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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

> If you asked me to turn mine off when visiting, I would happily oblige you- And then label you as a nutcase who has lined their walls with tinfoil.

That's an interesting response. So because someone does not like to have unknown third parties listen to everything that is said in a room they're right away tinfoil hatters?

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No, because the device does not communicate with amazon.com until you say "alexa" and the code/hardware for that is all done on the device itself. So its not listening and streaming everything, all the time.

(in case you skipped that the first time)

No, I didn't skip that. It's just that there is an awful lot of trust involved here and I personally would not like a 'live mike' on with a connection to a DC in a room where I'm talking to someone in private simply because I'd have to trust that software not to contain any bugs, backdoors, overrides or other tricks. And that's a guarantee you can't really make without a ton of reverse assembly.

I'm surprised at how trusting people are when it comes to tech like this.

Regular, definitely-not-tinfoil-hat types that I know have little pieces of tape over the cameras in their laptops.

I think jacquesm's question makes more sense combined with this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611179) plus a possible distrust of closed software with automatic updates.

Edit: corrected link (was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10605775)

I fail to see the connection with a 'Secret pagan basilica in Rome', can you please explain?

Sorry, my phone's clipboard is very erratic and pasted the wrong link. It's kind of funny in a Dan Brown/Da Vinci Code sort of way, to think that there's a link between modern surveillance and ancient Roman religions.

The link was supposed to point to another comment in the same thread. I have corrected it.

But that's like saying that your telephone or PC does not communicate until you invoke it. Arguably, that may be the default mode of the devices, but it is not strictly true ("hackers", legal & illegal wiretaps, etc.). You're depending upon the device to behave as it should, but you don't have complete authority over the device.

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