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It's bad for civilization for everyone to have far-field microphones in their residences. With cell phones, the microphones are a problem but the upside is comp

It's bad for civilization for everyone to have far-field microphones in their residences. With cell phones, the microphones are a problem but the upside is compelling enough to put in the effort of mitigating some of the risk and accept the rest. With Alexa/Google Home/etc, on the other hand, the upside isn't there. The state of cybersecurity is simply not good enough for a company to credibly promise that it only listens after a wakeword. Not only won't I allow Alexa or its competitors into my home, if I visit someone and see that they have it, I'll tell them that's a faux pas. I suspect many others do the same.

geoelectric 4y ago
Not to be too pointed, but if I invited you into my house and you told me my choice of tech was a faux pas, I would invite you out again. I have a number of Alexa and Siri (and Ring and Nest, for that matter) devices -and- I'm aware of the far-field microphones -and- I'm aware of the surveillance potential, -and- I have chosen not to care. That's in no small part because the options for monitoring me go further than that, and they will be used if someone has that much interest. So I'm not going to limit my own convenience just to make it trivially harder for someone to do something they're unlikely to do anyway. As far as being a guest in such a house, like most other places you don't personally own or control, I think that's something you either just have to roll with, or choose not to come by--for your own sensibilities. If you were my guest and told me you cared, I'm sure we'd just stick to the back yard, but that would be because you have a strong preference, not because I'm somehow "wrong." To be clear, I would not expect you to agree with my stance at all, but if you actually told me to my face I was somehow breaking a social standard that only exists for a very niche set of people, or implied whatsoever that I was doing it out of naivete, I think that would be very offensive. I hope that is not something you really do in real life. And no, in ten years of having a house full of microphones and various security geek friends in and out, nobody has ever told me the same. That's because it's fairly normal nowadays (and damned near unavoidable with some devices such as, for example, your phone or tablet, or your console's game controller, or your TV's remote control) to have a single one, and once there's a single one you may as well have as many as you need. If anything, I think them consolidating to Alexa, Google, and Apple is probably a good thing. For awhile there, we were starting get microphones in all the individual devices too, and then you really have no control.
cthalupa 4y ago
>Not only won't I allow Alexa or its competitors into my home, if I visit someone and see that they have it, I'll tell them that's a faux pas. I suspect many others do the same. I suspect that with a large enough sample size, you could find "many others" that do the same. The majority of people don't care, though. I can count on one hand the number of homes I have been in over the past 5 years that don't have an Echo, HomePod, or Nest, and those with them would be near or in the triple digits. I'm not providing a value judgment on whether or not people should own these, but in my anecdotal experience, it might be a faux pas to you, but not to society on the whole.
dapf 4y ago

geoelectric 4y ago

Not to be too pointed, but if I invited you into my house and you told me my choice of tech was a faux pas, I would invite you out again. I have a number of Alexa and Siri (and Ring and Nest, for that matter) devices -and- I'm aware of the far-field microphones -and- I'm aware of the surveillance potential, -and- I have chosen not to care. That's in no small part because the options for monitoring me go further than that, and they will be used if someone has that much interest. So I'm not going to limit my own convenience just to make it trivially harder for someone to do something they're unlikely to do anyway. As far as being a guest in such a house, like most other places you don't personally own or control, I think that's something you either just have to roll with, or choose not to come by--for your own sensibilities. If you were my guest and told me you cared, I'm sure we'd just stick to the back yard, but that would be because you have a strong preference, not because I'm somehow "wrong." To be clear, I would not expect you to agree with my stance at all, but if you actually told me to my face I was somehow breaking a social standard that only exists for a very niche set of people, or implied whatsoever that I was doing it out of naivete, I think that would be very offensive. I hope that is not something you really do in real life. And no, in ten years of having a house full of microphones and various security geek friends in and out, nobody has ever told me the same. That's because it's fairly normal nowadays (and damned near unavoidable with some devices such as, for example, your phone or tablet, or your console's game controller, or your TV's remote control) to have a single one, and once there's a single one you may as well have as many as you need. If anything, I think them consolidating to Alexa, Google, and Apple is probably a good thing. For awhile there, we were starting get microphones in all the individual devices too, and then you really have no control.

cthalupa 4y ago

>Not only won't I allow Alexa or its competitors into my home, if I visit someone and see that they have it, I'll tell them that's a faux pas. I suspect many others do the same. I suspect that with a large enough sample size, you could find "many others" that do the same. The majority of people don't care, though. I can count on one hand the number of homes I have been in over the past 5 years that don't have an Echo, HomePod, or Nest, and those with them would be near or in the triple digits. I'm not providing a value judgment on whether or not people should own these, but in my anecdotal experience, it might be a faux pas to you, but not to society on the whole.

dapf 4y ago