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Amazon Won't Say If It Hands Your Echo Data To the Government (zdnet.com)
Zack Whittaker reports via ZDNet of how Amazon still won't say whether or not it hands your Echo data to the government -- three years after the Echo was first released. From the report: Amazon has a transparency problem. Three years ago, the retail giant became the last major tech company to reveal how many subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders it received for customer data in a half-year period. While every other tech giant had regularly published its government request figures for years, spurred on by accusations of participation in government surveillance, Amazon had been largely forgotten. Eventually, people noticed and Amazon acquiesced. Since then, Amazon's business has expanded. By its quarterly revenue, it's no longer a retail company -- it's a cloud giant and a device maker. The company's flagship Echo, an "always listening" speaker, collects vast amounts of customer data that's openly up for grabs by the government. But Amazon's bi-annual transparency figures don't want you to know that. In fact, Amazon has been downright deceptive in how it presents the data, obfuscating the figures in its short, but contextless, twice-yearly reports. Not only does Amazon offer the barest minimum of information possible, the company has -- and continues -- to deliberately mislead its customers by actively refusing to clarify how many customers, and which customers, are affected by the data demands it receives.
Your Echo can hear your thoughts as well...
anyone who puts an omnidirectional mic in their home, tied to big-pig corporate, should expect no privacy.
Note: cell phones and even laptop mics aren't very omnidirectional. You can also use a cell or laptop with a movable mic cover.
OTOH, the whole point of a smart speaker is to listen and snoop.
Privacy conscious people don't buy Echo, Alexa, Google home, etc. These people don't care at all if their home is a public square. The other people should just stay out of it and mind their own business.
I don't have an echo.
Amazon hands your Echo data to the government. It's not their choice to make.
You know if they didn't they'd tell you. So of course you have your answer right there.
Amazon just said they hand your echo data to the government.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
They do. Of course they do. Obviously they do. I'm surprised they didn't insist they never do/would, all the while still doing it, doing it with relish, and indeed profiting mightily by it, then insists they had no choice if they're ever caught doing it, because, (they'll insist,) the law required them to do it, and forbade them to do other than insist that they don't. Duh.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
You know, back when spies, and/or their boss had to buy their own equipment and install and maintain it themselves?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
They definitely turn them over.
I would be surprised if they don't turn them in to someone wearing a badge they got out of a cereal box.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
when the feds (and others) can turn on the tap at will.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
if amazon was at all concerned about user privacy, they...
would build the hardware with enough smarts to be trainable instead of relying on 'the cloud'...
they would not track each individual user by voice print,
would not track each individual hardware device,
would not uniquely identify each device and user as it is used and with every http request sent off to amazon servers,
would not require tying a device to an amazon account,
would not track user to purchase to geo location to card to third party databases or to anything else,
would allow pseudo-anonymous (i.e. unregistered 'guest') purchase of goods/services via prepaid gift card,
would not load down web pages with a ton of tracking (and etc) scripts, and feeding backend servers for 'analytics',
etc,
etc,
etc.
They heard me ask Alexa what the weather is like, and to play some pop song, and also please turn out the light.
Crap, I'm suspect.
Considering the rate they are selling them at, I do not think Amazon considers it a problem at all.
Saying nothing is better than saying something and being caught in a lie.
Voice 1: "Hi, this is your local or federal law enforcement agency, and we want data on the following user."
Voice 2: "What if I say 'no'?"
Voice 1: "Then we confiscate all of your equipment as evidence and hope your business doesn't go bankrupt, not that it matters if it does."
Voice 2: "Okay, here's all the stuff."
Voice 1: "Great. We'll be calling you whenever we need anything. In exchange, we'll give you a heads up of four hours whenever we catch someone who uses the service."
Voice 2: "Great doing business with you."
Alternative Right.
connected to your shopping account and CC.
The gov gets the math of every unique consumers voice.
Its not spying as its not the content of a conversation and the consumer agreed so they could use the service. Just the math to find a person again for the ads.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-details-about-the-cias-deal-with-amazon/374632/
http://blackbag.gawker.com/amazon-is-the-scariest-part-of-the-cias-new-amazon-clo-1605847721
I would say more but some guy in a black suit is delivering a letter.
Really. This is some creepy stuff and not funny at all.
Would any of us really believe them if they said they didn't?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Then they will have to listen to all the nonsense my kids make it do on a daily basis. It will drive them mad.
Your kids are safe until the fully automated voice to text systems of our beloved spy agencies mistakenly marks your kids because it thought it heard them shouting 'COVFEFE'!
Did you try asking Alexa for the answer?
If a million+ amazon customers did that, I bet the hint would get to Jeffy.
Amazon has to deal with extensive licensing and legal requests for data from many nations, some of whom have far more extensive monitoring than the USA. I'm particularly thinking of the "Great Firewall of China". There is also very little reason to think that AWS does not have the cloud equivalent of "Room 641A" formerly active in one of AT&T's hubs. See https://www.wired.com/2013/06/... for a news reports with links to more history about the system.
If they're not willing to unequivocally say that they're not doing it, they're dong it. Moving along...
Where in iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks? :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
subject
If the NSA comes asking Amazon for data, there are strict rules that apply. They may simply not be able to tell anyone about what information they give over. Especially if it is backed by the FICA court.
once more into the breach
Alexa play farty pants
Alexa play I want a I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
Alexa how do you wipe a butt
"It's ok, only government can get at it, who will misuse it to keep themselves in power, not somebody scary like companies that wanna sell you Depends!"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
If you're privacy conscious at all, just don't buy one of these things. It seems ridiculous to buy a microphone and stick it in your house, let it record all your conversations onto some company's server, and then try to nit-pick their disclosure of government requests for data.
And they should NOT disclose which customers were affected by the data demands!
How would that look like?
"These users were suspected by federal agencies of drug trafficing resulting in subpoenas for their data:" and a long list of names?
bickerdyke
This is just speculation, but considering Amazon was paid $600 to setup a cloud system for our government(CIA, etc. )-- link below and owns the Washington Post -- which is an establishment mouth piece -- my guess is that they do give over our info. Anyways, like any corporation I don't hold my breath when it comes to my privacy, so I take steps to hopefully limit what I share.
A few top links about Amazon's $600 million deal with our goverment:
http://www.businessinsider.com...
https://www.theatlantic.com/te...
An early article from the Washington Post talking about the sell of it to Jeff Bezo:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
"Alexa? Does Amazon share our Echo data with the Government?"
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
what would be the point of not saying otherwise.. the re is no beed to say im not telling if you are not doing it
and a Russian, German, British, German, or Chinese company be more trustworthy?
At least, in the specific case of Germany (and to a lesser extent, other European countries - more often in the central-nordic. Switzerland is another such example. On the other hand France's controversial State of Emergency is a counter example), the laws happens to currently still be on your side.
There are strong law regarding protection of customer privacy.
I'm not saying that none of these countries' secret services will never ever attempt to spy on their own population. (e.g.: Swiss secret sevices notoriously kept files on their own population)
I'm just saying that if a German company ends up in the same situation as Lavabit - i.e.: on the receiving end of a government order to hand out their customer case's private informations - and decides to take it to the court, they have a very high chance to actually win the case.
(And some countries like Switzerland are even more extreme, on ground of being a direct democracy : to reduce such customer protection law, it would take a significant chunk of the population to vote for a law against their own interests. The government cannot pass something like the patriot act unchecked. Lobbying is nearly useless in direct democracies. Though that doesn't prevent the population to be massively stupid every once in a while ...cough... minaret construction ...cough.. ).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
If it's an American company, they collect and give out the information, regardless of what face they show to the public to keep the sales going.
Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, they all collect and make information available to the government, because they're required to. It will not change.
find me a recipe for pancakes"
And do that without the least bit of resistance. That is what this behavior on "transparency" means. Morale: Do not get an Echo....
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I could have guessed that, given that my Weather Channel app on my phone always tries to sell me the latest product I saw on Amazon Website via my desktop.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
That is the well known contract they have with the CIA.
Plus, with American law being the joke that it is, with secret orders in secret courts using secret "interpretations" of the law, even if they were not in bed with the government they would still give your data away.
The printed material inside an echo box says "Be heard"... Amazon's simply hoping everyone takes that phrase symbolically, rather than literally.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Even if they wanted to, it's very likely that Amazon CAN'T comment on the matter at all.
Gotta luv 'Murica and our Secret Bullshit.
For the whole " Land of the Free" thing, our government sure has a soft spot for how " enemies of freedom " liked to do things :|
If they won't deny giving all this data to the government, of course it means that they are.
Another reaffirmation of my decision never to have one of these spy devices in my home.
If you disaprove of this, don't buy from Amazon. Local is good. Or are you too enamoured of convenience to care.
Echo, Alexa, Samsung Smart TVs, etc. We really don't need these devices which by design transmit our personal info back to the cloud for spying by NSA, China, North Korea or any other hackers that might be interested. That our personal lives are being deeply spied upon by such devices is well known; the answer is simple DON'T BUY THEM.
I knew that as soon as I started carrying around a cellphone, I was sacrificing a measure of privacy - just because that makes it possible to triangulate the signal and figure out where I am at all times.
Still, there's always the trade-off of the pros vs. the cons of using a given technology. And for me, the cellphone clearly has so many benefits, I'm willing to give up that ability to locate me. (Since I know it works that way, I can opt not to carry the phone if I actually care about a company tracking my location. In other cases, it might be an advantage that I can be tracked.... like emergency situations where I want help to find me quickly.)
As for phones listening in on you all the time? I don't think there's much evidence that they do, on the whole? There have been hacks used by the NSA or FBI to turn certain makes and models of phones into listening devices. But those are targeted at specific people, at specific times. The providers wouldn't WANT all the cellphones constantly collecting voice data anyway since that would clog up their bandwidth and stop paying customers from making and taking calls reliably. And usually, my cell is in my pants pocket where the mic is going to only pick up very muffled sounds. (Listen to what you usually hear when someone accidentally butt-dials you? It's normally more background noise than anything else.)
Devices like Alexa don't offer enough upsides, by contrast. They're more of a "gee whiz" gadget, the way I see it. Anything they can do, I was already doing with my cellphone itself and a voice assistant like Siri. Except now, it's just a dedicated omnidirectional mic and speaker that stays powered up and listening all the time, covering several rooms of the house. And over broadband, they CAN receive audio from the mic pretty much at-will, and most people will be none the wiser.
But did you listen? Nope.