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FTA: “At no time were any internal Amazon systems or customer identifiable data impacted,” [the company] said. Hey Amazon, chat transcripts are personally ide
by sulam 8y ago
FTA: “At no time were any internal Amazon systems or customer identifiable data impacted,” [the company] said.
Hey Amazon, chat transcripts are personally identifiable information. Stripping them of user ids and declaring yourself in compliance will not hold up when you have people already being identified by accidentally leaked recordings.
- hopler 8y agoDid I read that right? Amazon handed control of Alexa to a group of students running a non secured server on the Internet? That's OK if users explicitly opted in, but I doubt Amazon warned users about that.
- brianlweiner 8y agoThe email introducing the feature (May 2017) described it as follows: `Get an inside peek at the Amazon-sponsored university competition to advance AI. The Alexa Prize "socialbots" are in early development and understandably rough around the edges. Help students develop more engaging AI by striking up a conversation and providing feedback. To get started, just ask: Alexa what's a socialbot? Alexa let's chat` The only interactions students would have access to was interactions that occurred via the chatbot
- dwighttk 8y agoUsers had to say “Alexa let’s chat” to interact with the chatbots.
- SilasX 8y agoReally? I'm pretty sure it's common to consider a conversation transcript anonymous as long as the names are stripped. I don't think you're necessarily wrong, but that seems like a stricter standard than currently exists for removing PII from transcripts.
- tlrobinson 8y agoUh no. I can't find it now, but there was a famous incident a long time ago (~2005?) where a major chat service (AIM?) released "anonymized" logs for research purposes and people were able to deanonymize some of them. Consider how easily people get doxed based on tiny shreds of information they post.
- SilasX 8y agoThat's an argument for why the OP is right that it's not anonymous enough, not that it's become the common practice not to regard these as anonymous.
- jkaptur 8y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_leak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_leak
- tlrobinson 8y agoAh right, it was search logs, not chat logs. I think chat logs would be even harder to fully anonymize.
- obenn 8y agoThink of the simple counter example of a user mentioning another user's name within one of the messages.
- SilasX 8y ago>> as long as the names are stripped. Including usernames that could de-anonymize.
- muzani 8y agoIt's sort of like those videos where they blur out eyes of the suspects. Friends and relatives can still recognize everything else.