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Amazon Isn't Saying If Echo Has Been Wiretapped (zdnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the always-listening dept.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via ZDNet: Since announcing how many government data requests and wiretap orders it receives, Amazon has so far issued two transparency reports. The two reports outline how many subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders the company received to cloud service, Amazon Web Services. The cloud makes up a large portion of all the data Amazon gathers, but the company does also collect vast amounts of data from its retail businesses, mobile services, book purchases, and requests made to Echo. The company's third report is due to be released in a few weeks but an Amazon spokesperson wouldn't comment on whether or not the company will expand its transparency report to include information regarding whether or not the Amazon Echo has been wiretapped. There are reportedly more than three million Amazon Echo speakers out in the wild. Gizmodo filed a freedom of information (FOIA) request with the FBI earlier this year to see if the agency had wiretapped an Echo as part of a criminal investigation. The FBI didn't confirm or deny wiretapping the Echo. Amazon was recently awarded a patent for drone docking and recharging stations that would be built on tall, existing structures like lampposts, cell towers, or church steeples.

6 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. Two separate topics? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ok what the hell's going on lately with a news stories ending with a single sentence talking about a topic completely unrelated to the rest of the post?

    Can a story be moderated off topic to itself?

    1. Re:Two separate topics? by kav2k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You will find that each instance is edited by BeauHD. It's his "shtick". But I agree it's more often than not irrelevant and annoying.

    2. Re:Two separate topics? by stealth_finger · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Where's that whiplash guy to tell him to pack it in?!

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    3. Re:Two separate topics? by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Much of our interpretation of the news is based on emotion.
      So a story about how Amazon is doing something scary to us. Is then quickly followed up by them doing something good or neutral, taints that story's tone, and makes it seem more worrisome.

      We seem to forget that Organizations/Governments (especially large ones) do a lot of things with many different motives and sometimes they will do things that contradict itself. Because so much is going on there are many units running independent with each other, thus causing such confusion. Rarely do we have the Evil Corporation but sub units in such corporation doing bad things, while others are doing wonderful things. Granted such companies should have ways to stop the bad things from happening, and more often than not they will turn a blind eye, or reward them for hacking their metrics for success, encouraging such bad behavior. But for most of these things, there isn't Mr. Evil running everything with a devious purpose, but a bunch of people who are for the most part good, having to cut a corner or compromise to keep their jobs then it all adds up.

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  2. If you have Amazon echo... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... you're an idiot, you're willingly giving up your right to privacy inside your house, and you simply deserve to be wiretapped. Any internet-connected device could be "wiretapped", but in this case we are talking about something whose only and explicit purpose is to listen to what happens inside your house and send everything to "the cloud" (i.e., somebody else that can do whatever it wants with it), without the user being able to set up any sort of security measures. That's purely idiotic self wiretapping, not government wiretapping. No sympathy for amazon echo users, sorry.

  3. Orwell's Telescreen? by ai4px · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All party members were expected to purchase the telescreen device and never switch it off so the party could monitor them. The telescreen could be dimmed but never turned off.