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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 26 2018, @09:57AM (5 children)
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)
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)
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)
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
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
I thought they were giving us ideas how NOT to get caught.
Sort of how YouTube has many videos showing how NOT to drive.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.