5 ms·

The things people are willing to give up for the most minimal of conveniences are only going to get worse in the next decade. I wouldn't be willing to put an o

The things people are willing to give up for the most minimal of conveniences are only going to get worse in the next decade. I wouldn't be willing to put an open wiretap in my home, even if it did something amazing, like extend my lifespan. The quality of my life is not significantly improved with these devices, and all of their practical uses can be duplicated with the minimal effort of tapping a screen a couple of times.

SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
I'm seriously shocked by the number of people that are putting always on "assistants" in their home - but more so on the number of people that should know better, like HN people.
- amelius 9y ago
  Even if you know better and act like it, you're still going to be monitored while visiting friends.
- _rpd 9y ago
  One of my friends has one of these because she likes the way it helps her build a grocery shopping list over the week. She once thought of herself as a privacy activist, and is fully conscious of the hypocrisy. It really made me think twice about how small the convenience has to be for someone to compromise their privacy.
- criddell 9y ago
  What's shocking about it? For just the Echo, Amazon claims to have sold 20 million devices so they are probably in at least 10 million homes. How many of the people that buy an Echo have been harmed so far? I have an Echo and use it daily for music, weather, timers, home automation (ie controlling lights and fans), etc... I also drive a car almost every day and that has a relatively high probability of killing me. Compared to that, having an Echo in my house seems somewhat harmless.
  - StanislavPetrov 9y ago
    >How many of the people that buy an Echo have been harmed so far? That entirely depends on your definition of "harm". Those of us who see intrinsic value in privacy would be grievously harmed.
    - criddell 9y ago
      I think the definition of harm has to include some negative consequence. Otherwise you could just say "those of us that are offended by the color blue are grievously harmed every time the Echo is activated". Even if we accept that sharing anything private is harm, I'm guessing most purchasers of the Echo understand that the device uses the internet to answer queries. How are those foolish people being harmed?
    - ConceptJunkie 9y ago
      I don't think there's any way to tell if there has been concrete harm, which is the biggest problem. You can't trust the platform.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    When the German government started gathering data about religion of its citizens, way before WW2, how many people were harmed by filling out that one field on the form? Zero. No one was harmed by the collection of that data. Except that then WW2 arrived and this data was used to exterminate entire communities. In my own country(Poland) the secret police used to gather all data on people and do nothing with it - until you gave them a reason to, then they had entire archives of recorded conversations, intercepted letters, logs of visits and journeys, ready to be browsed in search for anything that could be used against you.
- Johnny555 9y ago
  As a previous commenter said -- why are you not similarly shocked by the number of HN users that carry a remote recording (audio + video) device + GPS tracker in their pocket? Why should I be less concerned about a mobile device that waits for me to say "Ok Google" or "Siri" than a stationary device that waits for me to say "Alexa"?
  - crpatino 9y ago
    You shouldn't. However, putting ubiquitous extra devices around your home prevents you from isolating the part of your life you want private from the rest. i.e. We have a policy at home, all devices remain downstairs. My phone is further isolated by being, when not in active use, either in the bottom of a bag or in a drawer in my desk. GPS is turned off most of the time, again, unless being actively use by an app that I am in the middle of using. I am aware that this is not enough under the assumption we are dealing with agresive adversaries that are out to get me, but my line of defense there happens to be to live an ordinary, boring life. The strategy above is an uncomfortable compromise to not give the keys of the kingdom right away, but also being able to benefit from modern conveniences (and no, I do not use my smartphone for every not-physiological action I perform during my day to day).
cptskippy 9y ago
> I wouldn't be willing to put an open wiretap in my home... all of their practical uses can be duplicated with the minimal effort of tapping a screen a couple of times. I've never understood this argument. Why is the portable wiretap in your pocket inherently safer?
- fortythirteen 9y ago
  Not safer, but not there is a key difference. If I turn off voice assistant on my phone, ethically speaking, it shouldn't be recording my voice. Companies/governments doing so is an actual wire tap, and they should have a warrant. Putting these devices in your home is giving Amazon/Google/Apple permission to record your every conversation.
  - whoisjuan 9y ago
    That's not true. Those devices are designed on the same ethical grounds you claimed for the phone case. They're only supposed to listen after you invoke them. Regardless if this is true or not, a phone is millions of times more dangerous for privacy if it's being used to record you and track you.
    - fortythirteen 9y ago
      > They're only supposed to listen after you invoke them. How can a device that is only activated by listening not always be listening? If I turn off Siri on my phone the microphone is supposed to go off. Edit: I know about the wake word. It was a statement on the quote that a device that only works on voice wouldn't be "listening".
      - lazerwalker 9y ago
        Wake word detection (listening for a specific phrase, such as "Hey Siri") typically happens using a completely different subsystem from active voice recognition, since it's a much more bounded problem that also needs to run with far lower power consumption. (in the case of Siri specifically, Apple actually has a pretty nifty whitepaper: https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/10/01/hey-siri.html https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/10/01/hey-siri.html) That said: right now, common sense would dictate that your phone's battery really can't handle recording full audio at all times, but once that's no longer the case, it does seem problematic that we don't yet have the audio equivalent of putting a piece of tape over your laptop webcam.
spacehome 9y ago
Damn. I would. I probably did anyways by carrying my cell phone with me everywhere. The problem is not understanding the tradeoffs or even not understanding that there's a choice at all.

SlowRobotAhead 9y ago

I'm seriously shocked by the number of people that are putting always on "assistants" in their home - but more so on the number of people that should know better, like HN people.

amelius 9y ago
Even if you know better and act like it, you're still going to be monitored while visiting friends.
_rpd 9y ago
One of my friends has one of these because she likes the way it helps her build a grocery shopping list over the week. She once thought of herself as a privacy activist, and is fully conscious of the hypocrisy. It really made me think twice about how small the convenience has to be for someone to compromise their privacy.
criddell 9y ago
What's shocking about it? For just the Echo, Amazon claims to have sold 20 million devices so they are probably in at least 10 million homes. How many of the people that buy an Echo have been harmed so far? I have an Echo and use it daily for music, weather, timers, home automation (ie controlling lights and fans), etc... I also drive a car almost every day and that has a relatively high probability of killing me. Compared to that, having an Echo in my house seems somewhat harmless.
- StanislavPetrov 9y ago
  >How many of the people that buy an Echo have been harmed so far? That entirely depends on your definition of "harm". Those of us who see intrinsic value in privacy would be grievously harmed.
  - criddell 9y ago
    I think the definition of harm has to include some negative consequence. Otherwise you could just say "those of us that are offended by the color blue are grievously harmed every time the Echo is activated". Even if we accept that sharing anything private is harm, I'm guessing most purchasers of the Echo understand that the device uses the internet to answer queries. How are those foolish people being harmed?
  - ConceptJunkie 9y ago
    I don't think there's any way to tell if there has been concrete harm, which is the biggest problem. You can't trust the platform.
- gambiting 9y ago
  When the German government started gathering data about religion of its citizens, way before WW2, how many people were harmed by filling out that one field on the form? Zero. No one was harmed by the collection of that data. Except that then WW2 arrived and this data was used to exterminate entire communities. In my own country(Poland) the secret police used to gather all data on people and do nothing with it - until you gave them a reason to, then they had entire archives of recorded conversations, intercepted letters, logs of visits and journeys, ready to be browsed in search for anything that could be used against you.
Johnny555 9y ago
As a previous commenter said -- why are you not similarly shocked by the number of HN users that carry a remote recording (audio + video) device + GPS tracker in their pocket? Why should I be less concerned about a mobile device that waits for me to say "Ok Google" or "Siri" than a stationary device that waits for me to say "Alexa"?
- crpatino 9y ago
  You shouldn't. However, putting ubiquitous extra devices around your home prevents you from isolating the part of your life you want private from the rest. i.e. We have a policy at home, all devices remain downstairs. My phone is further isolated by being, when not in active use, either in the bottom of a bag or in a drawer in my desk. GPS is turned off most of the time, again, unless being actively use by an app that I am in the middle of using. I am aware that this is not enough under the assumption we are dealing with agresive adversaries that are out to get me, but my line of defense there happens to be to live an ordinary, boring life. The strategy above is an uncomfortable compromise to not give the keys of the kingdom right away, but also being able to benefit from modern conveniences (and no, I do not use my smartphone for every not-physiological action I perform during my day to day).

cptskippy 9y ago

> I wouldn't be willing to put an open wiretap in my home... all of their practical uses can be duplicated with the minimal effort of tapping a screen a couple of times. I've never understood this argument. Why is the portable wiretap in your pocket inherently safer?

fortythirteen 9y ago
Not safer, but not there is a key difference. If I turn off voice assistant on my phone, ethically speaking, it shouldn't be recording my voice. Companies/governments doing so is an actual wire tap, and they should have a warrant. Putting these devices in your home is giving Amazon/Google/Apple permission to record your every conversation.
- whoisjuan 9y ago
  That's not true. Those devices are designed on the same ethical grounds you claimed for the phone case. They're only supposed to listen after you invoke them. Regardless if this is true or not, a phone is millions of times more dangerous for privacy if it's being used to record you and track you.
  - fortythirteen 9y ago
    > They're only supposed to listen after you invoke them. How can a device that is only activated by listening not always be listening? If I turn off Siri on my phone the microphone is supposed to go off. Edit: I know about the wake word. It was a statement on the quote that a device that only works on voice wouldn't be "listening".
    - lazerwalker 9y ago
      Wake word detection (listening for a specific phrase, such as "Hey Siri") typically happens using a completely different subsystem from active voice recognition, since it's a much more bounded problem that also needs to run with far lower power consumption. (in the case of Siri specifically, Apple actually has a pretty nifty whitepaper: https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/10/01/hey-siri.html https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/10/01/hey-siri.html) That said: right now, common sense would dictate that your phone's battery really can't handle recording full audio at all times, but once that's no longer the case, it does seem problematic that we don't yet have the audio equivalent of putting a piece of tape over your laptop webcam.

spacehome 9y ago

Damn. I would. I probably did anyways by carrying my cell phone with me everywhere. The problem is not understanding the tradeoffs or even not understanding that there's a choice at all.