I tend to repeat these types of concerns: the number of powerful and complex black boxes are increasing, with things like 5G making it even easier to low-key pa

I tend to repeat these types of concerns: the number of powerful and complex black boxes are increasing, with things like 5G making it even easier to low-key pass information without us knowing. A common counterargument comes up when discussing devices like smart speakers. Defenders say that the devices are too low-power and that we would be able to notice power usage changes and sniff network data being sent if spying were happening. IMO, this is true to an extent, but also any onboard preconfigured recognition of certain products could easily send info back to, say, Amazon servers and you wouldn't be able to distinguish it from a "false positive" question to "Alexa". Knowing the extent to which these capabilities are plausible and/or would have been caught by now if they existed is, to me, murky. This also applies to on-board chips and wireless data. Would we not notice from power usage and sniffing?