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I know that this article itself doesn’t have much content but I’m interested in what the police are actually requesting, and what they end up getting. Do they a

by danso 8y ago

I know that this article itself doesn’t have much content but I’m interested in what the police are actually requesting, and what they end up getting. Do they assume/suspect that Echo/Amazon continuously records and logs audio, akin to a security camera? Or do they have evidence that Echo was actually activated around the time of the murders, or afterwards by the suspect himself? I was also interested in this quote: > "I think most people probably don't even realize that Alexa is taking account of what's going on in your house, in addition to responding to your demands and commands," said Albert Scherr, a professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law. What is it that users don’t realize? Anecdotally, just about everyone I know who has refused to have an Echo do so because they believe Echo is doing far more surreptitious surveillance and analysis, i.e. not just listening for the trigger word. Though I’m sure most users don’t realize that when Alexa does trigger, she sends the audio to the Amazon mothership, which are then stored/analyzed for an indefinite time. Though most people don’t realize the most basic things about data, like how when you friend someone on FB, FB actually stores a log of your friends, and any other kind of stated interaction, such as the users you’ve blocked

walrus01 8y ago
> Do they assume/suspect that Echo/Amazon continuously records and logs audio, akin to a security camera? Yes, I think random non-technical homicide detectives might very well assume this. They're fishing for anything they can get, even if it's a 1% chance. Almost certainly the subpoena response from Amazon will be that they are not in possession of a recording.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Is there any suggestion that a system is in place to lie openly and hand over a recording privately? Or is that only for national security cases? If a comment were keeping recordings they weren't allowed to make, and just lied to deny it is there a verification process that could reveal the lie?
nolok 8y ago
I sincerely doubt people don't realise that anything after the trigger is sent home, since a "feature" of alexa is that the app let you see each request you made, how alexa answered, and let them know if she got it wrong. I think it's more a case of "don't care" / "don't realize the risks"
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  People perhaps assume all audio is processed locally and/or isn't stored except ephemerally. I'd imagine there's a default "we store your data for AI training purposes" that would allow them to keep all audio.
  - acpetrov 8y ago
    > People perhaps assume all audio is processed locally and/or isn't stored except ephemerally. Is there info on this from Amazon? I'd assume they do what you mention, have the speech recognition in the Alexa and just send up the words, not the entire audio stream. Interesting implication of that in this case: if the actual audio is gone and you just have the transcription, is that valid as evidence? Or is it something closer to hearsay
    - detaro 8y ago
      It's cloud based. The device recognizes the wake-word offline and starts streaming to the recognition service. You can access a log of recordings through the app, so they are kept at least for a while.
- tjoff 8y ago
  I'd think the absolute vast majority would not have spent any time wondering about that the slightest. And most that do would just assume that the app asked alexa and retrieved a local log. So much of what is collected today completely hinges on the fact that the public doesn't even grasp the feasibility nor the desirability of keeping track of them.
- udkyo 8y ago
ryanlol 8y ago
>Echo is doing far more surreptitious surveillance and analysis, i.e. not just listening for the trigger word This should be trivial to prove.
- jeremyjh 8y ago
  It has been demonstrated that it does not send network traffic apart from requests made to it; e.g. it is not continuously streaming data. Of course that could be changed at any time with a software update that you have no choice about accepting. To prove it is not recording locally could be much more difficult, but there are practical questions there. What media is it recording to, and if the recordings are never sent to the cloud, what is the purpose of keeping them?
  - andrepd 8y ago
    That does not demonstrate anything. It could "buffer" the data it wants to send and only send it after the trigger word is detected, precisely to trick such naive analysis.
    - hiram112 8y ago
      I would hope the researchers were competent enough to space out their explicit uploads with varying periods of noise, while also finding a decent approximation of how much data is uploaded per x seconds of audio. Sure, Amazon could use all sorts of tricks to attempt to throw off reverse engineering, but it would be pretty hard to do so with a large enough set of tests.
    - jeremyjh 8y ago
      That would result in a much larger payload, and a payload size that is variable depending on how long it has been, and how much audio was record-able between requests. But if instead we observe a small payload of constant size given the same request, regardless of how long between requests, then we can reasonably be assured the device is not doing this.
      - 8y ago
aleksei 8y ago
> What is it that users don’t realize? You answered yourself in an exemplary fashion, but I'll state it explicitly (and simply). People don't think about it. I'd like to imagine anyone who realises the implications of owning such a device would refuse to own one, although I know I'm mistaken. I don't mean that people should know better (although ofc they should), but new technology is all too easily likened to any household appliance nowadays. Alexa is a utility, for better and worse. It's my opinion that we should very much attempt to educate the non-professional about the realities of these spy-machines, in much the same way we don't teach people about dishwashers. As for the article: I find it morbidly curious that I could tell Alexa who is murdering me. A benign 1984 for now I suppose.
- Kiro 8y ago
  You are mistaken. The utility of Alexa/Google Home is worth any privacy intrusion for me. I simply don't care. Convince me otherwise.
  - ThePhysicist 8y ago
    That’s interesting. Can you elaborate a bit? Are you not worried because you think the information is not sensitive or do you think the risk of it being abused, lost or stolen is negligible? I’m really curious to know (and while I have a different opinion I think yours is legitimate as well).
    - Kiro 8y ago
      All of the above. I don't think it's sensitive and I think the risk is negligible but even if it happened I still think it's worth it. Like I said in my sibling comment I'm against mass-surveillance in general because then you have no choice but here I'm actively deciding to expose myself because I find the utility worth it.
      - mcny 8y ago
        I agree. We talk about the "identity theft" problem here quite a bit. One time someone wrote about how there is no such thing as identity theft. If someone persuaded a bank to give them money by pretending it was me, the thief didn't steal anything from me. The bank gave the thief money and should try to recover it themselves. I'm not a part of that equation. I think it is stupid to establish any kind of causality based on the things I search online or the things I do on the computer. The problem isn't that Amazon is recording my activity. The problem is that somehow we allow this to be admissible in a court of law. My shower thoughts don't make me a criminal. I'm innocent until proven guilty. Searching for nitroglycerine or whatever is not the same as the proverbial trout in cow milk that prosecutors claim to be. What's next? Private diaries as evidence that I killed someone? Edit: spelling
jacquesm 8y ago
> she It. Alexa is a a device, not a person.
- ghaff 8y ago
  As are ships. But we still often say she.
  - ReverseCold 8y ago
    I think using pronouns reserved for humans on a ship (engineered mass of wood/metal that doesn't spy on you and you can own) is more acceptable than using it on a company (which spies on you, is not something you own, etc).
    - rock_hard 8y ago
      Good luck lecturing people what to call things...
      - lwhalen 8y ago
        You must not have been anywhere near the tech community for, oh, the last five years or so... :-)
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Alexa is a service, accessed [via an app] through devices. I have it on my phone and on an Amazon FireTV stick. It's a matter of taste whether to apply a gendered pronoun to an object. Some people refer to their car as she or he. Clearly from Amazon's pov it's a marketing thing, but I think you'll be aiming against a rather vicious current of you refuse to use gendered pronouns for tech that we interact with in a human manner.
thsowers 8y ago
> Though I’m sure most users don’t realize that when Alexa does trigger, she sends the audio to the Amazon mothership, which are then stored/analyzed for an indefinite time. Additionally, Amazon receives several seconds of audio _before_ the trigger word was used Edit: I can't find a source for this, but IIRC this was part of the initial Echo roll out, and one of the reasons I decided not to purchase. Perhaps Amazon has changed this so now it only listens and sends data after the wakeword. It does appear to have been updated: "When you use the wake word, the audio stream includes a fraction of a second of audio before the wake word, and closes once your request has been processed."[0] [0]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201602230 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
- jvolkman 8y ago
  The recorded hotword is sent to allow more sophisticated hosted models to reject false positives.
danso 8y ago
To answer my own question, other outlets have some extra bits of info: http://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/judge-orders-amazon-to-produce-recordings-from-echo-device-seized/article_8927285e-b8ac-5997-a283-6c18d7ada0ab.html http://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/judge-orders-amazon-to... The Union-Leader quotes the district attorney's request, which seems to have cognizance of how Echo works: > On Oct. 30, Senior Assistant Attorney General Geoffrey Ward asked Houran to direct Amazon.com to produce any recordings made between Jan. 27 and Jan. 29, 2017, suggesting evidence of the crime of murder and/or hindering apprehension of prosecution could be found on the device. > “As part of the normal functioning of an Echo electronic device activated either intentionally or accidentally by ‘wake up words,’ audio recordings are made of the moment when the device is activated,” Ward wrote. > “Specifically, when the Echo detects a ‘wake up word(s),’ the device begins audio recording through its integrated microphones, including recording the fraction of a second of audio before the ‘wake up word(s),’” Ward continued. > The motion, which was made in lieu of an application for a search warrant, also asks for information identifying cellular devices that were paired to that smart speaker in that time period. If there's one thing these kinds of stories have effected in me, it's the knowledge that I should scream "Alexa!" (or maybe Siri/OK Google depending on which room) right before I get murdered in my own home.
- cgriswald 8y ago
  What does it even mean to record? Saving to disk? You can’t start recording after hearing a trigger word and somehow get sound from before the trigger word unless you’ve already got it... I imagine a FIFO stream or buffer that only writes to disk if a trigger word is present. Also, there may be trigger words that cause recordings even if no actions need to be taken...
steelframe 8y ago
Last time I stayed in an Airbnb rental, I discovered an Amazon Echo device in the room. I immediately unplugged it and then wondered whether the landlord has violated my privacy as a tenant. The consensus on a couple of forums I found discussing it was that the Echo doesn't record anything unless explicitly activated by the user, and so it's not anything like a wiretap. Some landlords were pretty condescending and dismissive of any claims to the contrary. I felt differently. I can't audit the device hardware/firmware/software to verify that it isn't tracking and recording information about me that I don't consent to be tracked or recorded when I'm in my rental unit.
sgustard 8y ago
I don't know why people will happily carry a cell phone (which is a microphone attached to a transmitter, with location tracking to boot) but recoil at an Echo device in their home. Both are equally capable of surveillance, but the phone certainly more so as it's not limited to Wifi (which I could also monitor if I was worried about Echo sending a constant data stream).
- rythie 8y ago
  Apple lets me select which apps can access to both the microphone and the GPS. Of course you have to trust Apple, though they've made a big thing about privacy, as the biggest public company in the world, I don't think they'd risk lying about that.
- hrktb 8y ago
  Phones are accepted as common carrier devices, even if people don’t completely understand who gets access to the data, they know it’s been decently reviewed and “battle proven”. The Echo is a completely new device from a company that has very few oversight and regulation, and laws and usages are not really up to date for these use cases.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  Are you kidding? A secured cell phone (like a modern iphone) is a hell of a lot harder to turn into a bug than a quasi-smart device that needs the cloud for all its processing
jhayward 8y ago
> Do they assume/suspect that Echo/Amazon continuously records and logs audio, akin to a security camera? Or do they have evidence that Echo was actually activated around the time of the murders, or afterwards by the suspect himself? They're looking for any scrap of information. It could be that someone task Alexa with something that becomes pertinent to determining motive, or opportunity, or even just presence or absence of an individual. They're not necessarily (or even imaginably) thinking they'll get wiretap or bug type recordings. It's more like getting phone records - who did they call? Then following up those leads.

by danso 8y ago

walrus01 8y ago

> Do they assume/suspect that Echo/Amazon continuously records and logs audio, akin to a security camera? Yes, I think random non-technical homicide detectives might very well assume this. They're fishing for anything they can get, even if it's a 1% chance. Almost certainly the subpoena response from Amazon will be that they are not in possession of a recording.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Is there any suggestion that a system is in place to lie openly and hand over a recording privately? Or is that only for national security cases? If a comment were keeping recordings they weren't allowed to make, and just lied to deny it is there a verification process that could reveal the lie?

nolok 8y ago

I sincerely doubt people don't realise that anything after the trigger is sent home, since a "feature" of alexa is that the app let you see each request you made, how alexa answered, and let them know if she got it wrong. I think it's more a case of "don't care" / "don't realize the risks"

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
People perhaps assume all audio is processed locally and/or isn't stored except ephemerally. I'd imagine there's a default "we store your data for AI training purposes" that would allow them to keep all audio.
- acpetrov 8y ago
  > People perhaps assume all audio is processed locally and/or isn't stored except ephemerally. Is there info on this from Amazon? I'd assume they do what you mention, have the speech recognition in the Alexa and just send up the words, not the entire audio stream. Interesting implication of that in this case: if the actual audio is gone and you just have the transcription, is that valid as evidence? Or is it something closer to hearsay
  - detaro 8y ago
    It's cloud based. The device recognizes the wake-word offline and starts streaming to the recognition service. You can access a log of recordings through the app, so they are kept at least for a while.
tjoff 8y ago
I'd think the absolute vast majority would not have spent any time wondering about that the slightest. And most that do would just assume that the app asked alexa and retrieved a local log. So much of what is collected today completely hinges on the fact that the public doesn't even grasp the feasibility nor the desirability of keeping track of them.
udkyo 8y ago

ryanlol 8y ago

>Echo is doing far more surreptitious surveillance and analysis, i.e. not just listening for the trigger word This should be trivial to prove.

jeremyjh 8y ago
It has been demonstrated that it does not send network traffic apart from requests made to it; e.g. it is not continuously streaming data. Of course that could be changed at any time with a software update that you have no choice about accepting. To prove it is not recording locally could be much more difficult, but there are practical questions there. What media is it recording to, and if the recordings are never sent to the cloud, what is the purpose of keeping them?
- andrepd 8y ago
  That does not demonstrate anything. It could "buffer" the data it wants to send and only send it after the trigger word is detected, precisely to trick such naive analysis.
  - hiram112 8y ago
    I would hope the researchers were competent enough to space out their explicit uploads with varying periods of noise, while also finding a decent approximation of how much data is uploaded per x seconds of audio. Sure, Amazon could use all sorts of tricks to attempt to throw off reverse engineering, but it would be pretty hard to do so with a large enough set of tests.
  - jeremyjh 8y ago
    That would result in a much larger payload, and a payload size that is variable depending on how long it has been, and how much audio was record-able between requests. But if instead we observe a small payload of constant size given the same request, regardless of how long between requests, then we can reasonably be assured the device is not doing this.
    - 8y ago

aleksei 8y ago

> What is it that users don’t realize? You answered yourself in an exemplary fashion, but I'll state it explicitly (and simply). People don't think about it. I'd like to imagine anyone who realises the implications of owning such a device would refuse to own one, although I know I'm mistaken. I don't mean that people should know better (although ofc they should), but new technology is all too easily likened to any household appliance nowadays. Alexa is a utility, for better and worse. It's my opinion that we should very much attempt to educate the non-professional about the realities of these spy-machines, in much the same way we don't teach people about dishwashers. As for the article: I find it morbidly curious that I could tell Alexa who is murdering me. A benign 1984 for now I suppose.

Kiro 8y ago
You are mistaken. The utility of Alexa/Google Home is worth any privacy intrusion for me. I simply don't care. Convince me otherwise.
- ThePhysicist 8y ago
  That’s interesting. Can you elaborate a bit? Are you not worried because you think the information is not sensitive or do you think the risk of it being abused, lost or stolen is negligible? I’m really curious to know (and while I have a different opinion I think yours is legitimate as well).
  - Kiro 8y ago
    All of the above. I don't think it's sensitive and I think the risk is negligible but even if it happened I still think it's worth it. Like I said in my sibling comment I'm against mass-surveillance in general because then you have no choice but here I'm actively deciding to expose myself because I find the utility worth it.
    - mcny 8y ago
      I agree. We talk about the "identity theft" problem here quite a bit. One time someone wrote about how there is no such thing as identity theft. If someone persuaded a bank to give them money by pretending it was me, the thief didn't steal anything from me. The bank gave the thief money and should try to recover it themselves. I'm not a part of that equation. I think it is stupid to establish any kind of causality based on the things I search online or the things I do on the computer. The problem isn't that Amazon is recording my activity. The problem is that somehow we allow this to be admissible in a court of law. My shower thoughts don't make me a criminal. I'm innocent until proven guilty. Searching for nitroglycerine or whatever is not the same as the proverbial trout in cow milk that prosecutors claim to be. What's next? Private diaries as evidence that I killed someone? Edit: spelling

jacquesm 8y ago

> she It. Alexa is a a device, not a person.

ghaff 8y ago
As are ships. But we still often say she.
- ReverseCold 8y ago
  I think using pronouns reserved for humans on a ship (engineered mass of wood/metal that doesn't spy on you and you can own) is more acceptable than using it on a company (which spies on you, is not something you own, etc).
  - rock_hard 8y ago
    Good luck lecturing people what to call things...
    - lwhalen 8y ago
      You must not have been anywhere near the tech community for, oh, the last five years or so... :-)
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Alexa is a service, accessed [via an app] through devices. I have it on my phone and on an Amazon FireTV stick. It's a matter of taste whether to apply a gendered pronoun to an object. Some people refer to their car as she or he. Clearly from Amazon's pov it's a marketing thing, but I think you'll be aiming against a rather vicious current of you refuse to use gendered pronouns for tech that we interact with in a human manner.

thsowers 8y ago

> Though I’m sure most users don’t realize that when Alexa does trigger, she sends the audio to the Amazon mothership, which are then stored/analyzed for an indefinite time. Additionally, Amazon receives several seconds of audio _before_ the trigger word was used Edit: I can't find a source for this, but IIRC this was part of the initial Echo roll out, and one of the reasons I decided not to purchase. Perhaps Amazon has changed this so now it only listens and sends data after the wakeword. It does appear to have been updated: "When you use the wake word, the audio stream includes a fraction of a second of audio before the wake word, and closes once your request has been processed."[0] [0]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201602230 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

jvolkman 8y ago
The recorded hotword is sent to allow more sophisticated hosted models to reject false positives.

danso 8y ago

To answer my own question, other outlets have some extra bits of info: http://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/judge-orders-amazon-to-produce-recordings-from-echo-device-seized/article_8927285e-b8ac-5997-a283-6c18d7ada0ab.html http://www.unionleader.com/news/crime/judge-orders-amazon-to... The Union-Leader quotes the district attorney's request, which seems to have cognizance of how Echo works: > On Oct. 30, Senior Assistant Attorney General Geoffrey Ward asked Houran to direct Amazon.com to produce any recordings made between Jan. 27 and Jan. 29, 2017, suggesting evidence of the crime of murder and/or hindering apprehension of prosecution could be found on the device. > “As part of the normal functioning of an Echo electronic device activated either intentionally or accidentally by ‘wake up words,’ audio recordings are made of the moment when the device is activated,” Ward wrote. > “Specifically, when the Echo detects a ‘wake up word(s),’ the device begins audio recording through its integrated microphones, including recording the fraction of a second of audio before the ‘wake up word(s),’” Ward continued. > The motion, which was made in lieu of an application for a search warrant, also asks for information identifying cellular devices that were paired to that smart speaker in that time period. If there's one thing these kinds of stories have effected in me, it's the knowledge that I should scream "Alexa!" (or maybe Siri/OK Google depending on which room) right before I get murdered in my own home.

cgriswald 8y ago
What does it even mean to record? Saving to disk? You can’t start recording after hearing a trigger word and somehow get sound from before the trigger word unless you’ve already got it... I imagine a FIFO stream or buffer that only writes to disk if a trigger word is present. Also, there may be trigger words that cause recordings even if no actions need to be taken...

steelframe 8y ago

Last time I stayed in an Airbnb rental, I discovered an Amazon Echo device in the room. I immediately unplugged it and then wondered whether the landlord has violated my privacy as a tenant. The consensus on a couple of forums I found discussing it was that the Echo doesn't record anything unless explicitly activated by the user, and so it's not anything like a wiretap. Some landlords were pretty condescending and dismissive of any claims to the contrary. I felt differently. I can't audit the device hardware/firmware/software to verify that it isn't tracking and recording information about me that I don't consent to be tracked or recorded when I'm in my rental unit.

sgustard 8y ago

I don't know why people will happily carry a cell phone (which is a microphone attached to a transmitter, with location tracking to boot) but recoil at an Echo device in their home. Both are equally capable of surveillance, but the phone certainly more so as it's not limited to Wifi (which I could also monitor if I was worried about Echo sending a constant data stream).

rythie 8y ago
Apple lets me select which apps can access to both the microphone and the GPS. Of course you have to trust Apple, though they've made a big thing about privacy, as the biggest public company in the world, I don't think they'd risk lying about that.
hrktb 8y ago
Phones are accepted as common carrier devices, even if people don’t completely understand who gets access to the data, they know it’s been decently reviewed and “battle proven”. The Echo is a completely new device from a company that has very few oversight and regulation, and laws and usages are not really up to date for these use cases.
tomc1985 8y ago
Are you kidding? A secured cell phone (like a modern iphone) is a hell of a lot harder to turn into a bug than a quasi-smart device that needs the cloud for all its processing

jhayward 8y ago

> Do they assume/suspect that Echo/Amazon continuously records and logs audio, akin to a security camera? Or do they have evidence that Echo was actually activated around the time of the murders, or afterwards by the suspect himself? They're looking for any scrap of information. It could be that someone task Alexa with something that becomes pertinent to determining motive, or opportunity, or even just presence or absence of an individual. They're not necessarily (or even imaginably) thinking they'll get wiretap or bug type recordings. It's more like getting phone records - who did they call? Then following up those leads.