3 ms·

"Hey Alexa, disable all microphones." "Sure." "Thanks Alexa." "You're welcome."...

• ilc 4y ago
  The hardware mute on Amazon Alexa's is actually supposed to be a real mute, and on the Echo 5 we have, there's a hardware shutter over the camera. Once the hardware mute is engaged, I've not had the Alexa reply. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of reasons to bash Amazon. I just don't count Alexa and privacy with mute among them.
  • maicro 4y ago
    Fair point, though I will say unless I look at the circuit myself and confirm the hardware mute switch is cutting an actual signal to/from the microphone, I won't fully trust it. Whether that matters is up for debate - I carry around a Google Pixel phone all day, and while I don't use any of the voice assistants, I also don't audit everything closely enough to guarantee nothing is spying on me randomly. As for my joke in general - I guess my point, if I have to make one beyond making a joke, is that I don't really trust any company to do what they claim in all circumstances. Even if they have every intention of doing so, some bug or bad actor could compromise the intent - not saying it's identical, but look at the recent issue with Tesla camera pictures being shared. So if you're working on some mission critical or top secret code, I wouldn't trust _anything_ to be running or looking at it - not Copilot, CodeWhisperer, etc. etc.
• brutusurp 4y ago
  Exactly this.
• progmetaldev 4y ago
  Wireshark on your network. I know this was probably tongue in cheek, and not undeserved, but you can always prove this.
  • maicro 4y ago
    It was indeed a joke, but yeah, that's valid (and was how the Eufy issue was discovered IIRC).