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Comment by swiley | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know if you could pay me enough to have one of these in my house.

Why exactly?

This is a technology site, the way these voice assistant works has been posted numerous times and is common knowledge at this point. They've been ripped apart by multiple security pros. Yet every thread we get unjustified replies like this. It is tiresome and frustrating.

But I'll post it once again:

- Wake phase detection is all handled locally (i.e. on device).

- It loops a continuous recording over itself. If no phase is detected within a few seconds the recording is permanently lost.

- We can see from data monitoring it isn't continuously transmitting (and that's also what the companies behind it claim).

- "It could be modified" is a red herring. You are already carrying ON YOUR PERSON an always connected microphone with not one by two layers of operating system on it (baseband + consumer OS).

It should not be popular to post "photographs can steal your soul"-levels of tech-spiracy on a site like this, but yet here we are again.

>..."photographs can steal your soul"-levels of tech-spiracy...

It's a microphone connected to the internet. If corporations and governments choose to use this variety of device nefariously, they won't be stopped. Many people are feel concerned when their society increasingly resembles East Germany.

> It's a microphone connected to the internet.

So is a cellphone and they are way more ubiquitous

That is equally reprehensible.

I don't have any particular reason to think the above is incorrect, let alone deliberately false or misleading. You sound more knowledgeable about the device than me.

But I think you're tremendously overstating your certainty to contrast with people you're calling paranoid.

If lives depended on it, are you that sure you fully understand how things work? Are you that sure of the contrast you point out between Alexa and a smartphone?

I'm not questioning your opinions and facts; I'm urging you to examine your own feelings and motivations, which obviously only you can.

When people attack doubts in others as paranoia, well, it might be accurate. But strong emotions and especially anger on the subject tend to suggest the underlying issue is suppressing one's own doubts.

The general attitude of "we know how it works" always makes me think of the quote "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" and OpenSSL.

My rule of thumb is, if something is technically feasible, if it's not possible to casually detect it, and there are likely no immediate, directly applied penalties for it, then it's unwise to bet against it.

Something I see people assert to comfort themselves is that companies care about reputation and therefore wouldn't do some thing. I think you have to have blinkers on and somehow repress all your experience working for corporations or consuming products made by them to think that way.

My phone has a microphone kill switch. And yes, this device's software could be modified.

These companies have a history of absolutely abusing things like this. Comparing reasonable concern that’s informed by history to superstition is very upsetting to me.

Agree. I don’t see the purpose or the point of these devices. The only place where voice control makes sense it’s in the car.

It's not about lack of utility, it's about lack of privacy. There are many great use cases for voice control at home.

I'd love to have voice control at home but I want something that's private and stays within my network, I refuse to install spyware inside my own house

Admittedly it's a pretty trivial usecase for such an expensive device, but one thing it is brilliant at is setting timers, hands free, while cooking.

Apple Watch does this job well too.

You wear watch while cooking?

Is that a serious question?

Well it's not the most hygienic thing, items are hardly sanitisable

Depends on how and what do you cook.

From a hygenic point of view, yes, it's a serious question.

Yes, I do. I sanitize my Apple Watch regularly anyway, which is why I opted for one of the silicone bands over the fancier options.

Just tried this with my Apple Watch, hands free of course. Didn’t work. Do you have to enable this?

Edit: nm I had to be away from my phone for my watch to pick this up over my phone.

For a timer it shouldn’t matter since iPhone timers will also activate on the watch

If you raise your wrist to speak then I think Siri will prioritize the Watch, no?

What about disable people? The fact you don't see a purpose doesn't mean there isn't.

If their disability is no concern for their own privacy then sure.

Voice control might be a need, Alexa voice control shouldn’t be.

Again, you're making assumptions that people worry about privacy like you are. You're also making an assumption that people think like you that Alexa harms their privacy. Finally, your first sentence is pretty ignorant I must say. Let people in a wheelchair talk about Alexa and their tradeoffs.

Personally I have an Alexa but don't find it too appealing. I barely use it. My kids use it much more often. I don't worry about privacy. I trust Amazon (or Google/Apple/Microsoft) that non of the audio is saved or sent to the cloud unless the device hears the trigger word. Can someone hack it and listen to our interactions at home? I'm assuming it's possible but that's true for our phones too.

Please, this is either a serious lack of imagination or a ton of insincerity on your part. Having the ability to speak a command at home to turn on/off lights, adjust the temperature, play music, etc is extremely convenient. I would love to do it at my home, but I will not be using any of these products when they require an internet connection.

I can think of a brilliant use case, but it's the only one I can think of offhand.

For the disabled, particularly blind people, it would be great to have interactive voice stuff if that whole ecosystem were really fleshed out. Some of this exists but a world of audio books, online banking, interaction with social media, all with interfaces optimized for voice use/audio listening would be great.

Interacting with a screen by having some software read it to you just seems incredibly clumsy.

Personally, I think the hands-off case for automotive use is dangerous. Talking on the phone or listening to email while driving is sketchy even though you're still gripping the steering wheel. AM/FM radio interfaces were perfected 75 years ago.

If you want to work on this: https://mycroft.ai/

Thanks, I'll check it out.

In order to really reach people with vision issues, it seems like places like Bank of America (just an example) need to do a good job of Alexa skills. Dunno how you deal with security.

As a side note, it's funny how absurd online banking websites are. It's a thing that would be well served by simple/secure pure text interfaces but that certainly isn't what you get.

The amount of cruft on the web just blows me away, whether it's a weather or real estate or recipe site. We're living in a world of shit.

Treat the crappy site as an API and make a better interface. Like the SimpleWeb project: https://simple-web.metalune.xyz/

Having worked for and with a few different large companies, my experience has been that multi-national banks are the most pathologically "not a single entity". They have all sorts of factions within often working directly against the interests of each other, with large projects kept secret purely for _internal_ competitive advantage. With that model, the resulting mangled mess they present as an interface makes significantly more sense.

I know of some people who use them as an excuse to get their kids to learn some English... I'm not really sold on it, but it makes some sense.

> AM/FM radio interfaces were perfected 75 years ago.

While I agree physical and simple is best, I've also totaled a car by fussing with such a radio and driving. Safest is probably no radio and no distractions. Second best may be set and forget interfaces that don't allow changes while moving.

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