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Gizmodo: Don't Buy Anyone an Amazon Echo Speaker (gizmodo.com)
Adam Clark Estes, writing for Gizmodo: Three years ago, we said the Echo was "the most innovative device Amazon's made in years." That's still true. But you shouldn't buy one. You shouldn't buy one for your family. [...] Your family members do not need an Amazon Echo or a Google Home or an AppleHomePod or whatever that one smart speaker that uses Cortana is called. And you don't either. You only want one because every single gadget-slinger on the planet is marketing them to you as an all-new, life-changing device that could turn your kitchen into a futuristic voice-controlled paradise. You probably think that having an always-on microphone in your home is fine, and furthermore, tech companies only record and store snippets of your most intimate conversations. No big deal, you tell yourself. Actually, it is a big deal. The newfound privacy conundrum presented by installing a device that can literally listen to everything you're saying represents a chilling new development in the age of internet-connected things. By buying a smart speaker, you're effectively paying money to let a huge tech company surveil you. And I don't mean to sound overly cynical about this, either. Amazon, Google, Apple, and others say that their devices aren't spying on unsuspecting families. The only problem is that these gadgets are both hackable and prone to bugs.
You already own one of these you carry everywhere — your cellphone. A microphone (and camera!) you take everywhere, and is connected everywhere, including in your home.
The Echo and its brethren are not a sudden influx of a listening device that can be hacked. You swallowed that bait a long, long time ago.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If you must, just download the apps for your phone. You can use them on an as-needed basis. If you find yourself constantly asking Google or Alexa this or that, perhaps the home "always-on" version is for you. If you're like 99% of people and rarely use it... just pass on the home version.
I kind of wanted to get an Amazon Show for my house. I thought long and hard about it, and realized it probably would get used heavily for an hour or two and then rarely after that. Not worth the money or the security hassles.
Why wouldn't you want an always on mic that's transmitting everything you say 24/7 to amazon/google/microsoft/apple?
I hate this. There's no more reason to get rid of your echo than your cell phone (a lot of which have Hey Siri or OK Google always on) or your laptop. In fact I think laptops are far more likely to get hacked by some 3rd party.
I have an echo, it's a very easy way to play music. I find myself listening to a lot more music because of it. Best gadget I've owned for years. Anybody who thinks the answer to a potential misuse of an amazing Star Trek technology is to throw the echo in the fire is a Luddite who doesn't belong on Slashdot.
Like Kevi O'Leary and Ingvar Kamprad.
Don't buy shit that'll end up in a drawer gathering dust. [CORP NAME HERE] wants you to do that!
They bought the thing, they installed the thing, they better expect it to listen. So nobody spied on in unsuspecting.
Just like they claim.
https://xkcd.com/1807/
By buying a smart speaker, you're effectively paying money to let a huge tech company surveil you.
Yes. I agree with that. And I won't be buying one myself or as a gift for anyone else.
However, how different are smartphones? They are a device that catalogs your travels around the world, logs your location for data mining by all comers, tells your social graph to huge tech companies (face it, most people don't or can't uninstall spyware like the Facebook app, and will happily install contact scraping games). It knows where you live, when you sleep, who you sleep with, whether you just started seeing an oncologist, and whether you just got pregnant. It also has a microphone that can be controlled by apps where it isn't always clear when and how much it is activated. (See all the fuzzy accusations about Facebook listening in sometimes).
It seems to me that people have already accepted arbitrary levels of surveillance to their personal lives. What's one more?
But then Gizmodo, that shit stain of tech journalism, told me I shouldn't. So now I want to.
As you ALREADY have these mic's on your TV, Cell Phone, WebCam, Etc... A white Noise Generator at frequencies only a Mic can hear, are the ONLY option for true privacy in your personal space anymore. Besides totally withdrawing from electronic/digital society. Good thing they make simple circuits for this from one end of the internet to the other :-P
I want something open source, that runs locally on my home network. If it requires connectivity to a server on the Internet, I don't want it.
There's no legitimate reason such a device can't be made except so that the tech companies can access whatever data they want - which yes, is PROBABLY just for product improvement (which will include better, creepier targeted advertising), but is also a massive invasion of privacy with all sorts of potential to be used by criminals and the government doing things you'd consider criminal.
What if I don't like them?
I always gather horrified stares when I tell folks here
"in former times, the state came to your home and installed those things *at their cost*. They even took care to fix the visible scars this older tech invariably left in your wallpaper. Today you go out and buy such a thing *from your own money*?"
Older folks with some memories of Stasi understand that pretty well :-)
Maybe you shouldn’t buy an Echo. They're definitely not as useful as marketing hype suggests.
But why do we need to be trolled by cynical Gizmodo jerks? Even the lamest marketing hype is a lot more believable than some story about my Echo being hacked and used to listen in on me.
Who wants to bet within the next week, there will be an article praising these things.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
After the "Special Rebate" it is FREE!
Nothing changed in the last three years. The Echo now does more, but has the same privacy concerns now as it did then. No, hacking demonstration on the Echo is nowhere near as scary as the malware floating around on phones, and those are far, far more privy to information than the Echo is. I 100% agree that people should carefully consider whether the privacy concerns of an Echo are an acceptable tradeoff for them.
This reminds me of when a teenager "discovers" things his parents loved/hated thirty years prior.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
How is that news?
Most of us have been saying that from the beginning!
#DeleteFacebook
Get an Amazon Dot instead.
Even if you remove the privacy argument, it's an awful gift. You're imposing your choice in technology on someone else. It's akin to an Android user getting an iPhone dock as a gift... it's going right in the trash.
I'd put it up on the list of bad gifts along with lottery tickets.
Just install an On/Off switch in the microphone line to ensure it's not listening when you don't want it to.
To the person making the comment about the cell phone burning a hole in your pocket in your pocket if it was always recording, not at ALL true. Oh, and bandwidth allowance may not be an issue either if there was an understanding between, say, google/apple and ISPs, plus government monitors. There is a reason why many new phones are designed in such away it is surgery to remove the battery which is the only sure way to be sure it isn't monitoring. There was a reason Snowden had cell phones put into a microwave when the reporters were meeting him: he knew they can always be listening/watching, regardless of settings by the user. The limitations people HOPE there are on a cell phone in regards to limitations are an illusion. Don't believe me? Try using apps like WeChat for awhile. your battery would not be dead either (certainly not on the new phones with the non-removable battery). I know because I've had conversations using apps that have gone one for hours which barely put a dint in the charge and my phone did not require a recharge for several days after. But I digress.
Any device that can listen and has access to the Internet is probably listening. There is a project that claims to plug this hole called Purism ( https://puri.sm/products/ ) with a hardware shutoff switch for the "holes" that are on by default on. And don't forget, Google was recently caught with their hand in the cookie jar, taking user location data even if you turn it "off" on your phone. The Cell phone, like these vocal response devices, are in essence trojan horses. No one should be having devices that listen 24/7 in their home. If we don't fight to protect our privacy, government and private business will assume permissions has been given. It used to be one had to break into your home, plant bugs, and monitor close by to do the kind of intrusive monitoring that can be done just by putting out devices people think are "cool" or convenient. It's like Mark Twain's whitewashing chapter in Tom Sawyer: We pay to let people into our home and take our data.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
.. you and your family do *not* need a 'smart' television. No you don't. If you can't buy a simple one anymore, make sure it is not connected to any internet/wifi point, as the 'services' turn you from a consumer into a product. As you probably already are on Facebook, Twitter etc.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
"The only problem is that these gadgets are both hackable and prone to bugs."
Yeah, so are browsers (someones already mentioned phones which is worse). Better still, you're putting your credit card information and social security numbers in to them. I don't imagine you sit in your living room yelling out your credit card number or ssn all that often but I can think of at least a few times this year alone were I've had to type in some sort of sensitive information into Chrome in order to use this thing called the internet.
Accept your overlords tinfoiler!
I make an analogy to privacy by asking people if they close their curtains/blinders at night, or if they let the passersby look inside. Usually gets the discussion going.
Seriously, has anyone bothered monitoring packets from an Echo or Google Home using their router or Wireshark? If these devices ARE uploading voice data when you're not actually using it then it's not difficult to figure out. I monitored mine at home for a month straight, and the only spikes in OUTBOUND traffic coincided with the precise times I asked Alexa for something. Beyond few bits here and there, which are too small to hold any meaningful audio of understandable quality, I failed to detect any secret surveillance.
With all of the engineers out there (who are smarter than me, for sure) there has to be folks who've tried what I have on a bigger scale with better tools, and if someone had found evidence of illegal surveillance, they would have come forward by now. It's what everyone wants, right? To PROVE these things are evil?
If you say audio uploads aren't detectable then give me a plausible method for ex-filtration of the data.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could trust these companies to only use your voice for the purpose you intend as a consumer?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
First, I don't need these things either. But "installing a device that can literally listen to everything you're saying" is something you do ANYWAY. Every device that has a microphone and an Internet connection and that runs software that you didn't write can potentially do exactly the same.
If you don't believe Amazon, Apple or Google that they don't surveil you with these gadgets, why should you believe them when they say that they aren't listening to everything you say through your smartphone or your laptop? Why?
You might as well give up on trying to convince the masses that they should suddenly start giving a shit about privacy or security. Based on the products they worship, they obviously no longer care.
System got hacked? Oh well, buy a new one. Identity theft? That only happens to someone else.
The masses gladly give up their digital soul in exchange for a free service. Pathetic, but so true there's no way anyone can deny it.
Obligatory SMBC comic. (Yes it is SFW)
I guess Gizmodo was paid by Google or Apple as another article on this page suggests.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
People wanting to spy on everyone is not surprising or disturbing. It's the overall complacency of it that is disturbing.
Glad to see that there are still people out there who have their heads screwed on straight and can see the truth.
... screaming at my teammates in battlefield, singing badly, and passing gas.
If they ask nice, I'll send them a dick pic too.
As if you have any clue what is sent at the time that the voice data is uploaded?
What if you are recorded and the recordings are cached until you "send a voice command to Alexa"
Think deeper and outside the box
If the end use agrees to the license who are we to judge them. Its their legal agreement.
Was involved in an alleged murder of a person here in Arkansas awhile back. Apparently, it did not contain nor record anything incriminating as the accused murder was acquitted. Here is one of the articles: https://www.npr.org/sections/a...
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
Although you literally couldn't pay enough money to have one of those things in my house, if I were to get one as a gift, it would be OK. It's probably full of parts that I could use for other things.
So come on let's get real.
or whatever that one smart speaker that uses Cortana is called
MeeToo(tm)
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
It is usually the onlooker which beg me to close the curtain at night. Usually a lot of tears and "oh my god" is involved...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Unless you're an exhibitionist in which case you place one in the bedroom. If these voice recorders would be IP65 protected they would certainly end up in the bathroom, near the sauna.
Mine knows I use condoms and reorders them before I run out. I just have to have most of my sex at home, and it figures out the rest. Not only that but recently I've been getting boxes of Beano. I guess it's trying to tell me something.
I don't ever like to do anything until jizz-modo has weighed in, so thanks for that.
Anyway, this is common fucking sense. At least it should be. It's just getting harder and harder to avoid this invasion into our lives though. Google already owns my phone and I have no option to remove the vast majority of their shit anymore.
So they can hear my wife bitching at me to take out the trash or to stop playing computer games?
You are an alarmist. I enjoy the echo very much, and it has a mute button.
Wait, THEY are always listening? To me? Somebody cares about me?! I'm Somebody! I'm really somebody!!!!
In Orwell's 1984 Winston had a television that listened to his voice.
How bad could it really be?
If Apple's HomePod gives information to anyone for commercial use, it's a bug.
With the others, it's a feature (their business model requires it).
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
It doesn't matter what these companies say today, not even what they do today.
What matters is the capability.
- The device can be hacked.
- The laws can change, the enforcement practice can change, and the next update the company pushes will do something different.
My brother gave me an Echo Dot in exchange for helping him fix up some stuff at his house. He said something about buying it and realizing he didn't need it so he gave it to me for my time and gas to come over.
I get it home and start playing with it and it's kind of nice, it's a lot like Siri on my phone in that I can ask Alexa random questions and it searches the internet for answers. It can also do things like initiate phone calls to people in my contact list, and stream music over the internet. This didn't seem so bad, it's like my iPhone but it stays at home and lets me use my phone for other stuff while I have Echo do things like music streaming instead.
My brother calls me up to ask how I like the Echo and wants to test this "Drop In" feature. I didn't know what it was, what it did, or if my Echo supported this. We play with our respective Echo devices and I find out that to "drop in" means immediately turning on the microphone of a remote device. That was a bit too much. I'm fine with people requesting to talk to me over Echo, that's not much different than a speaker phone ringing and I allow the call to come through. Drop In doesn't allow for the refusal of the connection, it just comes on. I can ask the connection to drop but that's after the fact.
Once I realized what "Drop In" did I disabled it. Finding this feature enabled by default is a bit disconcerting. Something that let's people listen in on me without some announcement is a problem, maybe there was an announcement but I don't recall there being one. I'm not going to enable it again to verify my recollections either. Perhaps I would not be so upset by this if it wasn't on by default.
I'll keep the Echo but I'm going to think carefully about where I put it and if I want to keep it plugged in all the time. It's nice to have to listen to podcasts, music streams, and such. I know it can do more if I get things that are "Alexa aware", or whatever they call Echo compatible stuff, and set it up but that's just buying more stuff that I don't think I need.
I had no intention of ever buying an Echo but now that I have one I'll use it. If I find more creepy behavior then I'll give it back to my brother, chuck it in the trash, or take it to the shotgun range and toss it like a clay pigeon.
I don't expect too much creepy behavior from these things, it's too easy for the people making these devices to get a bad reputation and losing all kinds of business over it. Of course that means some damage has already been done. That's why I'm treating this thing with some suspicion. I might place more trust in these once some of the creepier aspects of them get filtered out in future iterations from customer feedback.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
However see practical purpose to these devices beyond being glorified bluetooth speakers. Yeah I guess they play music just fine. Maybe take calls if you like being on speakerphone. Otherwise they are sitting there taking up a wall socket, wasting power.
Amazon spent this "Black Friday" heavily pitching its devices, especially for things like controlling lights. It's just not practical. I assume people don't like screaming from the hall to the room with the Echo, so that implies more Echo / Echo dots all over the place for that kind of thing. So now we've got multiple things running continuously. Oh and we need a bunch of smart bulbs continuously consuming power to respond to commands. All just so some lazy fucker who is walking into the room anyway doesn't have to push a button by the door.
Most of the other uses are also fatally flawed. Don't buy these things because they are gimmicks. The privacy aspect is a secondary consideration.
Thing is, the trade off doesn't even have to be there. Things can be 'smart' without using the cloud. We just have to demand they work this way.
For example, Nest thermostats didn't work during an internet blackout, leaving people in Canada freezing. Many 'smart' things use the cloud because their designers followed the trend or wanted access to behavioral data.. not because it's a good design.
Nest source:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technol...
You have to jump through a lot of hoops to get 'drop in' to work. You need a specific phone app (tablet or pc won't do it), you have to register your phone with the app which involves a multifactor authentication with a text to a legitimate cell phone number, then go to the 'conversation' icon and click through that to enable it on each device.
You also have to have a specific version of your cell phone's OS, only certain ones are supported (which in turn means only certain cell phones are supported).
There's an optional step where you tell it to f-off, and that it shouldn't have access to your contact list and add all of them as separate 'devices' so you can 'call _x_' or 'drop in _x_'. Just let it only add devices.
If you're adding someone else's device, they also have to perform a multifactor authentication to approve it. It's all a huge pain in the ass, and the most deliberate, shortest way is STILL a pain in the ass. I don't see how you'd dance through this accidentally. If you manage all that by accident, it's probably a good idea to stay away from any nuclear missile launch operation centers, just in case.
People are forgetting that one is designed to record everything and send it to the mothership, and the other only does that when hacked. That's not the same.
If you manage all that by accident, it's probably a good idea to stay away from any nuclear missile launch operation centers, just in case.
I don't remember all the steps, and it's quite likely I don't recall all the security measures to keep people from doing a "Drop In" on my Echo. Just the ability for the Echo to "drop in" on people as a feature is something I think is creepy. I can see someone being engineered to enable this feature, or someone setting it up without the owner's knowledge. I believe that feature is something that can be abused and I'd feel better if it didn't even exist. Now that I know it's possible to enable the microphone from afar with my deliberate actions I have suspicions this can happen from afar without deliberate action on my part.
I suspect much of my distrust of the Echo is that I am not familiar with it and the documentation on what it does and can do is slim. I know it can do a lot of things since my brother likes to show off what he's done to automate his house with his Echo.
Your explanation of needing specific apps and following certain steps doesn't ease my fears much. The device is pretty much useless until given some very personal information. It's quite easy to give it too much information and there's no way to be sure it can be taken back. This is so common that it's become a joke among the general public very quickly. People know now that a television voice can order toys for people. Is it really all that inconceivable that someone might abuse this for more than ordering an expensive dollhouse?
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Perhaps if people actually understood these things as being recording devices with a speaker, rather than a speaker that 'listens to you' THAN maybe they wouldn't be in such a rush to put one in their house.
There is now a slightly old book out there called:
Future Crimes: Everything is Connected. Everyone is Vulnerable.
https://www.amazon.com/Marc-Go...
It covers the business models of Apple, Facebook, Google, Linked-In, etc. and IoT makers of how we are all *product* and we can expect our personal data to be treated as expendable. Much like a rancher is not concerned as long as the whole herd is not killed off. Because the companies are not responsible for it in any way. So they also rush vulnerable IoT devices to market, since no user can sue the. It's all outlined in the terms of service.
It's the book I hand to non-techie users, so they get a clue of what is going on.
Spoiler: Facebook appears to be the worst offender.
Facebook is billions of individual "Skinner Boxes." And if you use it you are the pigeon!
Speak for yourself
My camera can read your lips move, Dave.
People should be less worried about a microphone recording them than a speaker that surreptitiously sends suggestive, subliminal signals to them while they are sleeping.