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You've just persuasively reworded "both my phone and my echo are currently configured to not spy on me and the vendor assures me of this" At the base of the cl

You've just persuasively reworded "both my phone and my echo are currently configured to not spy on me and the vendor assures me of this" At the base of the claim that Amazon is listening to what your echo can hear is the assumption that they're lying, and at the base of the claim that your iphone isn't listening to you is the assumption that Apple is not.

ryandrake 8y ago
Are you saying there is an equal probability that an iPhone is recording everything and that an Echo is recording everything? Just because the two things might be happening doesn’t mean they are equally likely.
- menacingly 8y ago
  I think you're responding to the point you want me to be making instead of the one I am. I'm saying they're both very capable, switched-off spy devices, without assigning a trust metric to any provider. Personally, I wouldn't put it past either company to massively violate my trust if the incentive stars aligned just right, and I think it's silly to pretend otherwise. The problems of putting a surveillance device in your home and carrying one in your pocket are roughly equivalent, and the rest is a debate about which huge collection of people with a wide array of beliefs and ethics is gooder
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    I think we can agree that the problems are similar but the risk is very different. Just like plane crashes and car crashes have similar problems but different probabilities/risk.
    - menacingly 8y ago
      That's reasonable. Amazon may decide on its own before Apple, their motives are closer today, but I think it's unlikely for either. It'd have to be one hell of a prize to risk what they'd be risking. A more likely path is law enforcement's habit of putting them in the PR hell of "we could have saved Little Tiny Baby X if these companies weren't so hell bent on protecting perverts and terrorists". Once you have the device, it's only a matter of someone making a sympathetic enough public case that they need access to it. On that front, I think Apple is taking more proactive steps to keep themselves out of the situation, I'm just not sure it's possible to avoid it completely.

ryandrake 8y ago

Are you saying there is an equal probability that an iPhone is recording everything and that an Echo is recording everything? Just because the two things might be happening doesn’t mean they are equally likely.

menacingly 8y ago
I think you're responding to the point you want me to be making instead of the one I am. I'm saying they're both very capable, switched-off spy devices, without assigning a trust metric to any provider. Personally, I wouldn't put it past either company to massively violate my trust if the incentive stars aligned just right, and I think it's silly to pretend otherwise. The problems of putting a surveillance device in your home and carrying one in your pocket are roughly equivalent, and the rest is a debate about which huge collection of people with a wide array of beliefs and ethics is gooder
- ryandrake 8y ago
  I think we can agree that the problems are similar but the risk is very different. Just like plane crashes and car crashes have similar problems but different probabilities/risk.
  - menacingly 8y ago
    That's reasonable. Amazon may decide on its own before Apple, their motives are closer today, but I think it's unlikely for either. It'd have to be one hell of a prize to risk what they'd be risking. A more likely path is law enforcement's habit of putting them in the PR hell of "we could have saved Little Tiny Baby X if these companies weren't so hell bent on protecting perverts and terrorists". Once you have the device, it's only a matter of someone making a sympathetic enough public case that they need access to it. On that front, I think Apple is taking more proactive steps to keep themselves out of the situation, I'm just not sure it's possible to avoid it completely.