7 ms·

> you have to say the word "Alexa" for it to start listening Incorrect. The device is always listening, waiting for you to say "Alexa" so that it can start act

by r0h1n 12y ago

> you have to say the word "Alexa" for it to start listening Incorrect. The device is always listening, waiting for you to say "Alexa" so that it can start acting upon your commands. I'd take Amazon's claim that no data is transmitted or stored without the wake word "Alexa" purely at face value. There have been enough examples of devices and corporations collecting/sending data they weren't meant to in the past few years for us to deny any new closed-source device the benefit of doubt. So no, this isn't "pathetic baseless fear mongering".

Someone1234 12y ago
> Incorrect. The device is always listening, waiting for you to say "Alexa" so that it can start acting upon your commands. You say "incorrect" then re-phase exactly what I said in a different way but retain exactly the same meaning. The detection of the key word is on-chip. That's all that matters. Until the chip signals that it was spoken nothing is transmitted. > So no, this isn't "pathetic baseless fear mongering". Sure it is. If you know that on-chip keyword detection is a "thing" (which you do by your own admission) then you know also that claiming that everything you say in a room is sent to the cloud is entirely "pathetic baseless fear mongering." You fully admit you know that that isn't the case here, but yet continue on like it /could/ be the case. Pathetic.
- Crito 12y ago
  Can I, as a consumer that hypothetically owns one of these, control the software that is running on it?
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    Can you, as a consumer control the baseband on your cellphone?
    - vezzy-fnord 12y ago
      I suppose with a lot of constraints that you can, using something like OsmocomBB: http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/ http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/
    - Crito 12y ago
      In practice, "No." to both. Which suggests that you are far more confident than you should be. Amazon publishes the leadership principles that they demand their employees aspire to: http://www.amazon.com/Values-Careers-Homepage/b?node=239365011 http://www.amazon.com/Values-Careers-Homepage/b?node=2393650... Look over those for a moment. Assume for the moment that Amazon engineers and their management take them seriously. When Amazon employees working on this project raised concerns about privacy, do you think that they were berated? Or do you think that they were heard out? The sort of attitude that you have towards these concerns is exactly what so many people fear. It is part of the reason those guideline principles were created.
- VikingCoder 12y ago
  Yes, it's possible the technology respects your privacy. But it's not open source. Therefore it's technically possible that Echo waits until you make a request, and then bursts a transcript of everything ELSE you've said, as well. Or maybe the device only does that if Amazon receives a valid Search Warrant, and they flag your device to enter "transcript mode." Or even "live, continuous broadcast." People have a right to be concerned about their privacy. They have a right to ask questions. They have a right to boycott a product unless they feel satisfied their concerns are addressed. They have a right to worry that their government (maybe not even the US) could force Amazon to violate their privacy. You calling them "pathetic" is not remotely constructive. You don't share their concerns, is all.
  - jeangenie 12y ago
    This sort of exchange is unfortunately the dominant mode of discourse--not just online either. Both sides loudly proclaim the foolishness of the other without ever having an opportunity to establish some reasonable grounds on which an actual discussion could proceed.
    - jeangenie 12y ago
      As an aside, I have most assuredly been guilt of this on HN and elsewhere but have been making an effort to curtail it. We'll see how that goes.
  - lordbusiness 12y ago
    "Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference." -- Mark Twain Pro-tip, when people make such outlandish comments and call people idiots en-masse, (which I am amazed hasn't been flagged away), just ignore them. :-)
    - VikingCoder 12y ago
      I hear you. ...but I feel like it's an important topic, and this conversation thread was ALMOST worth trying to redeem... I thought I could maybe shine a bit of light where there was a lot of heat... But yeah, I hear ya.
- r0h1n 12y ago
  What you are saying is technologically correct, possible and prevalent but I couldn't find Amazon saying it anywhere on their page. Can you point me to the part where Amazon says nothing is ever stored/transmitted unless "Alexa" is spoken?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - jasode 12y ago
    I noticed that your profile mentioned "recording engineer" so maybe some concrete numbers related to digital audio technology will put boundaries on plausible scenarios. We assume either of 2 engineering designs: (#1) the trigger word "Alexa" is detected within an embedded chip. The DSP (digital signal processing) intelligence for analyzing sound waveforms is inside the device. Therefore, the words spoken after "Alexa" are then sent to the cloud. (#2) the trigger word "Alexa" (and/or other words) are detected remotely via cloud computers. There is no "smart" DSP chip within the Echo device. That means that the device must send a constant 24/7 stream of digital waveforms to the cloud. If we continue on the #2 scenario, we can guesstimate what data transfer volumes would look like. To be conservative, we use 8kHz 8-bit audio as the parameters which is telephone quality. (Reliable voice recognition probably requires inputs with greater audio fidelity e.g. 16-bit 32kHz but we'll keep the 8kHz-8bit as a possible lower bound.) Using 8kHz-8bit, it means that the device would have to stream 691 megabytes a day which leads to 20.7 gigabytes a month. Likewise on the back end, the amazon infrastructure would have to scale up to constantly analyze millions of parallel 24/7 digital waveforms. The amazon datacenters would be burning up terawatts of electricity to ignore the 99.99% of digital waveforms that is not the word "Alexa". So, are there any consumer devices out there surreptitiously uploading 691 megabytes of digital waveforms (or any data) every single day? Is it realistic that Amazon would engineer the product to work like this? I have a router that has a fallback option to a cellular connection in case my cable is disrupted. I and others would hate to get a surprise bill from Verizon/AT&T for going over my 2GB/month transfer limit if the amazon device was designed via scenario #2. EDIT TO ADD scenario #3: (#3) there are unpublicized/secret list of words in addition to the documented "Alexa" within the embedded chip's "vocabulary". Such words might be "vacation" and "book" and depending on the subsequent words sent to the cloud, you'd see ads for suntan lotion or Stephen King novels on your next visit to amazon.com. The chip's vocabulary may also include listening for transient sounds like dog barks or sneezes. You'd then get ads for dog food and cold medicine. In this scenario, a constant digital waveform is not uploaded 24/7 but extra trigger keywords unknown to the consumer causes more data to be sent than he/she agreed to.
- __m 12y ago
  so you guarantee that the system doesn't access the microphones until it gets an interrupt from that chip? I don't see why that should be mutually exclusive.
edderly 12y ago
Do you mean like 'Ok Google'? on a typical Android device? Ok, that only works on the Launcher but I'm also familiar with tech on Qualcomm devices which does the voice keyword recognition in hardware. So this isn't anything new.
- reitanqild 12y ago
  "From any screen" definitely is one of the choices in Google Now settings, at least on Note II.
irishcoffee 12y ago
If you have a smartphone with Siri or the equiv app on it (Android, Windows) your device is already 'always listening.' I fail to see the difference. People carry around a GPS tracking device with a mic and camera built-in. They use it to post their entire lives on social networks. And they're worried about privacy. Hilarious.
- 13 12y ago
  No, Siri only takes commands when you activate it. There's an "always listening" feature, but this is off by default and only works when you are plugged into external power.
  - jasonlotito 12y ago
    Someone else said this: "Yes, it's possible the technology respects your privacy." If you can suggest that Amazon Echo is potentially listening and transmitting the data to Amazon even when you don't explicitly say anything, the same can be said of Apple and Siri.
  - jedmeyers 12y ago
    How do you know that it's actually off?
    - JadeNB 12y ago
      > How do you know that it's actually off? I take your meaning, in the sense that there's no inherent reason to trust one but not the other; but I think that it's fair to say that there's a big difference between: Hey, wouldn't it be handy for our users if we started storing and pre-processing audio *before* hearing 'Alexa', so that we're ready to respond instantly? Let's quietly take down the text that says that we don't do that. (which is a plausible reasoning process somewhere down the line) on the one (Echo) hand, and Hey, wouldn't it be a good idea if we ignored our users' explicit election to turn off a feature? on the other (Siri) hand.
    - r00fus 12y ago
      Unless you expect random or targeted surveillance, if it generally listened and sent packets all the time back to Apple, even if you didn't tell it to, that someone would have discovered this by now.
_partek 12y ago
It will be easy enough to test once it gets into someone's home who understands how to use a packet sniffer
tjbiddle 12y ago
Wouldn't it be fairly simple to just monitor network connections to see how often it's sending data to Amazon's servers? Granted - then of course you can have the argument that it's always recording, and then only sending data at the opportune time so that it's a little bit more hidden. And to that - I'd just say you can keep track of how much data should be being sent for the average command.
- justcommenting 12y ago
  i would much rather have a device that i can actually control and trust instead of having to spy on a device that's most likely spying on me in ways i might not like.
  - encoderer 12y ago
    And what's great is that your personal preference on these things takes absolutely nothing away from the device itself. I don't think i'll buy one because I have Siri in my pocket at all times, but these privacy concerns aren't absolute truths. They only matter to you because you're sensitive to it.
    - justcommenting 12y ago
      agreed and upvoted
  - LLWM 12y ago
    Then buy one of those instead.

by r0h1n 12y ago

Someone1234 12y ago

> Incorrect. The device is always listening, waiting for you to say "Alexa" so that it can start acting upon your commands. You say "incorrect" then re-phase exactly what I said in a different way but retain exactly the same meaning. The detection of the key word is on-chip. That's all that matters. Until the chip signals that it was spoken nothing is transmitted. > So no, this isn't "pathetic baseless fear mongering". Sure it is. If you know that on-chip keyword detection is a "thing" (which you do by your own admission) then you know also that claiming that everything you say in a room is sent to the cloud is entirely "pathetic baseless fear mongering." You fully admit you know that that isn't the case here, but yet continue on like it /could/ be the case. Pathetic.

Crito 12y ago
Can I, as a consumer that hypothetically owns one of these, control the software that is running on it?
- Someone1234 12y ago
  Can you, as a consumer control the baseband on your cellphone?
  - vezzy-fnord 12y ago
    I suppose with a lot of constraints that you can, using something like OsmocomBB: http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/ http://bb.osmocom.org/trac/
  - Crito 12y ago
    In practice, "No." to both. Which suggests that you are far more confident than you should be. Amazon publishes the leadership principles that they demand their employees aspire to: http://www.amazon.com/Values-Careers-Homepage/b?node=239365011 http://www.amazon.com/Values-Careers-Homepage/b?node=2393650... Look over those for a moment. Assume for the moment that Amazon engineers and their management take them seriously. When Amazon employees working on this project raised concerns about privacy, do you think that they were berated? Or do you think that they were heard out? The sort of attitude that you have towards these concerns is exactly what so many people fear. It is part of the reason those guideline principles were created.
VikingCoder 12y ago
Yes, it's possible the technology respects your privacy. But it's not open source. Therefore it's technically possible that Echo waits until you make a request, and then bursts a transcript of everything ELSE you've said, as well. Or maybe the device only does that if Amazon receives a valid Search Warrant, and they flag your device to enter "transcript mode." Or even "live, continuous broadcast." People have a right to be concerned about their privacy. They have a right to ask questions. They have a right to boycott a product unless they feel satisfied their concerns are addressed. They have a right to worry that their government (maybe not even the US) could force Amazon to violate their privacy. You calling them "pathetic" is not remotely constructive. You don't share their concerns, is all.
- jeangenie 12y ago
  This sort of exchange is unfortunately the dominant mode of discourse--not just online either. Both sides loudly proclaim the foolishness of the other without ever having an opportunity to establish some reasonable grounds on which an actual discussion could proceed.
  - jeangenie 12y ago
    As an aside, I have most assuredly been guilt of this on HN and elsewhere but have been making an effort to curtail it. We'll see how that goes.
- lordbusiness 12y ago
  "Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference." -- Mark Twain Pro-tip, when people make such outlandish comments and call people idiots en-masse, (which I am amazed hasn't been flagged away), just ignore them. :-)
  - VikingCoder 12y ago
    I hear you. ...but I feel like it's an important topic, and this conversation thread was ALMOST worth trying to redeem... I thought I could maybe shine a bit of light where there was a lot of heat... But yeah, I hear ya.
r0h1n 12y ago
What you are saying is technologically correct, possible and prevalent but I couldn't find Amazon saying it anywhere on their page. Can you point me to the part where Amazon says nothing is ever stored/transmitted unless "Alexa" is spoken?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jasode 12y ago
  I noticed that your profile mentioned "recording engineer" so maybe some concrete numbers related to digital audio technology will put boundaries on plausible scenarios. We assume either of 2 engineering designs: (#1) the trigger word "Alexa" is detected within an embedded chip. The DSP (digital signal processing) intelligence for analyzing sound waveforms is inside the device. Therefore, the words spoken after "Alexa" are then sent to the cloud. (#2) the trigger word "Alexa" (and/or other words) are detected remotely via cloud computers. There is no "smart" DSP chip within the Echo device. That means that the device must send a constant 24/7 stream of digital waveforms to the cloud. If we continue on the #2 scenario, we can guesstimate what data transfer volumes would look like. To be conservative, we use 8kHz 8-bit audio as the parameters which is telephone quality. (Reliable voice recognition probably requires inputs with greater audio fidelity e.g. 16-bit 32kHz but we'll keep the 8kHz-8bit as a possible lower bound.) Using 8kHz-8bit, it means that the device would have to stream 691 megabytes a day which leads to 20.7 gigabytes a month. Likewise on the back end, the amazon infrastructure would have to scale up to constantly analyze millions of parallel 24/7 digital waveforms. The amazon datacenters would be burning up terawatts of electricity to ignore the 99.99% of digital waveforms that is not the word "Alexa". So, are there any consumer devices out there surreptitiously uploading 691 megabytes of digital waveforms (or any data) every single day? Is it realistic that Amazon would engineer the product to work like this? I have a router that has a fallback option to a cellular connection in case my cable is disrupted. I and others would hate to get a surprise bill from Verizon/AT&T for going over my 2GB/month transfer limit if the amazon device was designed via scenario #2. EDIT TO ADD scenario #3: (#3) there are unpublicized/secret list of words in addition to the documented "Alexa" within the embedded chip's "vocabulary". Such words might be "vacation" and "book" and depending on the subsequent words sent to the cloud, you'd see ads for suntan lotion or Stephen King novels on your next visit to amazon.com. The chip's vocabulary may also include listening for transient sounds like dog barks or sneezes. You'd then get ads for dog food and cold medicine. In this scenario, a constant digital waveform is not uploaded 24/7 but extra trigger keywords unknown to the consumer causes more data to be sent than he/she agreed to.
__m 12y ago
so you guarantee that the system doesn't access the microphones until it gets an interrupt from that chip? I don't see why that should be mutually exclusive.

edderly 12y ago

Do you mean like 'Ok Google'? on a typical Android device? Ok, that only works on the Launcher but I'm also familiar with tech on Qualcomm devices which does the voice keyword recognition in hardware. So this isn't anything new.

reitanqild 12y ago
"From any screen" definitely is one of the choices in Google Now settings, at least on Note II.

irishcoffee 12y ago

If you have a smartphone with Siri or the equiv app on it (Android, Windows) your device is already 'always listening.' I fail to see the difference. People carry around a GPS tracking device with a mic and camera built-in. They use it to post their entire lives on social networks. And they're worried about privacy. Hilarious.

13 12y ago
No, Siri only takes commands when you activate it. There's an "always listening" feature, but this is off by default and only works when you are plugged into external power.
- jasonlotito 12y ago
  Someone else said this: "Yes, it's possible the technology respects your privacy." If you can suggest that Amazon Echo is potentially listening and transmitting the data to Amazon even when you don't explicitly say anything, the same can be said of Apple and Siri.
- jedmeyers 12y ago
  How do you know that it's actually off?
  - JadeNB 12y ago
    > How do you know that it's actually off? I take your meaning, in the sense that there's no inherent reason to trust one but not the other; but I think that it's fair to say that there's a big difference between: Hey, wouldn't it be handy for our users if we started storing and pre-processing audio *before* hearing 'Alexa', so that we're ready to respond instantly? Let's quietly take down the text that says that we don't do that. (which is a plausible reasoning process somewhere down the line) on the one (Echo) hand, and Hey, wouldn't it be a good idea if we ignored our users' explicit election to turn off a feature? on the other (Siri) hand.
  - r00fus 12y ago
    Unless you expect random or targeted surveillance, if it generally listened and sent packets all the time back to Apple, even if you didn't tell it to, that someone would have discovered this by now.

_partek 12y ago

It will be easy enough to test once it gets into someone's home who understands how to use a packet sniffer

tjbiddle 12y ago

Wouldn't it be fairly simple to just monitor network connections to see how often it's sending data to Amazon's servers? Granted - then of course you can have the argument that it's always recording, and then only sending data at the opportune time so that it's a little bit more hidden. And to that - I'd just say you can keep track of how much data should be being sent for the average command.

justcommenting 12y ago
i would much rather have a device that i can actually control and trust instead of having to spy on a device that's most likely spying on me in ways i might not like.
- encoderer 12y ago
  And what's great is that your personal preference on these things takes absolutely nothing away from the device itself. I don't think i'll buy one because I have Siri in my pocket at all times, but these privacy concerns aren't absolute truths. They only matter to you because you're sensitive to it.
  - justcommenting 12y ago
    agreed and upvoted
- LLWM 12y ago
  Then buy one of those instead.