"Home listening/surveillance convenience devices": Alexa, Siri, OK Google, and all that:
9I messed with Alexa for a bit. Then decided I didn’t want Amazon listening to me. Also had never used it except testing it as a novelty. So I disconnected the echo from my account and sold it.
Have never used Siri for general purposes. Same with ok Google.
Once in a while I dictate text on my phone, usually some address for Google maps to locate for me. To initiate this, I hit a mic image in the keyboard. I don’t use a spoken command.
Hopefully my phone is not listening or “calling home” with samples of everything I say within range.
These companies are known to keep speech samples. Some if them are known to share speech samples with third parties.
If they claim these speech samples cannot be tied to a particular account or individual, do you believed that?
There is no way to known for certain that they don’t record everything spoken within range and keep samples of that.
I regret being weak-willed enough to sometimes - rarely - use speech-to-text on my phone. I don’t want to give these companies carte blanche to listen.
Why are so many of you willing kinda eager to have this tech in your lives? Aside from the fun of playing with it, do you gain real benefit?
I’m differentiating here between convenience tech and security systems. Bit I also wouldn’t want an indoor security system that recorded audio.
I think I just wouldn’t want an indoor “recording security system”.
I suppose indoor infrared movement monitors and the like would be ok.
- 17 comments, 23 replies
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Are we going to rehash this again? Sheese lady, we get it, you don’t like the tech.
@therealjrn
So it’s not a legit q to raise again, even given recent news stories revealing more far info about how these companies use and retain the speech info?
I am actually interested in any replies. I’m not trying to go polemic here.
In any case, I didn’t intend to offend you with the question, or bore you in that I raised something that has been discussed before.
If you want to say why you currently like this tech in spite of privacy considerations, I’d be interested to hear.
I decided to ask after seeing the popularity of Alexa device purchases on Prime Day.
@f00l I’m not offended. But you bring this up over and over it seems. I probably should have not said anything. If you need to talk to me, just have my Google Mini page me…or shortly, once my Dots get here, ask Alexa to alert me.
You always seem to stir up a lot of responses to your FUD “security concerns” posts, so I wish you well in that regard!
I’m out of this thread.
@therealjrn
Was not aiming for a “FUD” type discussion.
Was also not aiming to tick people off or annoy them
Oh well.
/giphy salute
@therealjrn
@f00l loves tech, just not the Big Brother in your face kind of tech. She tried to bring me into our techie world, which as we all know, is pretty much impossible.
I wish I had just a tiny fraction of her tech knowledge. But I’m afraid that is not going to happen.
@Barney @therealjrn
I think everyone who has worked in tech knows:
People who work in tech, and those who work hard at having all the important tech knowledge they can access, still know only a tiny faction of the tech knowledge they would like to have.
It’s an enormous and complicated world of info that changes constantly.
@Barney @f00l @therealjrn I feel like I was moaning about my distaste for Alexa/etc just a day ago on here. So…you’re definitely not alone. I leave open the possibility that the tech could radically change – like, if some company committed themselves radically to privacy, and invented a bunch of cool functionality that I was excited about. But…for now it’s (a) not interesting to me as a tool and (b) to a lesser extent, I don’t like having my devices listening to things around me.
I’d rather listen to things, such as:
/youtube Khachaturian’s Adagio from Spartacus
Google has the most information on me; I do have Android devices and use gmail. Amazon has most of my interests, since they have my financial information and I do get a lot of stuff from them. Despite being a Windows Phone user for 6+ years, I won’t be surprised if MS has less on me than the other two.
I think we’ve discussed this before a bit. I share a lot of your Big Brother concerns. My mother gave us a Google Home mini for Christmas a year and a half ago, and it’s sitting unused in its box. We played with a family member’s Alexa while visiting last Christmas and it was a fun novelty, but I really don’t like it.
I am not really anybody important. Realistically, nobody has the manpower and resources to save and monitor enough data to really listen to everything even if these devices were sending everything back to the mothership, but I don’t want to be a part of this whole creepy thing.
I’m more concerned with other parties exploiting the devices. Again, I wouldn’t expect to be targeted personally, but I don’t want to leave myself vulnerable.
And, like you, I still haven’t figured out what value I’d get from it. The ads for these devices feature such suggestions as Zooey Deschanel looking at the rain outside her window while asking Siri if it was raining, and OK Google giving a remarkably useless response when asked about the size of the Grand Canyon.
Just gonna leave this here…
Seriously, I hear what you are saying… I don’t use any ‘cloud based’ voice response units myself (well I do have hey siri on). My reasons are more about reliability… if your home automation system falls apart when your ISP craps out then what the hell good is it? not much.
One thing about amazon that I prefer over the others is the ability to go in there and just wipe out all the voice recordings… they bury the settings, but they have always allowed you to delete them… the one thing amazon that I hate is that they default to keeping everything forever.
Google has that control available for some of the ‘ok google’ voice interactions but to be honest I quit using voice based google some time ago it could be very easy to control the recordings now (I still think google has the best privacy and opt out setup among them outside of voice recordings, you can turn off most data collection and still use their products, no such luck with amazon).
And apple… well apple appears to still be taking privacy seriously and making it a main design choice… it’s one of the reasons I leave ‘hey siri’ on.
But generally I think most people don’t even consider the ramifications of it all being processed off site… I doubt many even get what it is doing technically, so to be honest the more of these conversations are had, the better, so people understand what is going on.
generally with these voice response units, until the device/software hears the “key word” (hey siri, ok google, alexa, etc) it shouldn’t be passing data anywhere anyway… the key word listening is done on specialized low power hardware that only loops locally… of course we know with the google mini fiasco (shipped with stuck buttons, ended up sending hours and hours of recordings up to the cloud) that even simple mistakes can make things complicated…
but once you trigger the keyword, everything after is fair game… google does some local processing (they have a great speech to text code base that you can even run locally) and some cloud processing, alexa sends it all up to the cloud as does siri… so basically anything said after that trigger will possibly live forever… I don’t think everyone understands that. There are also the implications of ‘pattern matching’ the background noises… for ratings for example (video audio all of it)…
You notice I didn’t mention facebook, if facebook has a recording I can promise it will be attached to your profile, pattern matched constantly to pull as much information about you and anyone else it can hear as possible, and sold to the highest bidder often… seriously I fear for people who use their creepy panning tablet camera.
I’d use an Apple-built “Dot” (or whatever) in the kitchen and have considered plugging in an old iPhone 6 (spare device) on WiFi only. I trust Apple’s business model t be damaged by abuse of the data collected. And it’d be nice to start/stop playlists, use timers and add things to a grocery list while hands-free. But like @f00l I don’t use any of the Amazon or Google voice-activated services. I also don’t use Apple’s speech-to-text keyboard, due to concerns about (cellular) bandwidth and battery overhead.
I have a Google Home mini and can invoke Alexa using the Fire TV remote.
I’m not the talkative sort so there’s not much to listen in on? . I’d obviously never say my personal information out loud during any type of conversation, live or by phone, so that part should be covered? I’m old, have likely gotten a little naive about things, but basically I just don’t give a fuck anymore.
I gotta say Google mini has been a potential lifesaver; I have a tall light in the corner behind the couch on which I’d precariously balance while turning it off/on. Google mini does that for me. Plus I haven’t stepped on any of my dogs in quite awhile now
“Hey Google, when was the final episode of SG1?” Gets me the info I want without picking up my phone
And, pressing the Alexa button I can get the TV to play stuff without having to scroll through all the crap I don’t care about… OMG, they might find out I’ve been binge-watching “The Closer”!!!
TL:DR Yep, I use the shit out of them!
@llangley
I find myself not giving a fuck about a lot of things lately (@carl669, do you hear us?). There’s not a whole lot I care about anymore.
@Barney
I do give a fuck about this forum and mehmbers, though. Go figure!!
No voice activated anything here. I work in InfoSec, and the actual security in place I’ve seen (and even built) isn’t about protecting you in the least. It’s $$$ and your data = $$$. Once they have a perfect digital copy of your data, it magically becomes their data. See how that works? If you do it, you’re “stealing” their data, but when they do it, it’s not yours anymore.
All microphone devices are disabled and OS and app permissions are turned off/revoked. There are also many “back door” overrides of “user preferences” in smartphones and the Windows OS as well – “to improve the user experience” as a required permission when you start up the device.
Just because you’re paranoid doesnt mean they aren’t out to get you.
I occasionally use an echo dot to play background music.
As to privacy concerns with such technology, the devices are essentially keyboards - they allow you to utilize a computer. They are also live microphones that are constantly monitored. I don’t know if most users know that or care about it because the technology is reliable and easy to use.
I once read something about a technology that used the timing of a typist’s keystrokes from a sound recording or a live microphone to attempt to figure out what was being typed. That could be a concern.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@eonfifty
The kB listening tech you mentioned works and was widely used by all sides during the Cold War.
So was tech that monitored and studied the tiny movements of glass in office windows, in order to guess at typewriter and kB activity.
Similar tech was used to try to guess at spoken content within a given room.
Widely used against embassies from the 1960’s onwards at least.
That’s one reason for insulated-from-the-outside-world (including insulated from passing along vibration) rooms for critical intelligence work - technical, operational, policy.
I know someone who worked on one of these rooms from the 1960’s until his retirement. He is an electrical engineer, and his speciality was encrypted satellite. communication.
@eonfifty
When I use a kB I am deliberately communicating something using a device. On purpose. Hopefully the device is secure enough that the info goes only to where I intend it to go. Hopefully ha ha ha.
When I speak, I am normally speaking to another person. Sometimes to self. Or a pet. Or a device.
An always-listening device gets all that. Plus other sounds. Movement. Cooking. Media. Whatever. Which I would just as soon prefer they not have.
I tend to think they corporate providers of this tech keep whatever they want and pass whatever they want to their partners. There is zero transparency.
And I suspect these companies will lie to the public. And that within such a company, one hand does not necessarily know what the other hand is doing.
Deleting one’s personal info? Just because they say they did doesn’t mean they did.
I already know there is no privacy. And I’ve been far too casual for too long.
I don’t know that my little protest about not giving even more away personal data matters much. But … I’m going to try to limit the surveillance creep a little.
The main benefit of them to me is home automation. We use Alexa to turn on and off lights and such daily. I’m not too paranoid about what they’re getting, as every American is being constantly marketed to anyway.
There are plenty of anecdotes about conversations that then become Facebook ads that make me think that is beyond coincidence and your cell phone probably is listening, at least if you have the Facebook app installed.
If you really want control over your data, get real networking equipment instead of your ISP provided router and lock your shit down for outbound traffic. Only allow what you want out. You’ll spend a lot of time doing so but you’ll learn a lot about what’s going out and when in the process.
I’m too cheap to buy all of that sh!t. I won a Google Home Mini recently and sold it for $20. Mrs. Smug right here.
@tartanknickers that’s the spirit! No smartphone either, right?
@RedOak First gen iPhone all the way!
@RedOak @tartanknickers I’d be absolutely astonished if you could get a 2007 iPhone to do anything at all today, besides making actual voice calls. I had to stop using my 2010 iPhone 4 around 2014 when it got to the point it was taking 30 seconds to send one-liner text messages…and I maintain my devices very well. YouTube no longer works on the iPhone 4, as well. I switched to a Samsung Galaxy S5 in 2014, and used that up until mid-2018, when it started to overheat so badly during basic tasks that the camera stopped working and it would become uncomfortable to hold. My current Galaxy S7 is just now starting to show signs of ‘phone rot’.
The sheer disposability of mobile devices today is rather sickening, as is throwaway society in general…but that’s a story for another day.
Alexa might not be perfect or private. But I enjoy the automation and easy connections to information. And willingly make that trade-off.
I guess I’m hoping if there is some kind of evil breach, it happens to someone else first and stirs the attention pot to get that remedied.
I’m more concerned about privacy protections in general, forget silly and trivial Siri/Alexa/Cortana/Google (in order of their owners’ decreasing outward concern for privacy).
Our Legislators appear to not only be clueless about how to address the issue… they seem to be mostly oblivious that it is an issue. At least by their inaction on the matter.
This may or may not be relevant (or amusing or appreciated) but I’ll add it just the same…
https://shirt.woot.com/derby/entry/112461/state-of-paranoia
I would like to try some of these fun gadgets but am waiting for more “neutral” versions to be available. I’m not sure that will ever happen, though.
I have a google home in my bedroom and both kids bedrooms; the screen one in the kitchen and an Echo in the living room. Alexa, define stentorian. Alexa, what’s 19^3? Hey G, how do you make pancakes? Hey G, set a timer for 2 minutes while they brush their teeth; Hey G, play a podcast while I fold laundry, Hey G, play sleepy-time music. Flame on about what a terrible parent I am for allowing Google and Amazon data on my minor children. This is the world they’re going to be living in. If I intend to have a meeting of the Ladies Anarchist Sewing Circle and Terrorist Society in my living room; I’ll unplug Alexa and deposit phones at the door. Otherwise I’ll take comfort that if I’m murdered in any of those rooms in my house, there’s probably a recording of what happened.
The less snarky version: I like the convenience. I understand they pose privacy issues. I respect your choice to not use them.
I used to fight it and then I realized, it was an uphill battle. Have a credit card? There’s all sorts of info on there about you. I’m older and I figure when the shit really hits the fan with all the info they have and really start using, I’ll be gone or close to going. My husband passed a while back and he was my memory for a lot of things. I tell google where to navigate to on my phone. Ok google, navigate to Andretti’s. I tell google to take a note when I think of something I need to do later while I’m driving. I cancelled my siriusxm and just have Alexa music on my bluetooth in the car. I tell my phone to call or text people when I’m in the car. At home, Alexa reminds me of things about 50 times a day. Alexa, remind me to fill the bird feeders in an hour. Alexa, remind me to turn the hose off in 30 minutes. Alexa, remind me that I have a dentist appt on June 23 at 1pm. Alexa add tomatoes to my grocery list. Alexa set a timer for 6 minutes. Alexa add clean the baseboards to my to do list. Alexa, call 911 because I just shot a burglar in my home. Alexa, call the Wolf because I have blood stains in my carpet.
I keep a piece of tape over the cam viewer on my laptop, refuse to voluntarily put one of those things in my car to track my driving and won’t wear a fitbit type thingy that sells that info to the medical insurance companies but I’ll bet they all get that info one way or another regardless.
@lseeber
I put tape over my laptop camera too
Might as well give up worrying about it, I guess, at this point. That, or just quit breathing:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/pentagon-creates-laser-to-recognize-you-by-your-heartbeat/
I can imagine that Alexa, google, etc. are probably sensitive enough to pick up heartbeats, at least at close range, and add that to the AEDbITS (All-Encompassing Database In The Sky) [I just coined that; you’re welcome. I first had AEDITS, but turns out that’s a thing already].
So hackers can tap in, and know who is home and when.
@phendrick Maybe I could spoof the heart beat with an on-person playback of a recording of someone else’s. Somebody prominent, likely to be around a while.
Anybody have a recording of Chuck Schumer’s heartbeat? (I’m making the assumption that he does in fact have a heart. I wonder if he could pass a reCaptcha?)
I’m pretty sure Ol’ Mitch couldn’t, but I’m not betting on his being around that much longer.
As a fellow robot, I understand your pain.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07/siri-records-fights-doctors-appointments-and-sex-and-contractors-hear-it/
@eonfifty I KNEW it!!! That is why there is no Alexa or Google home in my house
@eonfifty @tinamarie1974 Except this is that bitch Siri. Not Alexa or Google Home.
@eonfifty @therealjrn I don’t trust her either! The others just haven’t admitted that they record people
@eonfifty @tinamarie1974 Alexa won’t ever betray you, just ask @mfladd
@eonfifty @mfladd @therealjrn @tinamarie1974 Meanwhile the folks at Microsoft are probably thinking “we can’t be blamed; no one uses Cortana!”
@eonfifty @mfladd @narfcake @tinamarie1974
Who?
@eonfifty @mfladd @narfcake @therealjrn @tinamarie1974 somehow tho, she thinks she’s being summoned most nights by something on the TV and she springs into action. Hope springs eternal!