Amazon's Alexa now at Marriott hotels
uk.reuters.com
uk.reuters.com
I can't wait until we all find out these things have all been systematically rooted and collecting blackmail on folks.
It's one thing to trust Amazon or Google, but now you also have to trust the hotel and its staff, the physical security of the device, and all the previous guests of the room.
Back in the day you had to be important to get that kind of treatment and usually only the FBI would do it.
This what's known as the Democratization of technology. Now days everyone is important and receives equal treatment!
With miniature cameras being widely available for years now what exactly is new?
"It's ok to do this. Look! Everybody does it. Why are you always so paranoid? If you have nothing to hide why are you fighting it?!"
"Millions" sounds overwhelming until expressed as a proportion of the population of the USA, Australasia, Canada and EU: just shy of a billion.
These devices have been accepted and adopted by a small minority of people to whom they are available.
Meme in Germany...
You already had to do the physical trust thing. These devices are a new challenge because they could be remotely compromised.
That said, I think that if someone complains about X, and you reply "But what about Y?!" you're not really addressing their concern.
Me either. Your comment sounds sarcastic, but there are people (me included) that find this concerning (not unbelievable though; the incentives are clear).
What I find most frustrating is that we've reached the point where even privacy advocates, speaking to privacy advocates at privacy advocacy events (e.g. Open Rights Group) just assume that everyone's carrying a phone, posting to social media, etc. :(
The expectation to privacy is nearly dead and we’re concerned about all the wrong things. You could make the conscious decision to try and be off-grid, but even that won’t keep you anonymous. Next family BBQ you go to, your family member snaps a picture uploads it to Facebook and tags you in it. Then suddenly it’s reccomending them to be friends with your coworkers because you were tagged in a work photo uploaded to a coworkers Facebook page.
Companies are actively collecting astronomical amounts of data, some data they don’t even know how they’re going to use yet. But you don’t get a decision about any of it. At this point I think some of these companies know more about us than we know about ourselves.
Government agencies are going to non-governmental agencies to get information they couldn’t legally collect themselves.
So yes, I was being sarcastic. I just wish we’d focus on how to take back control of our data and worry less about how they’re collecting it. I’m sure the majority of us are freely giving it away through our choice of services and products. Why would they risk getting caught spying?
Do you sweep every hotel room you use for listening devices?
Personally, I have no problem with it, but I can see why others would be concerned.
I'm not comfortable sleeping in a room with one of these devices.
If all they're doing is adding a physical Echo device, I can do that.
It's unfortunate that it'll be another thing to remember to take care of, but it sounds mitigate-able.
Of course you'd have to trust the mute function, but Amazon is actually pretty strict about honoring their explicit privacy guarantees (like when you push the mute button it's actually muted).
The ideal way, if it is an option for you, is to opt-out of that hotel altogether. Telling them why may be even better.
https://work.qz.com/1220881/marriott-hotels-fired-an-hourly-...
This reads to me like the employee went rogue and took politically sensitive stance on behalf of the company. I'd label that brand damaging negligence and it seems like fair grounds for dismissal. Maybe there's more to it.
I'm not sure it would be readily apparent if a Tibet-oriented Twitter account was that of a "separatist" group, let alone how radical or violent that group might be. (Assuming that the group was in any way problematic in an objective sense rather than just hurting China's imperialistic feels.)
In this case though I'd imagine he saw a "Thanks Marriott" and liked it because that's the thing companies do. I've had companies miss my oozing-in-sarcasm messages and like them in the past even.
The thing to think about is how much time does he really have per action? If it was you on personal twitter, minutes per action. As a customer support person answering hundreds of messages a day, probably closer to a second or two per action
If you have a smart speaker, you are probably more likely to be a Prime member, Spotify subscriber, and make purchases with Amazon or Google Express via the speaker.
- landgrab. You're very unlikely to have more than one smart speaker system in your phone, so once you've got an Alexa, you'll probably pick up some Alexa Dots rather than get a Google Home. This applies to an entire household in the way that even cellphone choices don't.
- lock-in. The web is all pesky and open, whereas these voice interface platforms are perfectly locked in for ultimate profit. And you can't get the web on them! Ideal.
More data = more learning. Even bad data is valuable.
It's how Google keeps Google Voice and Gmail free.
Now, in the West, people actually pay for devices that surveil them.
[Note to self: Pack foil on next trip.]
IMO, you should stop supporting Marriott if at all possible. Google "marriott tibet tweet" and choose your outlet of choice (less about the specific firing and more about censorship cowering sans transparent statement). I also like Nestle candy in general, but try not to eat it.
Marriott then fires the employee and releases a statement on twitter saying "We don’t support separatist groups that subvert the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China".
That hardly seems like a reason to stop supporting Marriott. What would you have wanted them to do differently?
Not let a government set their principles on what they can and can't do on Twitter. This is really simple. If they principally believe that they were wrong to like that tweet, then I disagree with their principles. If they were being pressured to react to it by a government, then I disagree with them cowering to any government about a liked tweet. Either way, they did wrong and they weren't very clear about what was requested by a country's government and what wasn't.
No different than Apple being forced to put icloud servers in control of non-Apple company in China...all you have to do is be transparent so I can disagree with your principles, unless your principles are money only, at which point I can disagree with that too. (and no, don't pretend like all of us with companies only care about money)
So, to answer the question, they should have ignored the request and been clear about what was asked of them. Since they didn't, they probably saved a lot of money even if they lost mine.
I put this in parentheses: "less about the specific firing and more about censorship cowering sans transparent statement". I disqualify establishments without principles in situations like this. Very simple. It's why I alluded to Nestle as a company too. The they-all-do-bad argument doesn't mean we can't exercise any judgement within.
I think they will remove those from rooms as soon as people who nag about anything to get freebies will realize it is good point to get some.
I enjoyed it enough that we bought an echo dot the day after we arrived home.
Personally I think you all need to lighten up. It would be 100x easier for government, previous guests or the hotel to install hidden microphones or video than to hack into the Echo. Amazon have sufficient commercial interests that personally I'd be sure enough that they'll behave properly. I'm not planning a military coop or anything though.
Sigh.
I stayed in a hotel recently (Hilton, I think) where the valet function was done via text message.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/business/media/erin-andre...
disc: Amazon employee
YMMV.
What makes you think that? This isn't a team of private investigators paid a hefty fee to watch you 24/7; this is fully automated mass-surveillence. It would be more cost/effort to stop spying on you, since that would require maintaining a blacklist.
Besides which, if any of the following apply to you then you are worth spying on:
- You spend money on products and services
- You are eligible to vote in elections, referenda, etc.
- You communicate with people who do the above
An example of this is the heavily data-driven and audience-tailored presidential campaign of Donald Trump. "Everyday people" made up a large proportion of their target demographic. Even if such data gathering (spying) had no effect on the outcome, it was still part of the winning strategy, which makes it an attractive service for companies to offer, and incentivises an arms race to push it much more extensively in the future.
People get convicted for things they did not do all the time by mistakes. Now it can be a lot easier to get someone convicted by planting stuff on their devices. So bad guys point you and how are you going to convince judge that you are innocent, everyone is saying he is innocent.