Alexa Outsmarts George Orwell.

[BIAD]

Orwell Got It Wrong.

When George Orwell imagined the future in his book '1984', he foresaw a group of jack-booted thugs
pushing open the public''s front-door and without a word, installing a listening device for the sake of
Big Brother and your evil thoughts.

Luckily, those days never came to pass. We pay for such machines with our own money and smile with
glee as a faceless corporation stores all your private shit with assurance that it's safe.

Christ... it's even worse than having a cell-phone or not covering your laptop camera and speakers!

Woman says her Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact.

'A Portland family contacted Amazon to investigate after they say a private conversation in their home
was recorded by Amazon's Alexa --the voice-controlled smart speaker --and that the recorded audio
was sent to the phone of a random person in Seattle, who was in the family’s contact list.

"My husband and I would joke and say I'd bet these devices are listening to what we're saying," said
Danielle, who did not want us to use her last name. Every room in her family home was wired with the
Amazon devices to control her home's heat, lights and security system.


The guilty listening device.

But Danielle said two weeks ago their love for Alexa changed with an alarming phone call.
"The person on the other line said, 'unplug your Alexa devices right now,'" she said. "'You're being hacked.'"
That person was one of her husband's employees, calling from Seattle

"We unplugged all of them and he proceeded to tell us that he had received audio files of recordings from
inside our house," she said. "At first, my husband was, like, 'no you didn't!'
And the (recipient of the message) said 'You sat there talking about hardwood floors.' And we said, 'oh gosh,
you really did hear us.'"

Danielle listened to the conversation when it was sent back to her, and she couldn't believe someone 176 miles
away heard it too. "I felt invaded," she said. "A total privacy invasion. Immediately I said, 'I'm never plugging that
device in again, because I can't trust it.'"

Danielle says she unplugged all the devices, and she repeatedly called Amazon.
She says an Alexa engineer investigated.

"They said 'our engineers went through your logs, and they saw exactly what you told us, they saw exactly what you
said happened, and we're sorry.' He apologized like 15 times in a matter of 30 minutes and he said we really
appreciate you bringing this to our attention, this is something we need to fix!"

But Danielle says the engineer did not provide specifics about why it happened, or if it's a widespread issue.
"He told us that the device just guessed what we were saying," she said. Danielle said the device did not audibly
advise her it was preparing to send the recording, something it’s programmed to do.
When KIRO 7 asked Amazon questions, they sent this response:

“Amazon takes privacy very seriously.
We investigated what happened and determined this was an extremely rare occurrence. We are taking steps to
avoid this from happening in the future."

Thursday afternoon, Amazon spokeswoman Shelby Lichliter sent this statement:
“Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like 'Alexa.'
Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a “send message” request.

At which point, Alexa said out loud 'To whom?' At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a
name in the customer’s contact list.

 Alexa then asked out loud, '[contact name], right?' Alexa then interpreted background conversation as 'right.'
As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely.”

Amazon offered to “de-provision” Danielle’s Alexa communications so she could keep using its Smart Home Features.
But Danielle is hoping Amazon gives her a refund for her devices, which she said their representatives have been
unwilling to do. She says she’s curious to find out if anyone else has experienced the same issue.

"A husband and wife in the privacy of their home have conversations that they're not expecting to be sent to someone
(in) their address book," she said...'

SOURCE:

[Mystic Wanderer]

Don't be fooled. I've read that "they" can turn these devices on anytime they want.  The sales people might not realize it, so they might be sincere in their apology.

I'll never have one in my home.  The day I'm too lazy to turn on the lights or look up something on the internet (or even in the encyclopedia) myself is the day I just need to call it quits. 

People are too spoiled; serves them right.  

[Ninurta]

Not sure of who most folk think of as "they", but my money is on Google.

Google owns, operates, and develops "Android", the operating system for a lot of cell phones. I have an Android "smart phone". I noticed one day that MY cell phone was turning the microphone on all by itself, and just sitting there... listening...

It had been listening for two and a half hours when I noticed it. I had previously disabled the "Google location services", but when I noticed it listening, I promptly de-Googled the phone entirely. It may no longer be a "smart phone", and in fact may now be a "dumb phone", but it does my bidding now instead of Googles bidding.

According to Alexander Graham Bell, phones are meant for talking into, not tracking you or acting as mini computers for trolling the interwebs. That's all mine is good for now, in accordance with Bell's intent, and tradition. It's a bit of a problem at times, as one MUST go through Googles "App store" to get programming for it (actual drone vendors cannot seem to spare the piddling bandwidth to download the apps, I reckon), and mine can no longer go to that store. As a consequence, I have 3 or 4 dead drones now, because I can no longer get the programs to watch the live video feed from them on my phone. There appears to be no other way to get said programs for the drones, which I find weird as they are not Google drones, but that's just the way it is.

So I'll buy no more drones, unless I can find one that will allow it's "app" to be side-loaded to my phone, without Google "assistance".

Grace has become paranoid, and no longer takes her phone to town, because Google kept telling her where she was, and thus annoying her. Google insisted it wanted her to take pictures of various locations she was at - which Google SHOULD have been utterly unaware of, much less want photos of, and we found that to be... creepy.

Facebook runs a close second. They've gone on a media blitz to convince us how safe our personal data is with them NOW, hoping we will forget that their stock in trade IS our data, which they collect with abandon, and are overly willing to sell to the highest bidder. Really? I've even notice a huge plurality of sites I visit on the interwebs now trying to "cross link" to Facebook - attempts which I block, but most folks are utterly unaware of.

Stealth collection of personal data is "safe" now?

Really?

Welcome to The Brave New World - consume at your own risk!


.

[Amaterasu Solar]

Not sure of who most folk think of as "they", but my money is on Google.


.

"They" are the psychopaths in control - who own Google and own YouTube and own the media and own the corporations Most call governments around the globe, and own the legal system, and own the communications corporations, and own the medical industrial complex, and own pharmaceutical compaies and own education and own the prison industrial complex, and own the military industrial complex, and own all the other major corporations on Our planet that They stole from Us centuries ago through "trusts" and deceit.

[gordi]

I have had conversations with my niece about these (and similar) devices.

She INSISTS that the device remains OFF until she says the keyword (ALEXA?) to start the device.
I have pointed out that the device MUST ALREADY BE LISTENING for it to be able to hear the keyword (ALEXA?).

She CANNOT and WILL NOT see the logic in my argument. She insists that it's OFF because the BLUE LIGHT ISN'T ON!!!!

Arrrgh!!

On "Smart" phones...
The first thing that I did when I got one was to turn OFF all of the "location services".

Well, guess what...?
It still tracks me.

How do I know?
Because one day I was in a neighbouring town (through work) and I took my lunch break outside a small independent building supplies company with a very specific and individual name. There is only ONE BRANCH of this company anywhere, and I was parked outside of it for maybe 20mins on one single occasion.

I didn't use my phone at all. No calls, texts, apps, check-ins... nothing.
My location services were still disabled.

That evening, about 5-6 hours later, I switched on my main PC at home and when I logged into a site (I can't remember if it was FB or similar) an ad came up on my sidebar for that one very specific building supplies company that I had been parked near. I have never before seen an ad for that company, and have never seen one since. I have never been a customer of theirs, and have never visited their website or any site associated with them.
THE ONLY WAY that I have had any connection with them, was parking outside their building for 20mins one lunchtime.
They are not a sophisticated company! There would be no way for them to identify me from my simply being near their location. It MUST have been my phone, "reporting" its location without my permission.

I don't want advertising on every single device and website. I find it intrusive and I object to having to PAY for the BANDWIDTH which carries it, without any specific permission given from me. IMHO this is theft.
If I log onto someone else's unsecured router and use their bandwidth without permission, I am guilty of theft.
So, why are THEY allowed to do it to me?

THEY should NOT be ALLOWED to listen to our PRIVATE conversations, READ our PRIVATE Emails, LOOK at our activities via our PRIVATE webcams, TRACK our locations via mobile phone services that we have CHOSEN TO SWITCH OFF, or use OUR PRIVATE BANDWIDTH to PUSH advertising that we don't want at us.

What kind of a world do those responsible for all of the above want their own kids to grow up in?

/rant.

[Amaterasu Solar]

What kind of a world do those responsible for all of the above want their own kids to grow up in?

/rant.

The Ones responsible are psychopaths, and They inbreed to retain the psychopathic gene.  The Ones who are responsible want a world where Their children will be in control of Us, and being extremely likely They (the children) are psychopaths, They want that too.

[Ninurta]

THEY should NOT be ALLOWED to listen to our PRIVATE conversations, READ our PRIVATE Emails, LOOK at our activities via our PRIVATE webcams, TRACK our locations via mobile phone services that we have CHOSEN TO SWITCH OFF, or use OUR PRIVATE BANDWIDTH to PUSH advertising that we don't want at us.

Indeed they shouldn't, but it has become endemic. It's the price of using their "free" services.

I work for a telecommunications company. They do not provide their own e-mail, but use Yahoo instead in some sort of nefarious agreement, including my work e-mail. Recently, Yahoo was bought out and merged with another company, a subsidiary of Verizon (which is not the telecom I work for - seems a bad business to let the competition control their e-mail, but hey, it ain't MY decision!). So when this new outfit took control of the e-mail, they imposed new terms of service and security guarantees. I read the security guarantees. They reserve the right to mine the TEXT of e-mails, not just the metadata, to collect information on users. Now, in the US, even the government is not allowed to mine the text without a warrant... but the private provider can as long as it's ToS.

The government has "secret" agreements with most major telecom companies, and has had since the Patriot Act went into effect. I'd bet dollars against donuts that those agreements include information sharing, of just the sort that the companies can gather, bypassing the law altogether on the government's part. I know how that works. As a private gun for hire, I discovered that the public guns for hire love you dearly, because you can do things they can't, legally. It's why they sought us out to work with them. I've had more than one official badge guy tell me he was glad I was there, because he didn't have to wait for backup or deal with the bureaucracy that calling for it inevitably entailed.

There are ways around that, ways to keep your text secure, but they ARE rather cumbersome. I don't much care about that particular arrangement - government can steal all my work e-mails their little black hearts desire. If I were CEO of my company, however, I'd be a little bit jittery about just giving them up to the competition company (industrial espionage being the lucrative trade it is) but that decision is above my pay grade. Not my problem if they want to just bend over and grab their ankles for the competition. It wouldn't be the first dumbass move they've made.

It's everywhere. The only way to avoid it entirely is to unplug and fall entirely off the grid.


.

[Ninurta]

What kind of a world do those responsible for all of the above want their own kids to grow up in?

/rant.

The Ones responsible are psychopaths, and They inbreed to retain the psychopathic gene.  The Ones who are responsible want a world where Their children will be in control of Us, and being extremely likely They (the children) are psychopaths, They want that too.

The kinda folks whose family tree looks a lot like a telephone pole, eh?

[Wallfire]

The strange thing about all of this is the people buy it with there own money and freely in stall it in there homes,  then feel they are so much better to every one else.
It seems that people try to understand technology with human senses, one human can hide in 100s of other people and not be found, but technology can easily find you among millions and millions of people.
For the people who think if you have nothing to hide then you should not worry should remember this

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
Cardinal Richelieu

If you dont know who Richelieu is or when he was born , please check.
Im not going to do all the work 

[Amaterasu Solar]

What kind of a world do those responsible for all of the above want their own kids to grow up in?

/rant.

The Ones responsible are psychopaths, and They inbreed to retain the psychopathic gene.  The Ones who are responsible want a world where Their children will be in control of Us, and being extremely likely They (the children) are psychopaths, They want that too.

The kinda folks whose family tree looks a lot like a telephone pole, eh?

Pretty much, yup.  LOL!