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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.
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!”
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 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.
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
Don't use Facebook, Twitter etc and your Information attack surface gets a whole lot smaller.
Not as much as you might think. FB, Twitter, Google, etc have their little snooping presence on a huge number of sites across the internet. They have such a dense web presence that even if you block all their domains, they can still uniquely track you through timing and other methods not requiring any connection to or data transferred to or from the target. Make no mistake, these guys rival (and probably surpass in some areas) TLAs in the sophistication of their tracking methods. It's their bread & butter, after all, and they have a LOT of capital and manpower to throw at improving it.
There's a distinct danger here, as a previous /. article earlier quoted a FB guy talking about molding and shaping public opinion. With the advent of AI on our doorstep, this could be very, very frightening. FB, Twitter, Google, and possibly other social media will literally know you and what you think better than you do and be able to predict your actions and reactions quite accurately to any particular stimulus or information, and that opens the door to insanely powerful tools of mass manipulation.
We'd better get a handle on this now, or it will have a handle on us!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
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.