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It transmits everything after the wake word. My example of the Echo being used to monitor the political education of children is very plausible. It depends on a

It transmits everything after the wake word. My example of the Echo being used to monitor the political education of children is very plausible. It depends on a child using the wake word and asking the Echo an innocent question without understanding the broader implications, e.g., that something bad can happen if you let some big powerful group know that you're asking questions that they don't want people to ask. Last I checked, the Echo had 3 potential wake words: "Alexa", "Echo", and "Amazon". I don't use "Alexa" because I knew a kid named Alexa growing up and I didn't like her. I don't want to remember her every time I talk to the machine. I use "Echo" but when I'm listening to audiobooks or podcasts and the word "Echo" comes up, the thing activates, and maybe I _don't want_ Amazon to know what podcasts or books I listen to. It also happens on words that sound kinda-sorta like "Echo". Random "accidental" invocation and the loss of control over the listener then becomes a real thing, especially with a wake word like "Amazon". All they'd have to do is say "We've found 'Amazon' is the best wake word and 90% of our people use it so it's the default now", and suddenly, they'd be hearing a lot of casual conversations and opinions about what people think of this 'Amazon'. Now imagine that this really does become a tool for political oppression and they add a few "silent wake words" that don't make the ring light up. I have 3 Echos. My kids ask it questions all the time. If I were to teach my children some politically incorrect belief or some religious tenet that counters the dominant religious tenets of the day, and they ask the Echo for more information about it, someone at Amazon may hear that, and a computer at Amazon would certainly process and analyze it. Some day, the result of that analysis may be flagging for further investigation or addition to dissident watchlists. They may even apply this to archived recordings, all of which you yourself can play back (for now). Imagine someone from the other side of the aisle guessed $Prominent_Politician's Amazon password. What would happen if there was a voice recording of that politician asking something that doesn't look so good? Would the attacker just say "Oh boy I better not share this, that wouldn't be very nice?" In this age when people like Jo Cox and Steve Scalise are targeted by radical citizen-assassins, how can we pretend there is no risk? How can we pretend like this data is somehow intrinsically impregnable to technically sophisticated political extremists? And what happens when a demagogue mainstreams that extremist perspective, and writes laws that require Google or Amazon to submit these recordings for the good of the people? I'm not trying to be alarmist, and I obviously think that the tradeoff is not horrible right now since I have 3 of these spy devices (and a Nest cam), but we have to understand that these are real things, real possibilities. It is very naive to presume that this couldn't or wouldn't happen (or even that it doesn't on some scale -- I'm sure a subpoena or NSL could get this data).

dpark 9y ago
> My example of the Echo being used to monitor the political education of children is very plausible. “Plausible” does not mean “not literally impossible”. It means something is reasonably possible. Your scenario is not reasonably possible. It is exceedingly unlikely. It is possible, perhaps plausible, that the government could tap the echo data feed, but that’s really a much different scenario than the active monitoring of children’s political education that you imagine. You clearly don’t believe in the plausibility of these scenarios or you would not have three Echos in your house.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  >“Plausible” does not mean “not literally impossible”. It means something is reasonably possible. Your scenario is not reasonably possible. It is exceedingly unlikely. "Plausible" means it reasonably could happen, yes. It doesn't necessarily have to mean that it's expected to happen in the immediate term (unless that's the pre-existing context to the discussion). I don't believe conditions are such that it will happen right now. But that doesn't put it into the realm of mere theory, the things that make you say "I mean, sure, that's possible" behind rolling eyes. Given the correct political conditions, I would venture that these eventualities are not just plausible, but downright expected. Maybe not the black bag, but certainly monitoring, penalization, enforced re-education (which portends black bagging). >You clearly don’t believe in the plausibility of these scenarios or you would not have three Echos in your house. Most of us do a lot of things that we know we really shouldn't do out of convenience, habit, etc. I don't think it's likely that I'd get picked up for anything that my kids end up telling my Echo, at least not at this juncture, which is why I still have them. If my religious or political beliefs were more fringe, or if the ground continues to crumble such that they become fringe by virtue of the cliff of acceptable discourse growing ever-shorter, then I would certainly consider it unsafe to let the children have access to the Echo. We monitor it now, but it's in a place where they can talk to it if they want. Wouldn't be that way if I thought we had something to worry about. It's true that the archived recordings could also be used against us, but I think that we're moderate enough that there'd be too many other more worrisome targets to pursue first. Of course, you never really know. Should things get this way, I would probably still keep one of the listeners hooked up in some room that is rarely used for conversation and feed it information that the bosses would be happy about. Maybe I would say "Echo, please tell me about all of Jeff Bezos's accomplishments." In a more realistic climate where Bezos doesn't cross over into overt dictatorship, it may be smart to do this alternately with various political figures, so that I can cherry-pick proof of early admiration for whichever political figure wins and implements the dystopian future. This would be much smarter than just unplugging the device and having the line go dead, especially if they correlate the date the feed went dead with a specific political event.

dpark 9y ago

> My example of the Echo being used to monitor the political education of children is very plausible. “Plausible” does not mean “not literally impossible”. It means something is reasonably possible. Your scenario is not reasonably possible. It is exceedingly unlikely. It is possible, perhaps plausible, that the government could tap the echo data feed, but that’s really a much different scenario than the active monitoring of children’s political education that you imagine. You clearly don’t believe in the plausibility of these scenarios or you would not have three Echos in your house.

cookiecaper 9y ago
>“Plausible” does not mean “not literally impossible”. It means something is reasonably possible. Your scenario is not reasonably possible. It is exceedingly unlikely. "Plausible" means it reasonably could happen, yes. It doesn't necessarily have to mean that it's expected to happen in the immediate term (unless that's the pre-existing context to the discussion). I don't believe conditions are such that it will happen right now. But that doesn't put it into the realm of mere theory, the things that make you say "I mean, sure, that's possible" behind rolling eyes. Given the correct political conditions, I would venture that these eventualities are not just plausible, but downright expected. Maybe not the black bag, but certainly monitoring, penalization, enforced re-education (which portends black bagging). >You clearly don’t believe in the plausibility of these scenarios or you would not have three Echos in your house. Most of us do a lot of things that we know we really shouldn't do out of convenience, habit, etc. I don't think it's likely that I'd get picked up for anything that my kids end up telling my Echo, at least not at this juncture, which is why I still have them. If my religious or political beliefs were more fringe, or if the ground continues to crumble such that they become fringe by virtue of the cliff of acceptable discourse growing ever-shorter, then I would certainly consider it unsafe to let the children have access to the Echo. We monitor it now, but it's in a place where they can talk to it if they want. Wouldn't be that way if I thought we had something to worry about. It's true that the archived recordings could also be used against us, but I think that we're moderate enough that there'd be too many other more worrisome targets to pursue first. Of course, you never really know. Should things get this way, I would probably still keep one of the listeners hooked up in some room that is rarely used for conversation and feed it information that the bosses would be happy about. Maybe I would say "Echo, please tell me about all of Jeff Bezos's accomplishments." In a more realistic climate where Bezos doesn't cross over into overt dictatorship, it may be smart to do this alternately with various political figures, so that I can cherry-pick proof of early admiration for whichever political figure wins and implements the dystopian future. This would be much smarter than just unplugging the device and having the line go dead, especially if they correlate the date the feed went dead with a specific political event.