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posted by janrinok on Saturday May 26 2018, @04:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the random-acts-of-predictable-randomness dept.

From a Business Insider Article

A couple in Portland, Oregon, say that speakers in their home powered by Amazon's Alexa smart voice assistant recorded a private conversation and sent the recording to a person in their contacts.

A woman named Danielle says she and her husband got a call two weeks ago from the contact, who told them to immediately unplug all their devices because he had heard their conversation in his home 176 miles away in Seattle, KIRO-TV first reported. She said he proved it by providing details about the conversation.

Amazon told the news station: "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."

[...] Here's what happened, according to Amazon:

"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 customers 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."

If we're going to be unable to resist having devices in our private spaces which can record our private conversations, then Amazon needs to step up and seriously upgrade the security and privacy to the level we've come to expect from IoT devices.


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday May 26 2018, @06:07AM (11 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Saturday May 26 2018, @06:07AM (#684384) Homepage Journal

    I learned this from a USAF Cyber Command Recruiting video that depicted two officers locking their phones in a padlocked box just outside the door of a secure area.

    The narrator explained that cell phones have a maintenance mode that enables the carriers to remotely and silently activate every cell phone's microphone.

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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @06:31AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @06:31AM (#684388)

    I am assuming this is true only as long as the phone is powered up.

    My basis for this assumption is idle power consumption. Powered up, my phone lasts about two weeks before it will drain the battery, and one of the apps on my phone will chart battery drain over time.

    I note the power draw is nil over the periods I have the phone completely powered down. By powered down, I mean that is the state in which I have to hold the power-on button down for several seconds, then the phone boots. This is the only state I can either charge the phone or carry it in my trousers without butt-dialing random people. I have several pages of logs where I have sent the most cryptic texts to all sorts of random people.

    If you were one of them, I apologize. I have discovered the error of my ways and have taken measures to stop it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @03:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @03:15PM (#684543)

      I wouldn't assume any such thing. Remember when someone found a way to activate your laptop camera, without activating the blinken light at the same time? I suspect that there might be some secret way to do that with firmware. Activate the microphone and/or the camera, as well as the radio, but prevent the desktop or screen from loading or turning on. All background activity, which you will never notice. And, if you do happen to activate your screen while this surveillance is happening, everything will still look normal to you.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @05:02PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @05:02PM (#684586)

      I am assuming this is true only as long as the phone is powered up.

      So long as the phone is connected to a power source, be it external (charger) or internal (battery), the receiver circuitry in the cellular modem is energized. There's no way to "turn it off" except for removing all sources of power, both internal and external.

      The cellular modem itself contains a System on Chip computer which you have absolutely no access to, even if the phone is rooted/jailbroken. This computer interfaces with the main processor such that it can control all aspects of the phone. Even if your phone is powered off, it's possible for the cellular company to send a signal which will fully energize the cellular transceiver and the GPS receiver. It's possible, and has been for over a decade, to get a GPS lock on a phone that is "powered off." It's possible, as has been over over two decades, to covertly listen in on conversations through a cell phone that is "powered off" or energize the transceiver to force the phone to "ping" towers in order to triangulate its location.

      The only way to be absolutely sure various terrorist organizations (such as the NSA, CIA, and your local pigs) aren't spying on you through your cell phone is to remove the battery. If the battery is in it, it's powered on.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @02:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @02:48PM (#685147)

        Good luck turning off newer phones with a built in non removable battery

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday May 26 2018, @07:15AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday May 26 2018, @07:15AM (#684401) Homepage

    Bezos is CIA. Washington Post has always been CIA. They're not even trying to hide it anymore.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @09:57AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @09:57AM (#684428)

    Remember the TV show "Cheaters", where they were constantly giving us ideas on how to catch unfaithful spouses?

    Through their Phones! [cheatersapps.com]

    People just cannot stay off the Phone!

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by anubi on Saturday May 26 2018, @10:16AM (3 children)

      by anubi (2828) on Saturday May 26 2018, @10:16AM (#684433) Journal

      Flexispy [flexispy.com]

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
      • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday May 26 2018, @09:12PM (2 children)

        by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Saturday May 26 2018, @09:12PM (#684664) Homepage Journal

        SoylentNews has so many stories that are really ads. I love it. And just a few days ago there was one for a wiretapp app, it's called Teensafe. And it has a free trial. So nice!!!

        • (Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday May 27 2018, @07:24AM (1 child)

          by anubi (2828) on Sunday May 27 2018, @07:24AM (#684789) Journal

          I posted that because there are still quite a few people out there who trust their stuff a lot more than they should, and they may not know stuff like what I linked to exist, especially outside the realm of governmental TLA's. (Three Letter Agencies )

          Personally, I find that kind of stuff quite helpful, provided I am the one doing it. But if I can do it, I know good and well someone else can do it to me too.

          I do not think most people are aware of how much mess one can make using cyber. It sure is easier to mess things up than it is to build it. Its the main reason I have got so "paranoid" that I started building my own microcontrollers. I mean, I can't even trust a sprinkler controller anymore.... someone is always trying to "put it in the cloud" so he can enforce a monthly fee, then once in the cloud some prankster messes up millions of customers just for shits and giggles. A variant of those pranksters that used to go through housing developments with a spoofed garage door opener and open everyone's garage door... for bragging rights.

          I know the day is coming when America wakes up one day to find some unauthorized Windows Update got out in the middle of the night, and no-one's machine is working right.

          Monoculture is really risky, whether its monogenomic corn and a blight gets out, or a monotype computer operating systems, who can be infected in milliseconds with the correct internet packets. Its an "all your eggs in one basket" kind of thing.

          I love standardization. But I hate having single points of failure.

          To make things worse, many people practice terrible computer hygiene. Visiting dodgy websites with javascript enabled, no less. And they are gonna get nailed just as one visiting anonymous "ladies of the night" in the raw.

          I am curious, Donald, as to how you found out about us? We are just a tiny offshoot of technical computer nerds who got pissed off because Slashdot ( the site we splintered from ) was ramming down a bunch of changes we did not like.

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
          • (Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday May 27 2018, @02:33PM

            by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Sunday May 27 2018, @02:33PM (#684819) Homepage Journal

            I don't talk to Alexa. Because Amazon is a no-tax monopoly. Not good for our Country. But I talk to the microphone, to OK Google. I asked it about my Social Media, were people seeing my tweets. Because I heard one of my tweets, maybe more, didn't get through. And there was a story here about Twitter blocking @realDonaldTrump. They called it censorship. And I said, beautiful story. Even if it's on a Dem website. And maybe they'll let me tweet here when the biggies block me.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Saturday May 26 2018, @02:39PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 26 2018, @02:39PM (#684527) Journal

      . . . they were constantly giving us ideas on how to catch unfaithful spouses?

      I thought they were giving us ideas how NOT to get caught.

      Sort of how YouTube has many videos showing how NOT to drive.

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      To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.