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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.
You know if they didn't they'd tell you. So of course you have your answer right there.
I wonder if the Echo product page should say:
Sold by the NSA, Fulfilled by Amazon
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.
Correct. Under the provisions of the PATRIOT Act the private corporation does not have a choice. All the government has to do is assert national security concerns.
Anyone here remember Lavabit?
Aside from that, anyone remember Quest? The one telco that refused to play patriotic 9/11-ball with the government and just hand everything over. What happened to them?
For this and many other reasons you simply cannot trust any U.S. based company in this regard.
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
Considering the rate they are selling them at, I do not think Amazon considers it a problem at all.
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"
Amazon's response:
You mean our Echo data right? It's not yours anymore.
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.
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).
China just wants your money, not to punish you for voting the wrong way or supporting the wrong people.
While they do want your money, China very much persecutes others. For example if you're a Falun Gong member, or a Christian.
Citations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... https://www.opendoorsusa.org/c...
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
China doesn't have extradition treaties with most of the world and the clout to force other countries to extradite whether strictly legal or not.
Not being in China, I have zero worries about them. Being in the west, I do worry I might accidentally log into some American computer and lose my freedom and worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
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
...at least as long as you ain't in China...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Alexa? Does Amazon share our Echo data with the Government?"
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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 ]
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.
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.
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.
Correct. Under the provisions of the PATRIOT Act the private corporation does not have a choice. All the government has to do is assert national security concerns.
Incorrect. I wish people would actually look up the law, instead of just assuming.
Yes, the PATRIOT act expanded the applicability of National Security Letters (note that it did not create NSLs, that was the Right to Financial Privacy Act, in 1978), and those allow the government to request certain sorts of information from private companies without prior judicial approval, and with a gag order on the recipient, preventing them from talking about it. However, the law also includes some important limitations. (Not enough, IMO, but the limitations that are there should not be ignored).
The primary limitation is that NSLs may only demand metadata, not content. Metadata is incredibly useful and valuable, of course. In the context of communications between parties, knowing who talks to who and when is often more valuable than knowing exactly what they're saying. In the context of a a smart speaker, I don't see how any metadata could be useful.
Another important limitation is that the recipient of the NSL may challenge the NSL in court. There is some evidence that many of the big tech companies do challenge them, though the evidence is obviously fragmentary, since such proceedings are normally closed and sealed, especially if the challenge is unsuccessful.
Anyone here remember Lavabit?
Indeed I do, and I also recall the details of how that actually went down. Lavabit had nothing to do with NSLs, it was all about ordinary court orders, because the FBI wanted the content of Snowden's communications, not just the metadata. And the reason the judge ended up handing down an extremely far-reaching order (to hand over private keys) was because Lavabit repeatedly and incompetently failed to comply with more selective orders. The "incompetently" part is important. If Lavabit had gotten an attorney and actually argued the earlier orders properly, they may or may not have won (probably not), but would ultimately have just had the selective order enforced. Mostly Lavabit just failed to respond or show up, leading the court and the FBI to decide that they were not acting in good faith, which resulted in the FBI's request for, and the court's approval of, an order to hand over their private keys. Lavabit chose to shut down instead of complying.
Aside from that, anyone remember Quest? The one telco that refused to play patriotic 9/11-ball with the government and just hand everything over. What happened to them?
Apparently you don't remember them very well, because their name was Qwest (note that the past tense is because they were bought out by CenturyLink, not because they ceased to exist).
What happened to them is that because they refused to play ball, they were denied government contracts worth many millions of dollars. The CEO, Joseph Nacchio, also publicly said that the request had come several months before 9/11. He was convicted of insider trading; the charges look legitimate, but not unrelated to the NSA stuff. Nacchio had used false accounting and inflated revenue predictions to pump up Qwest's stock price, believing that he'd be able to cover those inflated predictions with the revenue of the aforementioned government contracts. So his refusal to hand over customer data did directly result in his ultimate conviction, not because the conviction was punitive but because the loss of those contracts exposed the shell game he was already playing -- a shell game which included his early sale of stock while the price was high because he suspected his value inflation would not hold up, even before he was asked to illegally provide customer data. Odds are that his game would have fallen apart even with the lost contracts. It's impossible to say whether he would have been prosecuted in that case, but it seems li
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
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.