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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.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @06:31AM (3 children)
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
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)
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
Good luck turning off newer phones with a built in non removable battery