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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: 5, Informative) by janrinok on Saturday May 26 2018, @07:03AM (7 children)

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 26 2018, @07:03AM (#684395) Journal

    The other site also pays editors to work there, and fund their site with advertising and other promotional information. Additionally, they give no assurance that any data that you hand over will not be used. We are manned entirely by volunteers, we do not show any advertising or other promotional material, and we give you our assurance that no personal information other than the email that you use to create your account (and which need not be maintained) is kept or provided to third parties. In fact, we don't hold any information other than the email address.

    Of course, if these benefits are not to your liking you already seem to have identified a site that more closely meets your needs. Don't slam the door on the way out please.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @07:08PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @07:08PM (#684631)

    > they give no assurance that any data that you hand over will not be used.

    They disclose the fact that it will be used in their Privacy Statement [slashdotmedia.com], which is linked from every page on their site. Finding it is as simple as searching for the word "privacy" in the page. Other than the comment I'm replying to, where, if anywhere, is SoylentNews' privacy policy written? It's much less discoverable.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by realDonaldTrump on Saturday May 26 2018, @08:51PM

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Saturday May 26 2018, @08:51PM (#684659) Homepage Journal

      That website looks very fake. Because they call it Slashdot Media. But they also call it Sourceforge Media. And they call it a Privacy Policy. But it says you have VERY LITTLE privacy!!!!

  • (Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Saturday May 26 2018, @11:46PM (4 children)

    by fakefuck39 (6620) on Saturday May 26 2018, @11:46PM (#684695)

    Strangely, what you describe is not an issue at slashdot. I quit about two years ago. Since 1997, I've had an account there with a fake email address - I signed up with a real one, then changed it to a fake one - no issues. The reason I quit is it became a reddit-wannabe. They started deleting comments, deleting users, shadowbanning one of my 10 accounts. If I wanted reddit I would go to reddit.

    This site is what slashdot used to be - the problem is extremely low number of users, and you guys don't really care to attract more. I don't click a story here that I read on hacker news a week ago when on this site it has 20 comments - what's the point. You have about 20 people responsible for 90% of the comments, and 18 of those, while being over 18, are complete idiots - and they just keep talking to each other. half of those 20 are your staff - and they are mostly idiots who couldn't hold a real job or live in the real world. I pointed a few coworkers this way over the last year. People with physics degrees, professionals making a quarter of a mil who know their IT subject-matter very well and could contribute a lot of smart things to the conversation. They laughed.

    I of course use this site not for the comments. It's really nice to shit all over the idiots on here while I'm on the toilet. My two favorites were when one of your guys started up on how he doesn't have to work and careers are for losers - because he can retire on a fishing boat. Forget traveling the world and living in a nice house - he's got the little boat. Then there was the guy who couldn't tell the difference between an atom and a molecule - tachyon or runaway or something like that. Boy was that fun with him trying to prove to me that quartz was transparent aluminum. When I pointed out that he's putting Bleach into his coffee by using Splenda, he kept on about us already living on Star Trek.

    ...Aaaaand..Deuce dropped. bye.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 27 2018, @07:16AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 27 2018, @07:16AM (#684788)
      • (Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Sunday May 27 2018, @10:44AM

        by fakefuck39 (6620) on Sunday May 27 2018, @10:44AM (#684804)

        That's hilarious. That buzzard guy mentioned in the journal is the one most entertaining to me, and the one who wins at life because he's on a boat. The phoenix thing looks familiar too - must have said some stupid shit I read sometime.

        So this buzztard says something like their twitter or facebook account broke and they questioned the people on the site, and the people said they don't read the headlines on twitter. So he decides to just not debug his twitter-posting code since those several hundred followers they have on there are clearly just getting their news from the homepage instead. I point out that their user count here is low, and that the twits who get their soylent feed from twitter didn't get to read his "are you using twitter" question, which he didn't post on twitter.

        They guy responds that he owns a boat on a lake and wins at life, so I shouldn't talk because I don't know shit. I let him know that I have traveled the world, speak a bunch of languages, am 40 not 14, own houses and rent apartments, and have a 20 year professional career, having had as clients half the companies on the fortune500. I don't own a boat though - but I definitely know shit. This turns into a multi-user shitstorm of "you 9-5 office loser working for big corporate, why do you feel you need to defend yourself, why are you so insecure..." How could I be insecure with such huge balls? I shave mine for pre-fuck's sake.

        Well, I guess I enjoy being a real adult with a career, looking attractive, being successful. Some, and definitely only some, who have low self esteem And are butt ugly can rejected society before it rejects them, never get over it, and redefine success so they are successful on a boat instead of being successful in an actual enjoyable life. If they didn't convince themselves of their awesome virtual little world - they'd blow their brains out while crying alone in the basement. Although I do only come in to the office a couple of times a week - I guess I should buy a boat and spend the other workdays on it so I also could win at life while washing my huge dick and balls.

        The journal guy left soylent because of phoenix buzztart. I'm here because of these guys. Intelligent conversation - there are other places. What I like about this one is they don't delete comments, and there are many of these idiots to entertain me - the same way a comedy does. Ever watch a retard midget fight it out in the park? How could you not enjoy that. If you come here for an argument, you're in the wrong place. This is abuse of the obtuse.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @12:51PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @12:51PM (#685107)

      So.. You only come here for the articles. Right. Me too.

      • (Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Monday May 28 2018, @08:22PM

        by fakefuck39 (6620) on Monday May 28 2018, @08:22PM (#685293)

        No, I'm on hacker new for the articles, and I don't post there nor read many comments. I'm here to see stupid things stupid people say and take a little shit on them while I'm taking a big shit on the toilet. I thought that was pretty clear.