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Comment by kaino128 | Hacker News Reader

Can you call emergency services via Amazon Echo? I've read on a car forum I'm part of about someone who was working on their vehicle without jack stands and got trapped when their jack slipped. They used Siri to call their wife and jack the car back up. They probably would have died without it.

I can easily forsee a future where consumers ask companies for voice assistants that turn on automatically when they detect duress (not needing to say "Alexa ...") before one where governments actually compel product manufacturers to do this.

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For all you know, it could be recording all the time, and since it's a closed device, you can't prove otherwise.

Yes and for all you know that table you bought could include a large battery, LTE receiver, and a microphone and could be recording your every sound as well.

There's a limit to how much paranoia is warranted, and in this case I'm firmly in the "it's not" column. Yes, it could be recording your every sound for months on end and uploading it to evil amazon, but not only would they be in some hot water legally in some areas, but the media would have a fucking field day with it, and for what gain?

To be able to listen in on your conversations?

And if you want to argue that it could be remotely updated to target you to always record that data, you could always be targeted by inserting a microphone into anything else of yours (good 'ole bugs).

You don't need to like them, you don't need to own them, and you don't need to be somewhere that has them, but some of us see utility in devices like this. And to me it's well worth the trade off that my recordings could be used in a court of law when requested with a warrant and I agreed to it.

The comparison between a bugged table and a device whose primary purpose is to always be listening to you is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?

Amazon provides cloud storage and processing to the web. Given their history of relatively ruthless (if strategically smart) business moves, I don't think it is unreasonable to consider that they could store this data for use down the line or do so at government request. This is all software based permissions that seem to be one invisible server side tweak away from becoming an always recording (not just listening for a wake word) device.

I got an Amazon Tap because it required a button push to record. They just enabled the option for always listening just like the echo. In theory I control it, but clearly I do not in practice.

To be completely honest, the "save this at government request" is a real threat, but there is nothing that amazon can realistically do to prevent that (short of physically not manufacturing the device to have a microphone, but even then is it that much of a jump from "forcing them to write code" to "forcing them to add a microphone"?)

But in terms of adding this kind of surveillance stuff for greed? I just don't see it paying off. Regardless of how shady or ruthless you think amazon is, they aren't going to brazenly break 1-party and 2-party listening laws. And all it takes is one guy somewhere who owns one to discover it and it's all over.

People are more than willing to give up information for very little gain, there's no reason to try and "steal" it illegally. If the argument is that amazon is a greedy company willing to do unethical things for money, where's the money in this? Where's the money in 24/7 audio recordings vs recordings of when you are speaking to the thing?

Your android alarm app or iOS app could to be listening and uploading as well. So...

Actually you can monitor the packets coming through your network and prove whether it is recording or not.

Also reverse-engineering the Alexa, and taking it apart will allow you to see whether there is enough storage space for lengthy conversations. Which are only stored for in-transit post the wake-word however.

You can delete your recordings on amazon.com and google also allows you to delete your recordings if you use google home. So this will give you insight into what recordings they do have.

> So this will give you insight into what recordings they do have.

This will give you insight into what recordings they tell you that they have.

Well the culmination of both datasets will allow you to decipher if what they tell you is what you sent.

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