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Comment by SlowRobotAhead | Hacker News Reader

>"Using these files, it was fairly easy to identify the person involved and his female companion; weather queries, first names, and even someone’s last name enabled us to quickly zero in on his circle of friends,” according to the report. “Public data from Facebook and Twitter rounded out the picture.”

Please keep in mind the next time you or a friend says "well, what do I care if Amazon knows when I ask to turn the heat up".

I read about a cool Echo Dot hardware hack where it was made into an old phone with mute on the speaker and microphone until picked up. As a tech people it boggles my mind that other tech people accept an always on microphone in their homes. I truly don't get it!

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I visited an AirBnB property that had a Dot in the lounge room. I got strange looks from my fellow guests as I unplugged it.

The best way to avoid this information from leaking out to the whole world is to NOT UPLOAD IT IN THE FIRST DAMN PLACE.

I honestly don't care how many pinky-promises Amazon, Apple or Google make -- until there are business-destroying fines akin to HIPAA on steroids for everything these services hold, I'll wait this tech revolution out, thanks.

Speaking of phones, aren't most people's smartphones already "an always on microphone in their homes"?

and gps and video camera and still camera and network sniffer

On the vast majority of devices it is not always on.

It is not a nitpick. Accidentally recording or even intentionally recording is many orders of magnitude simpler when the device is supposed to always be listening.

The fact that a single employee even could make the mistake mentioned in the articles is one example of why. Eventhough it also really does hint that the backend isn't up to par at amazon.

> On the vast majority of devices it is not always on.

Would you consider the device "listening" if a DSP is listening for a particular hotword, but no audio data is being uploaded?

I'm pretty sure that's what happens in either case, whether you're using Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant, and whether it's a "home" device or a phone with hotword detection. I used to work at Google on some related hardware projects.

If you're suspicious because the home devices seem much more accurate, that's because they have microphone arrays which can facilitate beamforming.

Yes.

There have also been issues of google devices accidentally recording constantly. And then "accidentally" stream it to the cloud.

https://www.gearbrain.com/google-home-mini-recorded-everythi...

The level of safe guards google et al put in to deal with stuff like this are incomprehensible poor.

The accuracy is irrelevant.

Don't the vast majority of iOS and Android phones listen for either a Siri or Google Assistant wake word?

Not when the device is locked and screen is off.

Wouldn't be much point to Hey Siri if it didn't work with the screen off :)

Sure, it seems apple does listen even while screen is off.

It's an always on microphone (as opposed to an always on device) if hacked or if Google/Apple change something fundamental, but only then. Echo/Dot have an always on microphone by design.

This is key. Yes the CIA or Apple or whoever could conceivably hack/change my phone or laptop to turn on the microphone and camera on, but there's not much you can really do about that as hardware switches seem to have gone out of vogue (I've got tape over my laptop camera like most sane people, but microphone?)

However I suspect the majority of iphones have "Hey Siri" enabled, and probably the same with whatever android uses

> However I suspect the majority of iphones have "Hey Siri" enabled, and probably the same with whatever android uses

IIRC, there's been a lot of coverage here about how Apple put in hardware to detect the "hey siri" phrase without having to go to software and bypass any security. That was it can always listen in "dumb" mode and switch to actively listening/recording and decoding request when the right phrase is heard. I'll see if I can find the discussion (and whether I'm correct or not) and update this comment with whatever the case is.

Edit: From what I've been able to find without doing a deep dive, is that in general Apple notes that only local pattern matching is done on the "hey siri" patter, and after triggered then it may utilize other resources (such as online maybe), but prior to that nothing is recorded.[1]

In conjunciton with their newer laptop hardware and the new T2 security chip, I think since the Chip handles the "hey siri" matching, it might not actually hit regular OS software processes until it does match. It's not entirely clear from what I skimmed.[2]

From the docs on the T2 chip, it looks to be in the newer laptop lineup only.[3] I'm not sure if there's an equivalent bit of hardware in the phones or not, or an older iteration that has the same features in question on older laptops.

1: https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/11/apple-addresses-privacy-qu...

2: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/07/12/apple-t2-hey-siri-m...

3: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208862

I turned hey Siri off, but found something unsettling.

If I say RED FIRE TRUCK to my iPhone with HeySiri turned off, and immediately hold the home button down for Siri, “she” sometimes has fire or fire truck pulled up already. This was WAY WORSE with Hey Siri turned on where it would always have those words and sometimes even more.

So best case, they are always caching a little bit and maybe only upload or process it when I hold the button down - but it’s definitely clear they are doing a little general pre-recording of all words.

If they’re doing a little, it stands to reason they could do a lot. Which is a bummer, but it’s not like I have much say in the matter.

That's interesting. I often have a similar experience with pressing the voice button on Android, where if I was streaming some podcast the last few words would precede my intended voice search in what was actually entered. That's usually when streaming in the car through bluetooth though, and I think there's a couple second delay in audio there anyway, so that may explain it in my case. I can't seem to get it to do it manually right now with the phone's mic.

> So best case, they are always caching a little bit and maybe only upload or process it when I hold the button down - but it’s definitely clear they are doing a little general pre-recording of all words.

That is somewhat troubling to hear. I had some thoughts about how possibly some dedicated hardware is buffering and only handing it off on notification of the manual siri request, but on thinking about it, if the OS can request the info whenever it wants, that's not really any more secure than the OS recording it itself.

This example doesn't really persuade me from removing Alexa either. I don't care if Amazon knows who I am. They have my credit card and billing address anyway.

I cannot think of 1 single thing I talk about in my own home that I feel uncomfortable with Amazon knowing.

Cool! What about when they leak or give that info to someone you don’t trust.

Maybe humanity behaves in a manner much more suited to a stable, civilized society when it is being monitored.

The unmonitored just act worse.

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