Hacker News Reader

Comment by brndnmtthws | Hacker News Reader

Give Amazon a key to my home? Hmm. They want to listen to me inside my home, watch me with a camera, and also be able to unlock my front door?

"It's safe, you can trust us! We'll never spy on you!" -- Jeff Bezos

View on HN

Welcome to the Fishbowl. You are live on channel 44,000, please do not swear.

Pardon my ignorance, but how is Amazon watching customers with a camera?

Well, they could conceivably watch as you enter/exit your home, but if you have Alexa already then I would think they could infer from silence or lack-thereof whether the home is occupied.

Alexa doesn't open any connection to Amazon servers until you say the hotword 'Alexa'.

One could still infer from a lack of 'Alexa' hotword prompts over a span of time whether the home was occupied I reckon.

Or Bluetooth connections if you can use it as a speaker. Or the presence of other devices on the WIFI. There's a few ways you can passively detect human presence, I think.

That kinda logic doesn't work. Just because someone doesn't use Alexa for hours doesn't mean they aren't home. It happens every night.

I will elaborate further: inspect usage trends of Alexa to determine anomalies, i.e. times of no usage in the day when the owner isn't home.

They have a version of the Amazon Echo that has a camera for video calls. Its called the Amazon Echo Show.

The version of echo that hangs out in your room and tells you how good your outfit is. I wish I were joking:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/6/15924120/amazon-echo-look-...

All of those amazon echo products are watching you.

...And what about people who use their garage door for main entry/exit?

If posters are not willing to read as far as the first sentence below the headline on the article's page, why should they be invited to discuss the article with those of us who have made the effort to read it?

Well, as usual, they have market in which people don't care. Convenience rules for them. On the other hand, when everything and everyone is tracked, there's no need to lock the home anymore.

I am not too concerned with Amazon, I am more worried about law enforcement using this ability via warrant to gain easier access to a home, recordings, etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com