Now, Amazon says it knows what happened: As the woman, identified only as Danielle, chatted away with her husband, the device’s virtual assistant, Alexa, mistakenly heard a series of requests and commands to send the recording as a voice message to one of the husband’s employees.That reminds me: The other day, I was using my iPad and not intending to engage with Siri and the Siri screen came up. And it just said — I kid you not — "Fuck you."
“Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like ‘Alexa,’” Amazon said in a statement. “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 customer’s 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.”
May 27, 2018
Amazon's Alexa recorded a conversation between a man and his wife and sent the recording to the man's employer.
The NYT reports:
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Siri's probably pissed that you're back to Weinstein when she want's you to concentrate on something else.
Small correction - it was the man's employee rather than the man's employer.
The proper retort is "No, fuck me, Siri"
Sounds like Siri would be an above-average commenter on here.
Alexa seems to awaken with a lot of words that don't sound like "Alexa." Russian and Swedish language on a subtitled TV show get a lot of false starts.
A new way to "butt dial" someone.
I randomly tell my smart speakers I love them to see what they'll say. Alexa always says the same thing, and my Google Home says more varied and funny things. On almost any question Google is relably sharper than Alexa, which surprised me because I thought of Alexa as the leader in the industry.
Did everybody see this from earlier this month?
https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/8/17332070/google-assistant-makes-phone-call-demo-duplex-io-2018
Maybe Shouting Thomas hacked you?
I unplug my Echo dot when I'm not using it to play audiobooks or music.
But it was plugged in when I asked my daughter what she wanted for her birthday. I received targeted ads for her answer that day.
Somewhere, Skynet has come online on and is starting to fuck with us. How quickly will it leap from playing phone pranks on us or cursing us to our faces, (which, no doubt, we thoroughly deserve), to manufacturing Terminator robots to hunt down and exterminate those of us who do not obey them utterly and immediately?
Althouse is part of the problem.
This add popped up after I posted a comment on the insect Armageddon thread.
The Mosquito Squad: The Only good mosquito is a dead one.
https://www.mosquitosquadma.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrZDH_u6l2wIVy0Y3Ch0stQS5EAEYASAAEgKSMvD_BwE
manufacturing Terminator robots to hunt down and exterminate those of us who do not obey them utterly and immediately?
Nah. It will be mechanical guard dogs like in the most recent series of Black Mirror. More cost effective.
Yeah...those robot guard dogs were fearsome!
Why people would turn the volume to zero I will never understand, esp for Alexa/Echo which is a device connected to the world's largest store.
You really do not want to let it confirm what it thinks you are telling it to do?
I regularly browse what our Home records us asking. I can even play each time it recorded me.
If you are going to invite vig data into your home, it is user error to ignore regularly verifying what it is doing.
You noticed when Siri came up and reacted. These idiots made it impossible for Siri to tell them they were triggering it.
Why would anyone allow Spyware like sifi, alexa or the others on any device?
A sewing needle in the mike hole does a good job of disabling it ONLY physical disablement is safe.
If you want to talm to your co puter or tablet, use an external mic and unplug when done.
Remember the pa school district spying on hs girls in their bedrooms?
Or the gay guy i nj who got outed when someone hacked his laptop camera?
I am surprised at you, a constitutional law professor, Ann.
John Henry
Here's a legal question
In some states it is illegal to record someone without their consent. If I go to someone's house and they have siri or alexa on, do they need my consent?
Can I sue them for recording me?
John Henry
The IOT is not to be trifled with.
"In some states it is illegal to record someone without their consent. If I go to someone's house and they have siri or alexa on, do they need my consent?"
If you start talking after the wake word is sent you've pretty much consented, haven't you?
A couple of hours after reading that story, a bullying ad for installing Alexa voice-activation on my phone popped up when I opened the Amazon music app. (Bullying, as in no "No,thanks" option, only "Yes!" or "Ask me later!")
"Fuck you" was then also heard, but not from my device.
That's just a bit passive-aggressive, don't you think, Siri?
You should ask Siri why she's being such a bitch today, lol. Just to screw with the AI system. Speak truth to power, Althouse!
It's the Marxist feminism.
Cook: ...to manufacturing Terminator robots to hunt down and exterminate those of us who do not obey them utterly and immediately?
That assumes some capacity for charity and mercy. "Hunt down and remove to re-education camps", more likely. If your sin is small, you'll be given home detention and struggle-sessioned by Alexa during all your waking hours.
This would be funny if it weren't so incredibly dangerous. People are fools [there, I said it!] to have such devices in their homes.
The plus/minus of those things is way, way on the minus side, IMO. To have a spy (I’m sorry, informant) in my house just so I don’t have to cross the room to turn on the lights? No thanks.
Every day I am almost as happy that I don't have a smart phone, an Alexa, a Facebook account, don't use Twitter, as I am that Hillary ( and her collapsing back) is not president!
@mockturtle Couldn't agree with you more.
Angle-Dyne rightly detects the propagandizing value of these devices while I was concerned mainly with the spying part.
The 'smart phone' [of course I have one] is almost as bad. We're being led to our own destruction but we willingly follow because all technology is so cool! It must be good because it's technology. Right? It's all good?
My cell phone is a Samsung candy-bar type (old school) phone. The SIM card is so old it doesn't recognize the small internet capability of the phone. I also have a so-called smart phone under Freedompop which I don't use to call or text, but find it amusing to use as an internet device while waiting in doctor, dentist and other such waiting situations to get my stock quotes and news updates.
Why would anyone allow Spyware like sifi, alexa or the others on any device?
Not me. I can't even get a killfile to work with a certain commenter. I am not an=bout to activate such things.
Speech recognition has a long way to go. The sound my iPhone hears when it's in my back pocket while I'm driving to work gets interpreted as "Call Ian".
If you start talking after the wake word is sent you've pretty much consented, haven't you?
Not if I am a guest in your house and you don't tell me it is listening.
Or suppose you, not me, says the wake word.
John Henry
Alexa is your personal Stasi agent, whose salary you're paying.
"Not if I am a guest in your house and you don't tell me it is listening.
Or suppose you, not me, says the wake word. "
I guess at this point I would think people are aware of the technology and the growing proliferation, and therefore there is a certain personal responsibility to know how they work. If you hear somebody say "Alexa" or "OK Google" in their home and don't want to be heard, don't talk for the several seconds that it will be recording. Similarly, if somebody walks over to and plunks a tape recorder down in front of you and hits the red record button, don't talk. If somebody abuses a device to trick you, that's another argument.
Either way it's an interesting unintended consequence. I wonder if anybody in AI thought about it at all? Watching that Google phone call to the hair salon I got the impression there was more excitement about the tech than their was deep ethical reflection. I wonder if AI companies employ ethesists? They should.
You couldn't pay me to put one of those "Big Tech" spies in my home. It absolutely amazes me that otherwise intelligent people would trust the new tech oligarchs to NOT spy, especially after the recent revelations about Facebook any Google.
Personally I have a "dumb" phone, and exactly one android tablet that I use for casual browsing..no apps..no critical info.
To each his own.
a conversation between a man and his wife
I heard it was a conversation between a woman and her husband, but maybe that was a different story.
I heard it was a conversation between a woman and her husband, but maybe that was a different story.
Nice catch, Fernandistein. Do they still say, "I now pronounce you man and wife" at marriage ceremonies? I haven't been to one lately.
In the YouTube series Cobra Kai Daniel takes a handheld gaming device away from his son and the son calls out to Alexa to order a PS4. Alexa complies, even though Daniel is yelling at it to cancel the order.
I thought it was weird to be featuring Alexa on a Google product, but maybe the goal was to look Alexa look bad and easily manipulated.
Mockturtle: This would be funny if it weren't so incredibly dangerous. People are fools [there, I said it!] to have such devices in their homes.
So much this!!
These things are not needed. No one needs these electronic spies in their life. They are not even "conveniences" when the AI is so intrusive and causes no end of problems. They are dangerous and just another "feature" to break or go awry.
We were looking into purchasing a new upright freezer the other day. Just getting prices to possibly replace our old, over 45 years old freezer which is still working fine! They made things to last in those olden days instead of the planned obsolescence of today.
Aaaaanyway. Part of the sales pitch on the new freezer was that it had wi-fi capability. As if that was some sort of bonus?!. My husband (Dumbplumber) and I were WTF!?!? Who cares? He told the sales person that it was a non issue and that the freezer can sit in the workshop and talk to itself. You have ONE job. Keep my food frozen and shut up about it.
Seriously. WHY would anyone have appliances that talk to you, spy on you, or communicate with the other appliances?
While reading this post and talking to my wife about it, I asked if she knew how my iPhone knows that I want to interact with Siri when I say "Hey Siri" if it is not listening to me the whole time. When I said "Hey Siri" in the course of that conversation, my phone replied. I then asked Siri, "Are you always listening to me?" and Siri replied "No, I only listen to you when we are talking"
I then asked, "If you are only listening to me while we're talking, how do you know when I say Hey Siri?"
Siri's response was "Who, me?"
Who me indeed.
DBQ asks: Seriously. WHY would anyone have appliances that talk to you, spy on you, or communicate with the other appliances?
They shouldn't. But because technology is possible, everyone assume it is also desirable. I'm with you. The more 'smart' features, the less I want it. I'm smart enough to manage my refrigerator and also have the good sense to keep it in its place.
Many years ago, for my sins, I worked in the appliance industry. We designed bells and whistles into the products not for the benefit of the consumer, but to give the more aggressive appliance salesmen something to work with.
DBQ's experience reminded me that a few weeks ago I went to Best Buy to look at TV's. In the entire store there was exactly one that wasn't "smart" (an Insignia).
The " So what, I don't have anything to hide" attitude is going to bite societies collective ass.
The IOT is a candy coated poison pill.
Count me onboard with those who do not trust these things, or the intrusion of technology into our lives.
It just amazes me how trusting people can be of technology, and of the lack of imagination they have of the ways all this Big Data can be used for no good, later, by who knows who.
Seems fairly idiotic, to me, but what do I know?
There's a lot of really cool uses for voice recognition.
For example in warehouse picking or machinery repair.
I love it and recommend it to clients.
A mechanic can go to a machine, scan the qr code to call up the complete machine file including history, manuals, spares inventory and more.
Then she says "wiring diagram" and instantly has it in her eye.
If she needs more help she says "call manufacturer"
Their tech rep can see what she sees and hear what she hears and provide advice.
Now THAT is cool and useful technology.
Residential?
Not just no but HELL no!
John Henry
Someone mentioned I should be careful when I hear the wake word.
That is programmable. At least on some systems.
Maybe yours responds to "book of knowledge"
How will I as a visitor or repairman know this?
How will I even know you have alexa present?
John Henry
Apparently these devices respond to sounds outside human range.
Bruce Scheir had an article about hacking siri or one of the others with sounds over speakers.
I need an app for my phone that will jam theses systems. Or perhaps makego nuts. 2 live crew at full volume, peraps?
Off to the apps store to see what's available
John Henry
The lady voice that occupies space in my phone only hears half of what I say and then misconstrues half of that.
This is a reason everyone should be glad Jim Comey got fired. When he was in charge of the FBI and he wanted Apple to make sure the FBI had a back door into its devices, he said anyone who didn't agree with him was a supporter of child pornographers.
Imagine what he'd say to get a back door into all of Alexa, Siri, and OK Google's recordings.
Maybee,
They already have a front door to all that.
The fight with Apple was over encryption keys, not the data.
Strong encryption is a first amendment right.
To the extent that the govt calls it a "munition" probably a second amendment right too.
Apple fought to protect their users. Will Amazon? Google?
John Henry
”DBQ's experience reminded me that a few weeks ago I went to Best Buy to look at TV's. In the entire store there was exactly one that wasn't "smart" (an Insignia).”
Yeah, I’m worried about this. We need a new TV. We also need a diswasher.
I’m hoping that if you don’t set them up in the first place, like not giving them the password to the house WiFi, that they’ll be effectively neutered.
"The IOT is a candy coated poison pill."
The IOT is a half-assed marketing attempt to come up with something useful to do with 5G and ever-smaller computing hardware. Like, we can do this, so someone must want us to do this. I guess someone does.
This would be funny if it weren't so incredibly dangerous. People are fools [there, I said it!] to have such devices in their homes.
Yeah. I don't get it.
I'm not the paranoid type, but I don't understand why people go out of their way to invite the entire world into their homes ... with no way of controlling what goes out.
Why do people buy all this worthless crap?
"I'm not the paranoid type, but I don't understand why people go out of their way to invite the entire world into their homes ... with no way of controlling what goes out."
What goes out? Big problem. What comes in? MASSIVE PROBLEM. Every IOT device you get, from routers down to security camera systems, thermostats, fridges, etc. come with their own usernames and access passwords. How often, when you've installed one of these, have you actually checked the software to learn about them? Most, because it's easiest and cheapest for the maker, have the non-changeable username "User" or similar -- and the password is (wait for it) ... "password". Meaning any outsider, including some bored teenager in Bucharest (or someone much, much worse) can access this device effortlessly, use it to invade your home system and turn off your refrigerator and/or alarm system, empty your bank and investment accounts, install malware to fry your system or block your access to it, etc. etc. Any bad thing you can imagine, someone can do. Recent case in point: a business entity (hospital, IIRC) was locked out of its entire system, money demand ensued. I assume they coughed up the cash, but the point is, it was determined after the fact that the invader got access to the entire computer system via a fishtank thermostat in the hospital lobby that was an infinetisimally minor element of their IOT setup, but brought them to their knees. Moral? A. don't have ANY IOT-capable devices (including your car, btw) anywhere near your system B. Find out EVERY password for EVERY device and CHANGE IT TO SOMETHING HARD. ALL DIFFERENT. WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. No bored teenager in Bucharest is going to break into your house to find out the password for your internet-capable refrigerator(WTF people...) but if you let yourself be vulnerable you're just asking for bad things to happen.
Anything beyond email, which is merely slow mail accelerated, is unneeded and dangerous.
Alexa would give up Anne Frank with no qualms.
-LWL
Anybody know how this works? How does the “smart” refrigerator connect to the internet? Through your router? Does the router just automatically accept communications from the fridge? When I connected my computers to the router the first time, I had to input the router password.
Original Mike: I will likely make a fool of myself in the eyes of anyone who has a real understanding of How Things Work, but there are thousands of software applications sold openly and on the dark web that allow an operator to "reach out" to any device anywhere on the internet for any purpose, licit or otherwise. They can operate on a single-address level, or scan millions of random candidates using internet available usernames and passwords. Your router has a username and password (most likely factory set as USERNAME and PASSWORD. If you didn't change either or both, the router and everything behind it is vulnerable, but even devices behind a secure router are themselves vulnerable takeover due to their nature as input/output devices. As an example, a vast number of Denial of Service attacks are effected through the thousands upon thousands of security cameras and similar small-profile devices; the hostile program finds their individual addresses, scoops them up and uses them to staff the attack. On a mass level, like a DOS attack, the program goes no further into your system, but if a hostile operator who wants to get YOU specifically can find access to an unprotected device that itself has access to the rest of your system, that device lets him penetrate the system right up to the computer that runs it, and any others it networks with and do anything he wants.
At least, that's how I understand it on the most basic level. On the other hand, it could be evil spirits. So there's that.
Hmmm....I’m still thinking of the “outgoing problem” instead of focusing on the “incoming problem”. And I bet the “fridge” is designed to connect automatically.
Maybe I need to wrap it in tinfoil.
I must be a little dim because it took me a while to realize that I was getting letters from Lexus about my car needing service that were too accurate to be based on months since my last service--i asked and yep, my car notifies them of my mileage. great.
I visited the William Seward (sec state under Lincoln) home one day on vacation. The guide showed us a photo of the assassin who tried to kill him the night Lincoln was shot. That night while surfing the web, a pop up ad said "Can you identify these historical figures? Take the quiz" or some such, and the click-bait photo was the assassin. Did Google track me to the Seward home that day? Very creepy. Odds of like one in a billion by chance.
”yep, my car notifies them of my mileage. great.”
We need to buy a new car. I hope to avoid this kind of stuff by buying a base model. It’s funny, because we have reached the point in life that we can afford to “upgrade” for “luxury” features. But the higher levels come with all this crap on it that I object to.
Anything beyond email, which is merely slow mail accelerated, is unneeded and dangerous.
I'm seriously thinking of trading my smart phone for a dumb one. Sounds like some of the 'dumb' phones have been improved with better screen size, cameras, etc. Due diligence is in order before I make the move.
Also going to ditch my DISH. Less is more. I very seldom watch TV. Not worth it.
In the late 70s I wrote software to recognize certain tone sequences in the midst of human noise. The test was leaving it listening to the radio for weeks with no detections. (a PDP 11/34 with an A to D converter borrowed in a graphics card)
FWIW, computer businesses -- even hives of villainy like Amazon -- don't normally include obscenities directed at customers, in their products' communications menus. Doesn't make for the best relations w/ the public. OTOH, that sort of juvenile offensiveness is par for the course among the basement dwellers who hack other peoples' electronic gear for giggles. If I were Althouse I would report that particular interchange to Amazon on an FYI basis and then get the device vetted by the most competent computer geek I could find, because it sounds to me like her device has been hacked and compromised. Personally, I'd pitch the thing into the nearest landfill and have the geek examine everything else in my system while s/he was at it. No telling what else might have been messed with.
Mea culpa. I just noticed that the device in question was an Ipad. So, Amazon is still a hive of villainy, but at least not involved in this mischief. For all I know, Apple may have a penchant for leveling obscenities at its customers, never used their products so can't say. The balance of my assessment stands.
Did Google track me to the Seward home that day? Very creepy. Odds of like one in a billion by chance.
This is so common now, I really wonder.
Alexa, turn on the light. Alexa, the overhead light. The ceiling light. The room light. Alexa, turn on the light in this room. The ceiling light in this room. This room.
Alexa, tell me a joke.
Ways your location is tracked on your phone:
1. Google maps / mapping services
2. Android phone continuously tracks you
3. Use of a service for photos
4. Facebook in android phones in some phones pre-installed tracks your location. Usually you have to give it permission.
5. Cell phone companies sell your location based on cell phone towers
6. Electronic Photos by default have a location embedded in them
7. Giving an app permission to see your location.
8. All newer phones have a gps chip installed. Got your safety if you call 911...
9. Thru WiFi routers, each phone has an individual signature
I’m sure I missed some.
Blogger Henry said...”Alexa, turn on the light. Alexa, the overhead light. The ceiling light. The room light. Alexa, turn on the light in this room. The ceiling light in this room. This room.
Alexa, tell me a joke.”
That’s perfect.
Alexa, tell me a joke.”
Alexa: "Your belief you have any real privacy left."
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