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posted by mrpg on Saturday April 21 2018, @07:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the till-alexa-says-"no" dept.

Submitted via IRC for fyngyrz

Amazon this morning is introducing "Alexa Blueprints," a new way for any Alexa owner to create their own customized Alexa skills or responses, without needing to know how to code. The idea is to allow Alexa owners to create their own voice apps, like a trivia game or bedtime stories, or teach Alexa to respond to questions with answers they design – like "Who's the best mom in the world?," for example.

[...] "Alexa Skill Blueprints is an entirely new way for you to teach Alexa personalized skills just for you and your family," explained Steve Rabuchin, Vice President, Amazon Alexa, in a statement about the launch. "You don't need experience building skills or coding to get started—my family created our own jokes skill in a matter of minutes, and it's been a blast to interact with Alexa in a totally new and personal way."

[...] The feature could give Amazon an edge in selling its Echo speakers to consumers, as it's now the only platform offering this level of customization – Apple's HomePod is really designed for music lovers, and doesn't support third-party apps. Google Home also doesn't offer this type of customization.

All three are competing to be the voice assistant people use in their home, but Alexa so far is leading by a wide margin – it still has roughly 70 percent of the smart speaker market.

Source: Amazon's new 'Alexa Blueprints' lets anyone create custom Alexa skills and responses


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by vux984 on Sunday April 22 2018, @03:03AM (2 children)

    by vux984 (5045) on Sunday April 22 2018, @03:03AM (#670228)

    One area of weakness with your argument is your assumption of separation between government and amazon.

    You say its ok, because you are 'informed', and Amazon only collects what you input; but you don't really know what that is. You don't really know when its listening, or what it sends back, from day to day. Are you really sure there's not going to be any surprises? And even if you took it apart, disassembled the code, and verified it was good and you fully understood everything it does... 5 minutes after you plug it back into the internet, its updated itself and you don't really know what does again.

    You say its ok, because amazon 'doesn't do surveillance' -- and then I remember secret government rooms installed at the telcos. Maybe amazon doesn't do surveillance, maybe the government just uses them as infrastructure. It's happened before.

    You say its ok, because there is nothing amazon can really do with the information, they don't wield that much power over you anyway, not like the government. Of course, they could hand it over to the government, or they could lift their skirts and let the government just have a peek.

    Is it really that smart to trust amazon to have your best interests at heart? You clearly don't think the government should be able to surveil you -- what makes you so sure your relationship with amazon doesn't have them in the loop. It wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened.

    Your right: it's very different from government surveillance, unless its exactly the same thing.

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  • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Sunday April 22 2018, @04:14PM (1 child)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Sunday April 22 2018, @04:14PM (#670383) Journal

    One area of weakness with your argument is your assumption of separation between government and amazon.

    That is not correct. I will explain:

    You say its ok, because you are 'informed', and Amazon only collects what you input; but you don't really know what that is. You don't really know when its listening, or what it sends back, from day to day.

    Yes. I do know when it's listening and when it communicating with Amazon. So do many others, because we've taken the time and energy to monitor its network activity. It's important to understand the limitations of the hardware. First of all, the only means it has to talk to Amazon is via the network, and it is definitely not sending anything except when it is spoken to. Aside from the fact that it has no general STT facilities onboard (no one's got that in any kind of reasonable form as yet), these devices have very little storage in which to place any usable amount of audio without some form of triage, which it can't do, because again, no onboard general STT.

    5 minutes after you plug it back into the internet, its updated itself and you don't really know what does again.

    Should it be changed into an active surveillance device (which would require either 100%-on communications or onboard reliable STT, neither of which are present at this time, the former being easily spotted, the latter a breakthrough that would rock the world), then it's time to dump it. Until then, it's not time to dump it, and it's very handy around the house, so I'll stick with that. Perfectly willing to dump it if it starts black hat surveillance. But not because someday it might.

    You say its ok, because there is nothing amazon can really do with the information, they don't wield that much power over you anyway, not like the government. Of course, they could hand it over to the government, or they could lift their skirts and let the government just have a peek.

    So, let's say they hand over what info they have. They go ahead tell the government how many times we turn our lights on or off, how often I ask for the time, weather, day, date, set timers and alarms, which music we play, how often we reorder cat food and litter... yeah, not feeling threatened at all. You see, the relationship we have with Amazon through this device doesn't pass information of any real value. For that to happen, the device would have to a great deal more sophisticated, active, and this kind of change would be very, very obvious.

    Is it really that smart to trust amazon to have your best interests at heart?

    Trust but verify. There are many people, including myself, that keep a careful eye on the network traffic from these devices using tools like, but not limited to, Wireshark. Unless someone finds is evidence – and let's be 100% clear, there is no such evidence being reported at this time – that the device is stepping over acceptable bounds of privacy, then yes, it's smart to enable Amazon to improve the quality of our lives.

    Your[sic] right: it's very different from government surveillance, unless its exactly the same thing.

    And since it isn't exactly (or even slightly) the same thing, it is, in fact, different.

    Now that we've disposed of all that, you know the device you're typing your Soylent messages on is just as able to "talk to the government" as Amazon's devices, right? Phone, computer, tablet... the difference being that such devices tend to have a lot more critical information on-board. Perhaps you're not paranoid enough. :)

    • (Score: 2) by vux984 on Sunday April 22 2018, @08:08PM

      by vux984 (5045) on Sunday April 22 2018, @08:08PM (#670461)

      "these devices have very little storage in which to place any usable amount of audio without some form of triage"

      Ok, on the technical front, I disagree:

      mono voice quality for voip/phone calls is as low as 10kbps. 8 hours of conversation ...
      10kbps * 3600 seconds/hour * 8hour = 288000 kb (kilobit) = 36000 kB (kilobyte) =~ 35MB. iFixit says an echo has 256MB ram and 4GB storage.
      Even a higher bandwidth voice codec, requiring 60-100kbps would fit pretty easily.

      "and let's be 100% clear, there is no such evidence being reported at this time – that the device is stepping over acceptable bounds of privacy"

      I don't disagree with you. However, I think the device is amply -capable- of being misused, and if the device were subverted by warrant or malware or software bug it seems to have the capability to do a lot more than you give it credit for.

      " They go ahead tell the government how many times we turn our lights on or off, how often I ask for the time, weather, day, date, set timers and alarms, which music we play, how often we reorder cat food and litter... yeah, not feeling threatened at all."

      It's interesting how innocuous meta data can reveal things you aren't aware of though. Your taste in music can suggest your political affiliation, your age, your race, perhaps even your sexual orientation. Your patterns of activity can reveal your employment status, your work schedule, when you go on vacation. That you are a night owl or early riser or insomniac. Perhaps long term we can make assessments of mental health, how often you get sick, and for how long, how often you skip work, and so forth based on patterns, and changes in those patterns. Perhaps we'll feed that into your 'social score' (a la China) and credit score, and consider it when selling you health insurance. Even if its only 'weakly correlating'.

      "Now that we've disposed of all that, you know the device you're typing your Soylent messages on is just as able to "talk to the government" as Amazon's devices, right? Phone, computer, tablet... "

      Yeah, you aren't wrong, and i am bothered about that. The computer provides incredible and necessary utility. As does the phone. I admire Stallman's dedication to control over his computing experience, and while I am not nearly so extreme; I do actively choose to limit what devices i use and what they can do with an eye to that control. A computer and smart phone enable me to work & earn income, and provide entertainment and information, navigation, and communication. These are a huge net benefit to me. An echo... lets me set timers, turn on the lights, and reorder cat food. (And i can already do all of those things without much effort.)

      Perhaps you're not paranoid enough. :)

      It's about attack surface. I can't put up with the inconvenience of not having a phone or computer. But just because i've given up some ground there, doesn't mean im willing to install an amazon mic and camera in every room in my house.