to know how possible it is with open source tooling and cheap hardware. But all of these things are possible, and my guess is being done. The distinction with phones is hard. Apple has stayed within the "we support privacy" aspect. And with things like limeSDR being cheap and common, wouldn't be as hard to attack and prove. Android is tricky, but with some of the anti-crapware systems and basebuild efforts going on, can be considered possibly trustworthy (if edited). And in general, phones move a lot. Amazon tunacan/tomatocan doesn't. Just add a $1 accelerometer, and detection of movement is trivial. Phones can have this, but doing the above would be a magnitude harder.
Digital-Citizen 9y ago
You have good reason not to trust it or any device like it; proprietary software (which is always untrustworthy) + mic and/or camera + Internet connection equals spy device that doesn't respect your software freedom, pure and simple. You deserve to have as much control over your computers as you wish and no device like that will respect your privacy. The alleged convenience is highly overrated (everyone who has one has lived most of their lives without one and apparently been able to do just fine without) and, more importantly than any alleged convenience, not a good trade-off in light of paying with your freedom and privacy. But the same can be said of the tracker devices residing in many pockets. Some call it a cell phone or mobile phone, but its primary job and the job it does most of the time is to geolocate or track itself. And a tracker's mic has no indicator when it's listening, or a way for the user to vet the captured data, or control where the captured data goes. Those trackers that also have cameras are even worse in this regard. And they all run non-free, user-subjugating, proprietary software. So none of them respect a user's software freedom or privacy. I suspect that those with user-unmodifiable batteries aren't truly ever off except for when all of the batteries run down. But most users never turn their trackers off anyhow, so that's a bit of a moot point. What other freedoms can proprietors convince you to do away with in exchange for some minor convenience or possibly a little innumerate fear-baiting (such as "you'll want this tracker in the case of an emergency!").
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
secabeen 9y ago
We don't know what alexa is listening to, but we do know that the data it transmits to the cloud is roughly proportional to the amount of time that you are talking to it. https://www.iot-tests.org/2017/06/careless-whisper-does-amazon-echo-send-data-in-silent-mode/ https://www.iot-tests.org/2017/06/careless-whisper-does-amaz...

snowwolf 9y ago

I've been thinking about this recently. I have multiple Echo's in the house with really good microphones, as well as smart smoke alarms with farsight[0] which senses motion. This could be turned into a pretty sophisticated home security system that could alert you when sleeping (wakes up the Echo in your bedroom) or out (notify you via the app) when suspicious activity occurs - like the window glass breaking example, or motion is detected when everyone has gone to bed or are out of the house. With machine learning/AI systems these could potentially be more accurate than traditional home security systems. [0] - https://nest.com/uk/support/article/What-is-Farsight https://nest.com/uk/support/article/What-is-Farsight

EADGBE 9y ago
That page makes it seem like only the Thermostat has Farsight. You mention smoke alarms. I do know that my Nest Protects (smoke alarms) have motion detection though. Very handy nightlight in the middle of the night. Though if tied into the sole source of an alarm system I know it'd be a problem because my dogs can activate the nightlights in the Protects. Pets really make home security hard, I'd bet.
tomcam 9y ago
I don’t understand why this was downvoted

nfoz 9y ago

I was in a small group of people having an intimate (private) conversation in a church. Out of nowhere we were interrupted by a Windows computer sitting in a cabinet, connected to the booming AV system: "I'm sorry, I didn't get that. I'm sorry, I didn't catch that." I hate these things.

EADGBE 9y ago
Was this Cortana, or Alexa?
- nfoz 9y ago
  Cortana, didn't mean to conflate it with Alexa -- more the product category as a whole and its (presumably) unintended consequences.
JoshMnem 9y ago
I'm still baffled why anyone would put those voice-activated devices in their houses. Smartphones are bad enough, and I'm hoping to get rid of mine soon.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  Same here. I told my roommate/landlord I'd be totally against a Alexa/Google/Siri mic/speaker in the house. I see so many people in tech who have them that it's scary. I've thought about making my own open source version using something like Jarvis.
  - scotu 9y ago
    have you heard of https://mycroft.ai/ https://mycroft.ai/ ? Opinion?
    - Vendan 9y ago
      It still (by default) uses cloud STT, and there's no good local STT that's anywhere near simple to set up. It's hardly any better.

blacksmith_tb 9y ago

I have been waiting for some kind of audio fingerprinting for security systems for years. Though personally I'd prefer a training model which would also let you teach the device other sounds (like "this beeping means the stove is on"), I'd rather be able to set up notifications for those, but even having my phone tell me "I heard breaking glass at home" is a start. Otherwise I don't see much here that is new, presumably there's still no voice recognition on the non-wake-word speech (it's just noticing there are people around, talking to each other, or that you talk to yourself, your pet, etc).

dynofuz 9y ago

i think the article misses some details. from what i understand, here's how alexa operates in the superbowl ad context: - ad plays on tv - alexa hears its name - alexa sees that name contains the digital fingerprint - (maybe alexa sends this to amzn servers so they know how may people r watching the sb & have alexa on) - alexa stops listening for additional commands therefore alexa is still only listening for its name

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
You missed a few points. In order for "alexa hears its name" to work, Alexa needs to be able to hear sounds and actively process them.
- wvenable 9y ago
  The echo has a separate processor that listens for the wake word; when it hears the wake word it fires up the main processor to start doing the actual audio processing. Some simple commands are processed directly on the Echo without going to Amazon's servers but the rest are sent over the Internet to be processed.
  - ajvpot 9y ago
    From my experience reverse engineering the first generation Echo, there was no coprocessor. However, wake word detection was done offline. There was a software controlled hardware switch to disconnect the microphone when it was muted.
    - wvenable 9y ago
      I don't know how accurate this is but this what I found on how the Echo works: " Echo is built on Texas Instruments DM3725 Digital Media Processor. This TI SoC has two key pieces inside, first is ARM Cortex-A8 MPU, and the second one is TMS320DM64x+ DSP. The ARM core should be running Linux and the DSP is running firmware. When idling, the ARM core is taken to lowest possible power state and Linux is completely suspended. At this time the DSP and 64KB On-Chip RAM are active. The DSP firmware processes noise coming in from the mics and attempts to identify if a keyword (e.g., Alexa) is spoken. As soon as it identifies there's a keyword, DSP sends an interrupt to wake up the ARM core which in turn resumes Linux. "

almiron10 9y ago

I unplug it when I don't want to listen to music or put together a shopping list. Also, I wouldn't have one if it wasn't given as a gift. I can't believe these are even for sale. They are clearly not ready for consumers. Nearly 90% of the commands I try to give result in Alexa not knowing or misunderstanding. Why should anyone pay to beta-test the product?

52-6F-62 9y ago
> I unplug it when I don't want to listen to music or put together a shopping list. Do the Echo devices not have a hard mute switch? I have a Google Home mini and it's usually on mute unless we want it for the same reasons, or to play trivia. It is muted for weeks at a time, sometimes. Of course I wonder how much of a hard mute it is. If you touch the thing while it's on and muted it will kindly remind you it's muted and can't hear you. It would be nice to gain more insight.
- wickawic 9y ago
  Yes, you can mute an echo and it will glow red.
  - tostitos1979 9y ago
    No programmatic interface to do it as far as I know.
    - jaclaz 9y ago
      Sort of: https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2273 https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2273
3pt14159 9y ago
Security minded people should install more physical switches to outlets for this type of thing.
- 9y ago

daodedickinson 9y ago

In the community I live in, we think people have gone insane by marketing or technophilia if they allow one of these in their home and we are trying to back away from cell phones.

NoImAnIdiot 9y ago
what's it like being Amish?
wickawic 9y ago
What community is this?
marnett 9y ago
where are you living?

WalterBright 9y ago

Alexa should come with a physical switch on the top of it to turn the mike on/off. Not a software switch. It should also have an LED that glows when the mike is on. If it had that, I'd buy one.

shogun21 9y ago
Would you still trust that it's off when it says that it's off?
- pmiller2 9y ago
  If you could open the case and verify that the switch does what it's supposed to do, why not?
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    Yup. That's the point of a physical switch.
    - craftyguy 9y ago
      Since the board schematic is presumably proprietary, and the board could be multi-layered, you'd have to do some fairly destructive investigating in order to confirm that the switch is actually doing what it says it is doing.
      - drdaeman 9y ago
        Not as long as it cuts the wire that breaks all connections between board and the microphone(s) (and board is somehow audited to not contain any extra microphones or otherwise sound-sensitive components). <tinfoil hat on>But this is only as long as you actually can verify or trust that the switch is actually a switch and not a device that pretends to be one. A transparent casing where one can visibly confirm the actuator operation is a good idea.</tinfoil hat off>

paxy 9y ago

According to the article, "can" = has the capability to. Isn't that obvious though? Any internet connected device with a microphone has the capability to always listen to what you say. Whether they choose to or not is up to the manufacturer, and you're placing your trust in them. And it's funny to me that people freak out about smart speakers when your cellphone is within listening distance of you all the time.

woodrowbarlow 9y ago
according to security principles, "can" = we must assume that it will or has been, given the proper motivation. the iphone has a low-power asic whose sole purpose is to listen for "hey siri" with relaxed confidence intervals. the real voice processing isn't done until the main cpu is woken by this asic. because of this, we can identify discrete modes of operation in the iphone, one of which is incapable of doing arbitrary "spying". based on the article, it sounds like the alexa doesn't have this affordance. while unsurprising in this case, i don't think we must accept that anything with an internet-connected microphone has the capability to always listen to what you say.
- paxy 9y ago
  Alexa and all other "always-listening" devices do have the standard on-chip processing mechanism. The article is about how the trigger can be expanded from a single word to a broader range of sounds.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- DSMan195276 9y ago
  I'm not sure the distinction is as notable as you're making it. The iPhone as you describe it is perfectly capable of listening to everything you say, it just has to never release control of the mic to the low-power ASIC. I'm also not sure the article actually indicates what you're saying, it's kind-of vague. For example, it never states that anybody was able to actually program Alexa with a new wake-word, just the possibility of being able to create different signatures that could be used as wake-words. And the description of how they prevent things like the superbowl ad could all be done after Alexa detects the wake-word wakes up the main processor, but before Alexa actually responds to the user. I don't see anything in the article that indicates Alexa can't be using a separate chip dedicated to listening to the wake-word. To that end, not to long ago a Reddit user claimed that Alexa did have two separate modes it operated in [0]. Which, it is entirely possible they could be lying, but you could always just open the thing up and take a look. But even if it does have a separate chip my previous point about the iPhone still applies, so besides power-usage I don't think it is extremely notable. [0] https://np.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/7m91u9/if_google_devices_only_start_listening_once_you/drsdxe1/?sh=c90d0649&st=JBO70BSD https://np.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/7m91u9/if_go...

throwawazqq 9y ago

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/amazon.jobs-public-documents/1485anav.pdf https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/amazon.jobs-public-docume...

hendersoon 9y ago

My echos answer the TV all the time whenever it hears phonemes remotely similar to Alexa like "electric". Amazon doesn't allow users to set their own arbitrary wake words, which would fix the problem, and the only other two wake words they allow, "Echo" and "Computer" are much more common than Alexa so they're useless. I also have a Google Home and it never, _ever_, answers by accident. "Hey Google" doesn't sound like other phonemes. Simple as that.

outworlder 9y ago
Have you gone through voice training? I have not had this problem after that.
- hendersoon 9y ago
  Yep, doesn't fix it for me.

lerie82 9y ago

The article starts with talking about Alexa but quickly moves into other devices. The writer also assumed that other devices with microphones were just like Alexa, which of course, they are not.

jrcii 9y ago

Anyone who understands the fundamentals of computer security , namely, that there is no such thing, would have to be crazy to have a closed-source always-on computer with a mic controlled by an ad agency (Amazon/Google) in their house.