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Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls
- snvzz 7y agoI find the title biased against Amazon to begin with. As if having assistants from other companies listening in was any safer. Why namedrop Amazon's own?
- throwaway122378 7y agoAlexa has been caught numerous times in the past
- snvzz 7y agoAt least they were transparent about having a mic that's always listening. Google sneaked a microphone in some speaker device trojan-horse style, enabling it only when lots of such speakers were already deployed. Sneaky.
- throwaway122378 7y agoAgreed Google’s is as much to blame. But listening to you and being kind enough to tell us doesn’t make Amazon innocent
- snvzz 7y agoIt doesn't. They're just not the only evil ones, and thus I find it's wrong to use such a title. Either call them all out or none. "Always-listening voice assistant" would have worked well in place of Alexa.
- jrockway 7y agoThey mention Google in the first sentence. I think it's important to not overly freak out about these home assistants. Your phone company or video conferencing company is already listening to your confidential client calls. Your email provider is reading your email. Your internal applications run on Amazon's servers. Your upstairs neighbor has their ear to the floor. I think lawyers are used to thinking "as long as it's not in writing, we're okay", but with speech recognition getting better and better, your phone calls / VCs are going to show up in court someday.
- take_a_breath 7y agoYour phone or video conference company is providing the platform that allows you to have the conversation in the first place. Same with your email provider, same with applications running on the cloud. Those are the infrastructure We pay monthly to support business and communication. If my neighbor was listening to my conversations AND running the third largest ad platform on the internet, it would alarm me. These aren’t apples-to-apples comparisons.
- jrockway 7y agoI think in all cases the service provider has a pretty strong incentive to not violate your trust. You'll cancel your Zoom subscription if they start feeding your meetings to the person that sues. You'll stop buying from Amazon if Alexa starts feeding your meetings to the entity you're engaged in litigation with. In both cases, the incentive exists to keep your confidential meetings confidential. But, incentives are not crypto. There is probably nothing nefarious going on, but if you use open-source software with strong cryptography, a service provider that wants to be nefarious is simply unable to do so. That is what lawyers should be aiming for; freaking out about Alexa is a feel-good stopgap at best.
- take_a_breath 7y agoIs this really an example of “freaking out”? ==“Perhaps we’re being slightly paranoid but we need to have a lot of trust in these organizations and these devices,” Hancock said. “We’d rather not take those risks.”== Seems like a pretty reasonable measure and advice. The baseline assumption you make is that you know the who, what, where and when of Amazon sharing data. Does Amazon actually have an incentive not to violate your trust? You could make the same argument about Facebook and they have routinely violated users trust. It seems the real lesson is that without legal protection for consumers, companies will continue operating in the gray area.
- mtsr 7y agoIt wasn’t always the case that teleconferencing providers could listen in. At least Skype was peer-to-peer originally. And only corporate firewalls and some bad providers would prevent it from working today. My email provider surely isn’t reading my mail, but then again, I seem to be in a minority that doesn’t use gmail. The threat of real-time speech-to-text is real, but police all over the world have made the mistake of spying on lawyers now and then.
- S_A_P 7y agoThe snarky answer is that Jeff Bezos looks like he is morphing into a Bond villain. The correct answer is that yep you should consider what is in the room if you need a private conversation because devices are listening. The title is also incredibly niche and alarmist. Only locked down lawyers need to worry about Alexa??
- rdxm 7y agothis is priceless....still shocked people voluntarily put these things in their houses...
- zie 7y agoI have no doubt they are able to hear anything happening in the room they happen to be installed in. But I doubt they listen for anything but their keyword, and I seriously doubt they listen, record and send off to their overlords what they hear on a massive basis. However, they clearly CAN, and while they almost certainly don't on any massive scale, if they by their overlord or a security hack, did on a targeted basis listen, record and send conversations on, that would be very possible, and very harmful for whoever was targeted. I can't imagine the NSA and other covert organizations not drooling at the chance to do just that. I'm also fairly certain those devices are not secure as by and large the tech industry has a complete failure rate at making anything computing related secure.
- rhino369 7y ago>However, they clearly CAN, and while they almost certainly don't on any massive scale, if they by their overlord or a security hack, did on a targeted basis listen, record and send conversations on, that would be very possible, and very harmful for whoever was targeted. Besides the fact that they have better antennas, this is true for pretty much any device with a microphone and a processor with audio processing capability, no? My laptop has a microphone and video. Surely Microsoft could just start recording with the with right windows update? My Avaya VOIP phone has speaker phone, could do the same.
- masklinn 7y ago> My laptop has a microphone and video. Surely Microsoft could just start recording with the with right windows update? It's a commonly mentioned issue, and a somewhat regular occurrence with various malware or "security solutions". That's why a number of laptops have either visual indicators or shutters (though mostly for the cameras, sadly hot mics are rarely a consideration), and a rare few have physical disconnection switches (again mostly for cameras).
- pampelondan 7y agoI saw one gizmo for mic the other day https://shop.googlemerchandisestore.com/Google+Redesign/Accessories/Google+See+no+hear+no+set https://shop.googlemerchandisestore.com/Google+Redesign/Acce... haven't tried it though, anyone has any experience? Does it really muffle the sound enough?
- matz1 7y agoI want and expected it to listen to everything. Sure it can be used to harm me but it won't be a good business decision, on the other hand they can use the data improve the product and service for me.
- einpoklum 7y agoSending a copy of all data to the NSA is apparently a great business decision, especially when National Security Letters demand it.
- matz1 7y agoEverything has a trade off, you have to look at it using cost benefit analysis.
- AlexandrB 7y ago> Sure it can be used to harm me but it won't be a good business decision In the advertising industry harming you is often a great business decision. Dissatisfaction breeds demand.
- matz1 7y agoHow exactly is advertising industry harming me ? Especially compared to the benefit I get ?
- californical 7y agoMaybe not you specifically, but it can be hard to say. Generally though, by making people unhappy with what they have and by convincing them that they need to always be spending money on something new to find happiness. I've found a lot of improvement in my life satisfaction (and the size of my savings account) since getting rid of ads almost entirely. I've also found that I never feel the need to be in a hurry to buy something. Buying seems to be a slower process -- whenever I want the thing and feel good about it, not just because it's hot right now or I'll miss a deal. I know there will be another. This may not apply to everyone but it was my experience. Clearly not a big fan of the ad industry haha.
- papito 7y agoThe recorded conversations are accessible via Amazon. You can go and listen to them yourself, and delete them.
- choward 7y agoHow do you know they are actually deleted?
- RandomBacon 7y agoAnd how do you know that's actually all of the recordings?
- eddyg 7y agoOnly after the wake word has triggered the "start interpreting audio" code. These things are NOT constantly streaming everything they hear to the cloud (and this can be easily confirmed by monitoring traffic from the device's IP address on your network). That is a big distinction.
- toast0 7y agoI'm willing to believe that it's only after it's been triggered by the wake word processing. The problem is a lot of things I say that aren't the wake word still triggers a wake up. If you've got one of these, turn on the accessibility options to make noises when it wakes up... I'm not a heavy user, so more than half of the wakeups aren't intentional.
- decebalus1 7y ago> You can go and listen to them yourself, and delete them. I've been in the business long enough to know that if something is digitized, it often never ever goes away. You don't know (nobody does for sure, actually) what is the internal retention policy of this information or its metadata. You can delete the recordings but the only thing you know for sure is that you and you alone cannot access them anymore.
- dustinkirkland 7y agoIt's a very reasonable concern. I used to have a Google Assistant in my home office. I've muted the mic and just use it as a Bluetooth speaker. However, the much bigger concern should be your phone, which has a mic, is internet connected, and almost always listening. You need to also disable the Google Assistant, Sciri, etc. there too. Oh, and that doesn't just go for your home. That's in the office, at a client, on the train, in an Uber... Everywhere you take your phone.
- GrinningFool 7y ago> Oh, and that doesn't just go for your home. Once you're out of your home it's hopeless - then you have everybody else's devices to contend with.
- LeifCarrotson 7y agoHow did you mute the microphone? Through the software, which is controlled over the network, or with judicious application from a screwdriver? The latter would be the only way I would trust.
- einpoklum 7y agoNo! I'm shocked. Shocked and chagrined. How unexpected!
- zitterbewegung 7y agoUntil we have a home assistant that can be operated without a connection to the internet without going to the cloud there is always going to be this risk. I don't see any of the big players actually designing a system like this other than Apple.
- chmod775 7y ago> other than Apple. Microsoft might. I don't know what their cortana does right now though.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gruez 7y agoI doubt it, given their current track record with windows telemetry.
- yellow_postit 7y agoThe performance of such a system would be bad compared to an internet connected one (frequent speech model updates and more compute) and the reviews would pillory the device for a nebulous to most privacy (unseen) vs. performance (seen) trade off. Try using a slightly older (early 00s) car with voice commands to get a sense.
- zitterbewegung 7y agoYou can separate the recognition system of the speech model by allowing software updates but not send the data or the captured audio to the cloud.
- cortesoft 7y agoCouldn't a software update then change that behavior to send the data to the cloud?
- wrkronmiller 7y agoI don’t entirely get the cognitive dissonance of worrying about a microphone+speaker sitting on your table when you probably have a microphone+speaker+camera+face-scanner etc... in your pocket. Same story for most laptops.
- gruez 7y agoWrong threat model. Those devices only record maliciously if they're hacked. Smart speakers/home assistants inadvertenly record during normal operation. See: all the news stories about their owners discovering their recordings on their google/amazon account.
- javagram 7y agoMy iPhone has activated “hey Siri” before by accident too. It just doesn’t have a website where i can see all the times it was activated by accident AFAIK.
- Riseed 7y agoIf you turn Siri off, it doesn't activate by accident, and the iPhone still works as intended. If you turn off Alexa, the home assistant doesn't activate by accident because it doesn't work at all.
- cma 7y agoYou can turn it on each time you need too use it, maybe with a trusted voice activated power switch that isn't connected to the cloud.
- gruez 7y agoAt that point why bother getting it in the first place? The whole appeal of it is that you can just say "hey google" from anywhere in the house and it would answer you. If you have to walk over and turn it on, you might as well use your phone.
- Frost1x 7y agoWelcome to a world where the general consumer's choices coupled with more and more private capitalization of essential services dictates life for the rest of people. In this case it's pretty easy: dont buy these garbage products to begin with. Phones, on the other hand, are a bit more difficult to find viable alternatives for in many cases
- pdkl95 7y agoAlexa et al are also normalizing "always on microphone that sends audio to a remote business over the internet" technology. According to the bright-line rule from Kyllo v United States[1], when a technology is "in general public use"[2], police no longer need a warrant when they use their own devices based on that technology to see the "details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion"[3]. [1] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/533/27.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/533/27.html [2] Used throughout the ruling[1], but especially section II of Justice Stevens' dissent. [3] The ruling[1], 2nd paragraph
- Touche 7y agoThe thing in your pocket is always listening too.
- Foober223 7y agoSupposedly your smart phone and smart TV are not passively listening to your offline conversations. That's only done on a targeted basis to people who are being monitored. Your location history however is being passively tracked. Not defending it, but your smart phone is not quite as bad as Alexa. At least for the moment.
- Medicalidiot 7y agoI got rid of smart speakers a few months ago after being enriched with everyone's perspective on this forum; tech is my hobby, not my career. I have zero regrets. It's a little inconvenient now to not be able to say "play [music]" or "play [show]", instead having to use a remote. But the peace of mind that I'm not being recorded is paid for en masse.
- sjc01234 7y agoopen source
- cosmodisk 7y ago6 years ago I used to work for a translation agency.We used to get some very confidential (and very interesting) texts from banks. We were not allowed to put a single word into google translate from client files and this stuff is 10 times worse. Having a permanent mic from large corps in your home is never a good idea...
- Simulacra 7y agoTurn off Alexa?
- gumby 7y agoMy understanding is that the "microphone mute" button on Alexa devices is a hardware switch that cuts the wire to the microphone, at engineering's insistence. I'm rather short of praise for Amazon but if this is still the case, great.
- sib 7y agoNot engineering - that discussion and request was at the Jeff Bezos level.
- dmix 7y agoWhich is notably a feature of the Librem phones and laptops as well: https://puri.sm/posts/lockdown-mode-on-the-librem-5-beyond-hardware-kill-switches/ https://puri.sm/posts/lockdown-mode-on-the-librem-5-beyond-h...
- doublerabbit 7y agoOh man, shame they only offer their keyboard layout as US.
- gumby 7y agoMy girlfriend celebrates passover which involves discussing "Elijah". The way she pronounces that name (she's a New Yorker) triggers her Alexa device, to much hilarity. More soberly: I had no idea what Elija stands for so I asked the device, which recited part of the wikipedia. It then said, "while I have your attention here are some notifications you missed" and began to recite the first of her messages from her work which are definitely not for public consumption. (She was able to throttle it, but still -- what if I had asked and she had not been present?)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- nixpulvis 7y ago"Alexa, order a bouncy castle", if all things are setup, you may have just spent $200 on a nice toy for children.
- agumonkey 7y agoHeh, neighbor is a bank employee, now remote working, she unplugged her google home bun. Good call (sic)
- hatmatrix 7y agoWhat are bankers doing that's so secretive?
- williesleg 7y agoOf course it is. My Alexa app on my phone is eating all the battery even though I don't use it. Going to uninstall it.
- eeZah7Ux 7y agoWhy "Locked-down" in the title? It's pointless.
- kevlened 7y agoThey gave all the context required to share it without the connection "Lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls" requires. This could be telling of Bloomberg's expected/desired readership. Or, they wanted an alliterative title.
- decebalus1 7y agoI grew up in a communist dictatorship, where illegal wiretapping by the government is still an open wound in society's culture. Given that, I cannot understand who willingly buys this crap and puts it in their house. A couple of days ago, I lost all respect for a coworker when we were in a meeting and somebody said something which woke up the Echo he had on his desk.
- gxon 7y agoDo you carry a smart phone? Does it not have a microphone designed to have hands free conversations and pick up audio from a distance? Does it have the ability to constantly track your location? Does it contain most of your private, electronic communication? If we're talking about illegal wiretapping, a smart phone is significantly more risky and problematic than a smart speaker.
- decebalus1 7y agoThis argument always pops up but I always forget what fallacy this is..
- DonHopkins 7y ago>The firm worries about the devices being compromised, less so with name-brand products like Alexa, but more so for a cheap knock-off devices, he added. Speaking of Ring knock-offs: In these days of self-imposed isolation, this hands-free motion activated connected door knocker seems seems pretty useful for scaring away unwanted visitors without spreading germs: https://blog.smartthings.com/how-to/smartthings-door-knocker/ https://blog.smartthings.com/how-to/smartthings-door-knocker...
- DonHopkins 7y ago>Amazon and Google say their devices are designed to record and store audio only after they detect a word to wake them up. The companies say such instances are rare, but recent testing by Northeastern University and Imperial College London found that the devices can activate inadvertently between 1.5 and 19 times a day. How can a device activate 1.5 times a day? Does it have to activate right before midnight then deactivate the same amount of time after midnight? Technically that's still activating on a whole day. Or can some devices half-activate?
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoIf the device activated twice over a period of three days, that’s an average activation of 1.5 times per day.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- lainga 7y agoA device activation is a device activation, you can't say it's only half.
- nineteen999 7y agoAmazing! These very smart lawyers can't just unplug the things?