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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.
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.
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.
If you say audio uploads aren't detectable then give me a plausible method for ex-filtration of the data.
1. Record audio with compression. (It is a LOT smaller than you all apparently think)
2. Transmit it when owner asks Alexa for something.
3. Profit.
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.
As a person with mobility issues, I have 3 Echo Dots and now 2 Google Home Mini's. They control more than 12 switches and a number of other sensors throughout the house making my life much easier.
I too monitored the traffic from the echo dot when I first got it and like the @Guyle above, came to the same conclusion.
My cell phone captures much more information than these devices do.
The panopticon wasn't really the main problem in 1984 though. It was that the vast majority of that society unquestioningly accepted the government made truth over reality. Only 38% of our society does.