Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aaronstotle | Hacker News Reader

All IoT devices are corporate botnets, I still don't understand why people install them in their homes. Alexa/Google assistants provide very little value for the user and give companies a microphone into your private life.

View on HN

I suspect your misunderstanding comes from your mistaken belief that these devices provide very little value for their users.

I get that these devices do some useful things, but I can't really think of anything they do that can't also be done with a cell phone and a laptop and without letting contractors listen to you having sex.

Once you already own a cellphone, the marginal privacy loss by getting a smart speaker is very small.

Only if you think your cell phone is always listening, and in some cases it might be. My phone doesn't use any kind of smart assistant and unlike a smart speaker preventing your phone from listening 24/7 doesn't make the device useless

If you trust Google/Amazon/Apple etc, smart speakers only record when they hear the hot word. What's the difference between that and Google/Apple saying they don't record at all if you turn the assistant off? Either way they could just be lying about how the device works.

If the companies are lying and bugging us no matter what 24/7 we're screwed either way, but even if google/amazon are being 100% honest their contractors are still listening to people with smart speakers having sex. If you turn off your phone's smart assistants and they are telling the truth nothing happens.

disable smart assistants on your phone and the phone won't start recording you "accidentally". You don't have that option with a smart speaker.

https://thenextweb.com/google/2019/07/10/google-contractors-...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-siri-listening-re...

> disable smart assistants on your phone and the phone won't start recording you "accidentally". You don't have that option with a smart speaker.

In fact, you do. Amazon Echos have a physical button that disables the microphone. Apple HomePod has a setting to disable the "Hey Siri" feature. I haven't tested this, but I presume that both continue functioning perfectly fine as Bluetooth/AirPlay speakers.

I didn't know that they had an option to disable the mic at all. I'm glad that they do, but I'd question anyone who bought one just to use as a speaker. If you aren't going to use the mic, you're better off buying a regular speaker with better quality. Disabling the smart assistant on the phone still leaves you with a highly functional device.

The Apple HomePod is a pretty great speaker whether you have the mic on or not.

I've heard it's okay, but not as good as google home max which is again impressive for a smart speaker but still can't compare to other wireless speakers. At a certain level though speaker reviews get to be a bit too much for me to take seriously. The farther they get into audiophile territory the more skeptical I tend to become. Probably because I've been pretty happy with shitty speakers at much lower price points, but I figure if you're going to drop that kind of money on a wireless speaker it'd better sound incredible.

Owning smart speakers grants extra bits to identify you, it ties in neatly with other tracking devices, strengthening each other

Surely this value would be easy to demonstrate.

This was the same argument I heard about cellphones when they broke the mainstream barrier (affordability), (the microphone portion).

And they are still surveillance machines. People getting accustomed to smartphones doesn't change their nature. In fact, nowadays as owning a smartphone is unavoidable in many contexts it's much worse than it used to be when they were introduced and an option.

And they are. Look at what NYT articles showed and also how the information collected by the Telcos ended up in the hands of bounty hunters and private investigators.

Information which couldn't have existed without a) wide spread usage b) incentives to turn them all in to surveillance-lite devices

I have a private ZigBee network, a Z-wave net, another home brew 868 MHZ net and Philips Hue (also ZigBee). All connected to OpenHAB. Which of these IoT networks is a botnet?

Our kids have so much fun with Alexa.

Helping 5-year olds spell words and check math homework, play classical music (learning composers) and dance music, tell stories, etc.

It’s like a fun and useful version of a radio.

Got some suggested skills/etc for the kids?

‘How do you spell’, ‘play tchaikovsky‘, ‘tell me bedtime story’, ‘what is %X + %Y’, ‘what is the weather’

Recently the 3 and 5 year old have had fun trying to turn on Alexa without saying Alexa (because we told them to stop using it to randomly play baby shark without asking...).

Ah lek ah

Not defending them, but so do cell phones.

But cell phones provide a lot of value. It might not necessarily be vital value, but it certainly makes people's lives significantly better.

For me, the cost/benefit ratio of cell phones far exceeds that of Alexa/Google Assistant/etc.

Also, there's a well-established framework of laws governing under what conditions and by whom your telephone conversations can be monitored. For Alexa/GA, you're at the mercy of the TOS.

I have outdoor camera's because my house was broken into a few years ago. Call it a corporate botnet if you want, but if it help deter people from breaking into my home again then it's worth it to me.

Does a real camera help deter any more than a fake one?

It seems the entire point of the camera is actually to gather evidence to hand off to police after a crime happens.

Everyone is bugging themselves.

Ring provides way more value than assistants, though.

...and a cash register.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com