Time to eat crow - Amazon Alexa is listening to your personal conversations

[Treadstone]

Originally Posted by Wolf359


It's not listening in all the time. It listens after you say the trigger word or it thinks you said the trigger word. There's a difference.



So then, it is always listening.....how else would it hear the trigger word.

It amazes me that people will PAY to have listening devices connected to the interweb in their houses......

 

[SZR48207]

Smartphones are doing it also, if you have "OK GOOGLE" or "Hey Siri" turned on..

 

[SevenBizzos]

My gosh this is only of the numerous things. Facebook is a privacy killer. I've found it knows who's very close to you because it friend suggests people I just met and have no friends with. Then I was searching for baseball equipment for my son using Safari and I'll be darn if baseball advertisement posts didn't suddenly appear in my feed.

Even my iPhone knows everywhere I go in addition to listening all the time.

Alexa is on all the time. It listens all the time. If you didn't expect that hot mic in your house to catch things going on, you're pretty naive.

 

[stockrex]

There was a murder case few years back and the city prosecutors asked for the Alexa recordings, initially they denied it but finally folded and provided the voice recordings.

 

[javacontour]

How does it hear me say the trigger word if it's not listening?

Perhaps a better way to say it is it's listening all the time, but it's only paying attention when you say the trigger word. Kinda like a wife or girlfriend. Once you say the trigger word, you'll be barraged with responses

Originally Posted by Wolf359


It's not listening in all the time. It listens after you say the trigger word or it thinks you said the trigger word. There's a difference.

It's the difference between knowing how technology works and not knowing.

 

[maxdustington]

Originally Posted by Farnsworth
It has to be listening to answer your questions. Not for me, no facebook, no twitter, the internet is already too much. Look at people's vocabulary, writing, and ability to focus 100 years ago compared to now. It was far better then. Look at the Gettysburg address and Declaration of Independence, look at the sophistication of writing compared to now.

Those were the elites of the elite who had the resources to study instead of work. The majority of people could not even read or write at that time. A better example would be a 1969 university arts degree grad v a 2019 arts grad.

We do live in an interesting time where the real political threats come not from the government, but multinational private sector companies. They do not have armies and cannot disarm the populace, so 1984-style totalitarianism will probably not occur. New Canadian federal election ad laws just omitted Google from participating in our elections running ads in the federal election this year.

 

[dbias]

Originally Posted by Marco620
George Orwell 1984



I agree this is double plus bad.

 

[Ed_Flecko]

Originally Posted by StevieC
I know Google home isn't because I have sniffed the packets leaving mine and it only transmits when woken up other than the occasional check for firmware updates (it looks like).



Hey, that would make a great, customized license plate:

PK SNIFR

Ed

 

[loneryder]

Originally Posted by stockrex
There was a murder case few years back and the city prosecutors asked for the Alexa recordings, initially they denied it but finally folded and provided the voice recordings.


Yes they had to get a court order for those recordings and the entire fight and murder were recorded. Guy was convicted.

 

[JohnnyJohnson]

LOL yes I'm waiting for the 10 billion dollar class action suit.

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted by dbias
Originally Posted by Marco620
George Orwell 1984



I agree this is double plus bad.


Double Plus Ungood.

(Bad was not allowed in Newspeak...)

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by javacontour
How does it hear me say the trigger word if it's not listening?

Perhaps a better way to say it is it's listening all the time, but it's only paying attention when you say the trigger word. Kinda like a wife or girlfriend. Once you say the trigger word, you'll be barraged with responses

Originally Posted by Wolf359


It's not listening in all the time. It listens after you say the trigger word or it thinks you said the trigger word. There's a difference.

It's the difference between knowing how technology works and not knowing.



There's a difference between listening and recording.

When a tree falls and there's no one there, does it make a noise?

If you say something and it's not recorded by Alexa, did it really hear anything? When a human listens, the human automatically remembers what was said with some losses. When a machine "listens", is it really doing anything if it's not recording?

As for that murder case, I recall one where there was no recording to provide. Can't provide something that you don't have. It only records a little bit before the keyword activation. If there was a murder, then the killers would have had to trigger it by saying a key word to start recording it. Just reading the article tells you that it has humans listen to the recordings that Alexa makes when it's triggered. Nothing about recordings made when it's not triggered which is what it doesn't do. Of course with any electronic device, someone could hack it and be recording all the time, but that's not the default setup. Same reason why people put tape over a camera.

 

[Mr Nice]

Amazon really doing nothing wrong.

I wouldn't put an Alexa in my house.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted by KrisZ
Originally Posted by Wolf359
It's not listening in all the time. It listens after you say the trigger word or it thinks you said the trigger word. There's a difference.

It's the difference between knowing how technology works and not knowing.


I'm not sure you should be telling anyone how a particular technology works when you don't know it yourself.


Hahahahaha...

What about all the creepy laughs last year, and the unti telling people the addresses and phone numbers of funeral homes

 

[CKN]

It's only "listening" for the trigger word, then the light is on. It's very visible.

You know when it's on. It fulfills your request-then the light goes off.

Whats the big deal?

If you are concerned about privacy-and you are not using a VPN-well then?

Also-if you have a cell phone-you are being hypocritical as well.

Then is a lot of things optional in life that are "bashed" on this forum. Satellite Radio, Cruise Ships, Car Dealers, just another day on BITOG.

 

[RazorsEdge]

Originally Posted by CKN
It's only "listening" for the trigger word, then the light is on. It's very visible.

You know when it's on. It fulfills your request-then the light goes off.

Whats the big deal?


Some worry about anything these days!

I've had an Alexa for years,I sleep well at night.

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

There are actually 2 separate chips or processors or whatever you want to call them. 1 only listens for the activation word. It has no more use than that, once it hears it the other processor is activated and that is what does the recording etc. They can be activated remotely and many hotels in Las Vegas use that feature now after that shooting. They do "wellness checks" if no activity is detected in you room, door lock etc. for 24hrs. That includes activation of Alexa to listen.
Facebook is far worse and their A.I. Is amazing for tracking and targeting friends etc. I had a recommendation for a person who had my old motorcycle in a photo. Never spoke to them or met them or seen them. This person bought the bike off the person I sold it to. I have no clue how Facebook figured that out. I deleted my account.

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by CKN
It's only "listening" for the trigger word, then the light is on. It's very visible.

You know when it's on. It fulfills your request-then the light goes off.

Whats the big deal?

If you are concerned about privacy-and you are not using a VPN-well then?

Also-if you have a cell phone-you are being hypocritical as well.

Then is a lot of things optional in life that are "bashed" on this forum. Satellite Radio, Cruise Ships, Car Dealers, just another day on BITOG.


Oh yeah, that's a good point about phones, basically my android phone is always "listening" for the trigger words, but it's not recording. Too much bandwidth required on just 4g. I suppose once 5g kicks in, it could record all the time. Maybe in the future, instead of jails, probation would be the phone listening and recording all conversations by ex-cons for future crimes...