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They aren’t? I Thought it was pretty well established that they randomly turn on and send data to a 3rd world transcription service.

by rdtwo 4y ago

scubbo 4y ago
Given that that would be opening the manufacturers up to an _extraordinary_ liability if it was ever discovered; that many individuals are highly motivated to discover this behaviour; that it would be possible to do so fairly easily with network monitoring that's well-within the capabilities of many HN readers; and that to the best of my knowledge no-one has ever made such a claim - that's an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. If it is pretty well-established, you won't have any trouble providing an example? You may be confusing this with the fact that recordings are transcribed to improve accuracy[0]. That's well-known and acknowledged! And for folks who _never_ want anyone else to read what they say to voice assistants, that is indeed a problem. But, again - the overwhelming weight of evidence suggests that the only data that is actually transmitted by these devices is when it believes[1] it has cause to do so. I have never seen one iota of evidence to suggest that smart speakers are designed to listen-and-transmit at times other than when there is a reasonable expectation that customers want them to do so. [0] https://www.rd.com/article/is-alexa-really-always-listening/ https://www.rd.com/article/is-alexa-really-always-listening/, "What are the privacy concerns", for instance [1] yes, false-wakes happen. That's also an issue. But it doesn't support your claim of intentional ("randomly" - I'm assuming you mean this colloquially for "with no justification", rather than literally "in an unpredictable fashion") transmission. EDIT: to be clear - I absolutely support people's discomfort with these listening devices. If you don't want companies to gather data about you, that's a sensible position to take! If you don't want to take the risk of false-wakes, good for you! But it's important to make the decision based on _actual fact_ rather than scare-mongering, or claims of "well it might" when weight of evidence _and_ active network monitoring strongly suggest that, no, in fact, it doesn't.

They aren’t? I Thought it was pretty well established that they randomly turn on and send data to a 3rd world transcription service.

by rdtwo 4y ago

They aren’t? I Thought it was pretty well established that they randomly turn on and send data to a 3rd world transcription service.

scubbo 4y ago

Given that that would be opening the manufacturers up to an _extraordinary_ liability if it was ever discovered; that many individuals are highly motivated to discover this behaviour; that it would be possible to do so fairly easily with network monitoring that's well-within the capabilities of many HN readers; and that to the best of my knowledge no-one has ever made such a claim - that's an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. If it is pretty well-established, you won't have any trouble providing an example? You may be confusing this with the fact that recordings are transcribed to improve accuracy[0]. That's well-known and acknowledged! And for folks who _never_ want anyone else to read what they say to voice assistants, that is indeed a problem. But, again - the overwhelming weight of evidence suggests that the only data that is actually transmitted by these devices is when it believes[1] it has cause to do so. I have never seen one iota of evidence to suggest that smart speakers are designed to listen-and-transmit at times other than when there is a reasonable expectation that customers want them to do so. [0] https://www.rd.com/article/is-alexa-really-always-listening/ https://www.rd.com/article/is-alexa-really-always-listening/, "What are the privacy concerns", for instance [1] yes, false-wakes happen. That's also an issue. But it doesn't support your claim of intentional ("randomly" - I'm assuming you mean this colloquially for "with no justification", rather than literally "in an unpredictable fashion") transmission. EDIT: to be clear - I absolutely support people's discomfort with these listening devices. If you don't want companies to gather data about you, that's a sensible position to take! If you don't want to take the risk of false-wakes, good for you! But it's important to make the decision based on _actual fact_ rather than scare-mongering, or claims of "well it might" when weight of evidence _and_ active network monitoring strongly suggest that, no, in fact, it doesn't.