12 ms·

I found an Amazon folder with thousands of audio recordings from my home gadgets

117 points by harambae 5y ago

xtracto 5y ago
I've never understood the Alexas and Google homes. People complain about the "1984"cation of our society and houses, and then they literally PAY to have an always on microphone in their homes. You either dont care about it and buy that stuff, or you care and dont put those devices in your private spaces.
- pxtail 5y ago
  > People complain about the "1984"cation of our society and houses, and then they literally PAY to have an always on microphone in their homes. They are doing it because they are deep in "Brave New World"ification process and are enjoying it.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  > People complain about the "1984"cation of our society and houses, and then they literally PAY to have an always on microphone in their homes. These are mostly separate groups of people.
- rchaud 5y ago
  People buy it because it's advertised constantly by two of the biggest corporations on earth. It's also cheap enough that it gets added to shopping carts, then distributed to friends as gifts.
insidedivision 5y ago
Wow, did they send her wav files? Havn't seen these in a while, thought that if you were to collect millions of audio clips from your customers you would use some compression algorithm, but apparently Amazon does not have to care about such details.
- bongoman37 5y ago
  they might store them in a compressed format but send them as wav to make it less easier for the customer to store/process or maybe the compression is proprietary and they dont want to reveal internal details of their models.
- amelius 5y ago
  They probably use their own compression internally (not a suitable format for users). But I'm surprised they didn't send these wav files in extremely high samplerate, to annoy those who request the data.
encryptluks2 5y ago
Wow, they installed Amazon smart speaker devices and didn't delete the data nor make changes to collection in settings and then is surprised that it exist.
- piva00 5y ago
  Why do you believe a common user/customer of Amazon's Alexa would know about any of that?
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    Ignorance only gets you so far. It takes a descent amount of ignorance to not know.
    - piva00 5y ago
      No, ignorance is ingrained. You are very likely ignorant about a lot of non-tech (or work) related stuff. It's impossible to be reasonably informed about every aspect of things in your life. Ignorance about tech is real, normal mainstream users suffer from it and victim-blaming is a non-solution. People, normal general people, aren't yet understanding privacy implications and the ways you can control those on the products they use. Mass adoption of these technologies will, by default, imply that a large parcel of the customer base is ignorant about its potentially harmful (or morally disputed) sides. Your point of view is completely unempathetic, being ignorant about tech is the default state in our world, expecting that the solution to dark patterns designed to confuse normal people is to blame the ignorant victims is ultimately pointless.
      - encryptluks2 5y ago
        It isn't just an ignorance of tech, it is an ignorance to things in general. It would be like bringing a stranger into your house where you also have children. Ignorance with tech isn't just an issue with people being ignorant to technology, but overly naive and ignorant in general. Yes, they can claim ignorance but if you bring a stranger into your house and something happens to your child I don't think a judge is going to be all that sympathetic and say... oh, poor you, how could you have known that is a bad idea?!? If you want to enable that, then that is on you but it simply isn't based in reality where that would be a good idea. Buying tech and bringing it into your house that listens to you and is connected to the Internet, and then acting surprised to find out that they keep recordings is on the same level of ignorance. So, yes if you are the type to bring strangers into your house and are surprised when something bad happens, then I can see how you'd be sympathetic.
ColinWright 5y ago
Quoting from the article: > ... another joked: “Can someone explain to me why this is ‘scary’? I’m not interesting enough to care if they have my contacts or audio.” I used to try to explain to people why they should care about companies and governments vacuuming up vast amounts of data indiscriminately, and I get back "It improves my search results ... why should I care?" I've given up.
- dTal 5y ago
  Nobody put it better than Snowden: "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
  - baal80spam 5y ago
    Personally I prefer: "Oh, you say you have nothing to hide? In this case, how about you lend me your smartphone/laptop for a day, unlocked." This seems simple enough for most people to understand the crazyness of the idea.
    - raspyberr 5y ago
      I really dislike this comparison. I see it everywhere in privacy communities and I think it should die. That comparison doesn't give anything to the other person. Amazon provides a service whilst violating privacy. The person gets something out from having their privacy violated. Hence the reply "it improves my search results". Your comparison would mean they have their privacy violated, they lose access to their phone for a day, and they get nothing to compensate. Change the comparison to give me your phone for a day and I'll give you £1000 and suddenly you'll get far more different answers.
      - baal80spam 5y ago
        > That comparison doesn't give anything to the other person Hm, you are correct - I haven't looked at it in this way. I guess it's time for another round of questions around my family and workplace!
rkagerer 5y ago
A long time ago I configured Alexa to only keep my audio recordings for 3 months (the shortest option other than None). Reviewing the settings today I see Amazon added several new classifications of history (e.g. Smart Home Device History, Recorded Sounds History). Rather than respecting / extrapolating my existing choice, they all defaulted to Forever. These kind of dark patterns are depressing, but I catch a glimmer of hope when I see people like this raising awareness of them. To me, it's more than just privacy. It's about simple decency. As a developer I've always felt a strong sense of stewardship for the trust my users have placed in me.
- nicolaslem 5y ago
  I have a similar experience with iOS. I have disabled every settings I could find related to iCloud. It is pretty clear that I don't want my data stored there, and yet every new app or service enables the iCloud integration.
  - Arrath 5y ago
    I love to find out that iCloud got turned on/enabled for something only when I get a notification that my storage is near full. I didn't want to use you in the first place, fuck off already!
- varispeed 5y ago
  The problem is inability to enforce law when it comes to big corporations. They have enough money to buy entire WH so there is nothing you can do about it apart from just not giving them more money.
- mysterydip 5y ago
  I wonder if you have the setting to 3 months or none, then later change it to forever, do old recordings suddenly show back up?
  - voakbasda 5y ago
    I know HN is supposed to give the benefit of the doubt, but this is exactly what I would expect from Amazon at this point: an illusion of choice. I mean, they are under investigation for lying to Congress, right? If true, what possible reason can we believe that they would not also lie to their customers?
marapuru 5y ago
So, this person is surprised about the amount of data that Amazon collects on her and posts a video about this on _TikTok_? Oh, the irony :) I do find it praiseworthy that privacy advocates are present on all channels though.
INTPenis 5y ago
Buy three smart speakers with microphones and several light bulbs and then you get shocked that someone is listening to what you're saying. This is the really shocking part. People need to get educated.
drcongo 5y ago
I'm constantly amazed that anyone would willing have an Alexa or Google Home device inside their home. Or anywhere else for that matter.
- amelius 5y ago
  Your phone also has a microphone.
  - dan_hawkins 5y ago
    In iPhones when you lay down your phone screen down the mic is physically cut off. That's why you can't call "Hey Siri" with a phone laying like that.
    - wsostt 5y ago
      Wrong. That's a software switch, not physical hardware.
    - rchaud 5y ago
      That just proves Siri is disabled, not the microphone.
    - SahAssar 5y ago
      If the hardware switch is controlled by software then it isn't much of a hardware switch.
  - propertymagnate 5y ago
    "One sec, I'll just turn my house off, I don't want it listening."
    - quaintdev 5y ago
      Theirs an age old saying in Hindi which basically means "walls have ears". Now it's literally true.
amanzi 5y ago
To be fair to Amazon, you can get to this page with just two clicks from the home page: https://www.amazon.com/alexa-privacy/apd/home https://www.amazon.com/alexa-privacy/apd/home From there you can get to all the recordings and control how long to retain them for.
- Gigachad 5y ago
  The fact that this user and and everyone reacting to the news and TikTok video are shocked, it shows that simply having a page is not acceptable and that the average person does not expect this to happen even though they agreed to it in the ToS
  - blitzar 5y ago
    > everyone reacting to the news and TikTok video are shocked reacting to tiktok videos in an overly exagerated shocked manner is exactly the point of tiktok videos, it is not really a reflection of the content.
- imdsm 5y ago
  And for the UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/alexa-privacy/apd/home https://www.amazon.co.uk/alexa-privacy/apd/home
- amelius 5y ago
  If I visit someone at home who owns Amazon gear, where do I control my privacy settings?
  - perryizgr8 5y ago
    You don't have an expectation of privacy outside your own property.
    - amelius 5y ago
      So if I have sex at my place I have privacy, whereas at her place she has privacy? Perhaps wait until we are married and live together? Sounds not very reasonable.
blitzar 5y ago
> She said: “When I downloaded the ZIP file these are all the folders it came with.” > The TikToker then ... And just like that I am out.
lrvick 5y ago
Am I the only one laughing that this person is trying to advocate for privacy and security on TikTok of all places?
- atraac 5y ago
  I understand the irony but you have to admit that TikTok has insane reach, especially to younger people.
- dkdbejwi383 5y ago
  You need to go where you audience is. There's not much point telling people on HN that Amazon stores your data, most of us already know
- rchaud 5y ago
  That's where the audience is. Not the HN audience obviously, but regular people that see Alexa ads and buy the accursed products. If she were distributing pamphlets, should she avoid doing so in a public square because it has CCTV cameras everywhere?
nathias 5y ago
amazon really is the king of dark patterns
greenail 5y ago
There are plenty of good points regarding issues like defaults that you set getting changed and the fact that you are using a device that has to be aware of you speech to function. I agree that we should be aware that we are giving up something in exchange for using any device with a microphone that listens for prompts. Personally I'd rather have an Amazon device on the basis that Amazon doesn't view me as a product (mostly), they view me as a customer and they cherish their customers. It is very deep in the culture they built. Any notion that you might bust the trust of your customers would quickly get squashed within Amazon. This is based on having worked there and having seen this firsthand at the highest levels of the company. The reason I hesitate is that advertising as a business is growing rapidly in Amazon. Advertising puts me in the "product" role which creates a conflict between me as customer and me as product. I sure hope the leadership at Amazon sticks to their guns on the leadership principals. I am also a chrome, android, and gmail user. I'd never use a google voice assistant. This is a bit irrational because the privacy leaking from my browser and email is probably way worse than anything else.
robertheadley 5y ago
My first thought when I saw this video was that I already knew that this was happening. I suppose the only real answer to this type of problem would be regulation about what information can be stored about a user, and for how long. Make everything more Blunt, as well as put limits in place for how long things like audio clips could be stored, I would vote for 24 hours. I don't reckon that they are being actively used for anything beyond that point anyway.

117 points by harambae 5y ago

I've never understood the Alexas and Google homes. People complain about the "1984"cation of our society and houses, and then they literally PAY to have an always on microphone in their homes. You either dont care about it and buy that stuff, or you care and dont put those devices in your private spaces.

pxtail 5y ago
> People complain about the "1984"cation of our society and houses, and then they literally PAY to have an always on microphone in their homes. They are doing it because they are deep in "Brave New World"ification process and are enjoying it.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
> People complain about the "1984"cation of our society and houses, and then they literally PAY to have an always on microphone in their homes. These are mostly separate groups of people.
rchaud 5y ago
People buy it because it's advertised constantly by two of the biggest corporations on earth. It's also cheap enough that it gets added to shopping carts, then distributed to friends as gifts.

insidedivision 5y ago

Wow, did they send her wav files? Havn't seen these in a while, thought that if you were to collect millions of audio clips from your customers you would use some compression algorithm, but apparently Amazon does not have to care about such details.

bongoman37 5y ago
they might store them in a compressed format but send them as wav to make it less easier for the customer to store/process or maybe the compression is proprietary and they dont want to reveal internal details of their models.
amelius 5y ago
They probably use their own compression internally (not a suitable format for users). But I'm surprised they didn't send these wav files in extremely high samplerate, to annoy those who request the data.

encryptluks2 5y ago

Wow, they installed Amazon smart speaker devices and didn't delete the data nor make changes to collection in settings and then is surprised that it exist.

piva00 5y ago
Why do you believe a common user/customer of Amazon's Alexa would know about any of that?
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  Ignorance only gets you so far. It takes a descent amount of ignorance to not know.
  - piva00 5y ago
    No, ignorance is ingrained. You are very likely ignorant about a lot of non-tech (or work) related stuff. It's impossible to be reasonably informed about every aspect of things in your life. Ignorance about tech is real, normal mainstream users suffer from it and victim-blaming is a non-solution. People, normal general people, aren't yet understanding privacy implications and the ways you can control those on the products they use. Mass adoption of these technologies will, by default, imply that a large parcel of the customer base is ignorant about its potentially harmful (or morally disputed) sides. Your point of view is completely unempathetic, being ignorant about tech is the default state in our world, expecting that the solution to dark patterns designed to confuse normal people is to blame the ignorant victims is ultimately pointless.
    - encryptluks2 5y ago
      It isn't just an ignorance of tech, it is an ignorance to things in general. It would be like bringing a stranger into your house where you also have children. Ignorance with tech isn't just an issue with people being ignorant to technology, but overly naive and ignorant in general. Yes, they can claim ignorance but if you bring a stranger into your house and something happens to your child I don't think a judge is going to be all that sympathetic and say... oh, poor you, how could you have known that is a bad idea?!? If you want to enable that, then that is on you but it simply isn't based in reality where that would be a good idea. Buying tech and bringing it into your house that listens to you and is connected to the Internet, and then acting surprised to find out that they keep recordings is on the same level of ignorance. So, yes if you are the type to bring strangers into your house and are surprised when something bad happens, then I can see how you'd be sympathetic.

ColinWright 5y ago

Quoting from the article: > ... another joked: “Can someone explain to me why this is ‘scary’? I’m not interesting enough to care if they have my contacts or audio.” I used to try to explain to people why they should care about companies and governments vacuuming up vast amounts of data indiscriminately, and I get back "It improves my search results ... why should I care?" I've given up.

dTal 5y ago
Nobody put it better than Snowden: "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
- baal80spam 5y ago
  Personally I prefer: "Oh, you say you have nothing to hide? In this case, how about you lend me your smartphone/laptop for a day, unlocked." This seems simple enough for most people to understand the crazyness of the idea.
  - raspyberr 5y ago
    I really dislike this comparison. I see it everywhere in privacy communities and I think it should die. That comparison doesn't give anything to the other person. Amazon provides a service whilst violating privacy. The person gets something out from having their privacy violated. Hence the reply "it improves my search results". Your comparison would mean they have their privacy violated, they lose access to their phone for a day, and they get nothing to compensate. Change the comparison to give me your phone for a day and I'll give you £1000 and suddenly you'll get far more different answers.
    - baal80spam 5y ago
      > That comparison doesn't give anything to the other person Hm, you are correct - I haven't looked at it in this way. I guess it's time for another round of questions around my family and workplace!

rkagerer 5y ago

A long time ago I configured Alexa to only keep my audio recordings for 3 months (the shortest option other than None). Reviewing the settings today I see Amazon added several new classifications of history (e.g. Smart Home Device History, Recorded Sounds History). Rather than respecting / extrapolating my existing choice, they all defaulted to Forever. These kind of dark patterns are depressing, but I catch a glimmer of hope when I see people like this raising awareness of them. To me, it's more than just privacy. It's about simple decency. As a developer I've always felt a strong sense of stewardship for the trust my users have placed in me.

nicolaslem 5y ago
I have a similar experience with iOS. I have disabled every settings I could find related to iCloud. It is pretty clear that I don't want my data stored there, and yet every new app or service enables the iCloud integration.
- Arrath 5y ago
  I love to find out that iCloud got turned on/enabled for something only when I get a notification that my storage is near full. I didn't want to use you in the first place, fuck off already!
varispeed 5y ago
The problem is inability to enforce law when it comes to big corporations. They have enough money to buy entire WH so there is nothing you can do about it apart from just not giving them more money.
mysterydip 5y ago
I wonder if you have the setting to 3 months or none, then later change it to forever, do old recordings suddenly show back up?
- voakbasda 5y ago
  I know HN is supposed to give the benefit of the doubt, but this is exactly what I would expect from Amazon at this point: an illusion of choice. I mean, they are under investigation for lying to Congress, right? If true, what possible reason can we believe that they would not also lie to their customers?

marapuru 5y ago

So, this person is surprised about the amount of data that Amazon collects on her and posts a video about this on _TikTok_? Oh, the irony :) I do find it praiseworthy that privacy advocates are present on all channels though.

INTPenis 5y ago

Buy three smart speakers with microphones and several light bulbs and then you get shocked that someone is listening to what you're saying. This is the really shocking part. People need to get educated.

drcongo 5y ago

I'm constantly amazed that anyone would willing have an Alexa or Google Home device inside their home. Or anywhere else for that matter.

amelius 5y ago
Your phone also has a microphone.
- dan_hawkins 5y ago
  In iPhones when you lay down your phone screen down the mic is physically cut off. That's why you can't call "Hey Siri" with a phone laying like that.
  - wsostt 5y ago
    Wrong. That's a software switch, not physical hardware.
  - rchaud 5y ago
    That just proves Siri is disabled, not the microphone.
  - SahAssar 5y ago
    If the hardware switch is controlled by software then it isn't much of a hardware switch.
- propertymagnate 5y ago
  "One sec, I'll just turn my house off, I don't want it listening."
  - quaintdev 5y ago
    Theirs an age old saying in Hindi which basically means "walls have ears". Now it's literally true.

amanzi 5y ago

To be fair to Amazon, you can get to this page with just two clicks from the home page: https://www.amazon.com/alexa-privacy/apd/home https://www.amazon.com/alexa-privacy/apd/home From there you can get to all the recordings and control how long to retain them for.

Gigachad 5y ago
The fact that this user and and everyone reacting to the news and TikTok video are shocked, it shows that simply having a page is not acceptable and that the average person does not expect this to happen even though they agreed to it in the ToS
- blitzar 5y ago
  > everyone reacting to the news and TikTok video are shocked reacting to tiktok videos in an overly exagerated shocked manner is exactly the point of tiktok videos, it is not really a reflection of the content.
imdsm 5y ago
And for the UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/alexa-privacy/apd/home https://www.amazon.co.uk/alexa-privacy/apd/home
amelius 5y ago
If I visit someone at home who owns Amazon gear, where do I control my privacy settings?
- perryizgr8 5y ago
  You don't have an expectation of privacy outside your own property.
  - amelius 5y ago
    So if I have sex at my place I have privacy, whereas at her place she has privacy? Perhaps wait until we are married and live together? Sounds not very reasonable.

blitzar 5y ago

> She said: “When I downloaded the ZIP file these are all the folders it came with.” > The TikToker then ... And just like that I am out.

lrvick 5y ago

Am I the only one laughing that this person is trying to advocate for privacy and security on TikTok of all places?

atraac 5y ago
I understand the irony but you have to admit that TikTok has insane reach, especially to younger people.
dkdbejwi383 5y ago
You need to go where you audience is. There's not much point telling people on HN that Amazon stores your data, most of us already know
rchaud 5y ago
That's where the audience is. Not the HN audience obviously, but regular people that see Alexa ads and buy the accursed products. If she were distributing pamphlets, should she avoid doing so in a public square because it has CCTV cameras everywhere?

nathias 5y ago

amazon really is the king of dark patterns

greenail 5y ago

There are plenty of good points regarding issues like defaults that you set getting changed and the fact that you are using a device that has to be aware of you speech to function. I agree that we should be aware that we are giving up something in exchange for using any device with a microphone that listens for prompts. Personally I'd rather have an Amazon device on the basis that Amazon doesn't view me as a product (mostly), they view me as a customer and they cherish their customers. It is very deep in the culture they built. Any notion that you might bust the trust of your customers would quickly get squashed within Amazon. This is based on having worked there and having seen this firsthand at the highest levels of the company. The reason I hesitate is that advertising as a business is growing rapidly in Amazon. Advertising puts me in the "product" role which creates a conflict between me as customer and me as product. I sure hope the leadership at Amazon sticks to their guns on the leadership principals. I am also a chrome, android, and gmail user. I'd never use a google voice assistant. This is a bit irrational because the privacy leaking from my browser and email is probably way worse than anything else.

robertheadley 5y ago

My first thought when I saw this video was that I already knew that this was happening. I suppose the only real answer to this type of problem would be regulation about what information can be stored about a user, and for how long. Make everything more Blunt, as well as put limits in place for how long things like audio clips could be stored, I would vote for 24 hours. I don't reckon that they are being actively used for anything beyond that point anyway.