C2 wiki closed for remodeling - <AUTHOR> http://c2.com/wiki/closed.html?WelcomeVisitors <comment><USER2> The (baffling) explanation given is that Ward Cunningham has one computer, and serving the wiki from it made it slow for other work:

        So why close? It gives me room to work. The continuous scraping bumps up
        against my web throttling making all other web services useless. Even
        shell is painfully slow.

The other work seems to be the conversion of the original wiki into a federated wiki. The page meanders through a confusing explanation which probably makes sense if you know the history of that particular project, but the ultimate result seems to be the same: "If you want to help. Learn some federated wiki."

So I guess another reason for closing the old wiki could be to take advantage of the news this generate to recruit people for this (new? old?) conversion effort.

<comment><USER3> Running a web server on your home machine is the best way to be part of the internet rather than a consumer of services provided by corporations over the internet.

It does sound like he needs a better QoS or bandwidth limiting mechanism though.

<comment><USER4> Or a second box.

Running public services on my personal server ... is very old-school, but it gives me the heeby geebies to think of doing it now.

Hardware is cheap cheap cheap. The major cost is in administering it.

<comment><USER5> Or, I don't know, a second box on a second ISP line. That's what I do, but then again I live in a place where an internet connection with a static public IP address and several megabytes bw both ways is like 15$/mo (unlimited, of course).

<comment><USER4> Keep in mind that for residential cable or DSL service, a given neighbourhood is very likely within a single circuit, and is subject to congestion from nearby connections (subject to their own caps). So a second line might not be quite so useful as all that, though it's almost certainly worth looking into.

Multi-homing onto fully independent networks could be quite useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Smallest Federated Wiki is a software platform developed by Ward Cunningham > which adds forking features found in software development tools like GitHub > to wikis.[1] The project was launched at IndieWebCamp 2011.[2] The software > allows its users to fork wiki pages, maintaining their own copies.

>

> Federation supports what Cunningham has described as "a chorus of voices" > where users share content but maintain their individual perspectives.[3] > This approach contrasts with the tendency of centralized wikis such as > Wikipedia to function as consensus engines.[4]

\- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallest_Federated_Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallest_Federated_Wiki)

In short I guess if I disagree with a page instead of editing it and starting an edit-war I can fork it.

<comment><USER7> > In short I guess if I disagree with a page instead of editing it and > starting an edit-war I can fork it.

Which I'd expect to lead to less of a "chorus" and more of a _cacophony_ of voices as every disputed change, every contentious rewrite, leads to another fork of the original.

Merging software branches can be hard enough. Merging "forks" of English text is horrendous, and gets worse the further the forks are from each other. There's a good reason why no commonly used wiki software has this functionality: it's completely impractical to use.

<comment><USER8> Software doesn't stay forked all that long in practice, usually, because _maintaining_ your fork is much more effort than creating it, and making your popular is more effort still.

I would expect the same dynamics to be true here - yes, there will be plenty of short-lived forks, but hardly anyone will actually notice them; and community will effectively "bless" one fork, or maybe a few major forks for particularly debated issues, as the official one, and that's what most people will see, and where most activity will take place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> In short: In the post Ward Cunningham says the C2 wiki will be converted into a federated wiki form. I think the following quote summarizes well why he thinks this is a good idea:

        So why close? It gives me room to work. The continuous
        scraping bumps up against my web throttling making all
        other web services useless. Even shell is painfully
        slow.

        Of course I live in a world of many options. I could be
        stalled just reviewing choices. Instead I build on
        what I've learned from federated wiki so as to preserve
        the original wiki in a form that can be appreciated for
        what it has been and will ever be. If you want to help.
        Learn some federated wiki. Then email me.

</comment><comment><USER9> I love the C2 wiki and learned a lot from it. This seems a bit incoherent though. What's actually going on? None of it makes any sense.

<comment><USER10> Why? I don't see any problem, the message seems quite clear; wikis (similar to forums) are hard to maintain (spam, server load & costs); new inventions are hard to promote (federated wiki mentioned in the post); and maintenance work on hobby projects is gruesome and taxing (thus any chance at getting some leeway by any means available is invaluable).

<comment><USER11> Would not it be better, as an interim state, to freeze the current content and provide it as static pages, likely with minimal server load.

<comment><USER12> Thus turning the original wiki into something non-editable? If it can't be maintained as a wiki, the experiment is already over, right? Ward Cunningham isn't under any obligation to provide static archives, and these already exist elsewhere.

Edit: turns out this was already the case. What I really want to say is that we should respect Ward Cunningham's choices in maintaining the site how he wants, in whatever way works for him.

<comment><USER13> > _we should respect Ward Cunningham 's choices in maintaining the site how he > wants, in whatever way works for him_

This is an unhealthy attitude and I'm continually surprised that people say things like this. Having respect for someone does not mean that they are above criticism. It doesn't mean silent obedience. You can respect someone and _still_ say, "hey, this thing you're doing is a bad idea."

<comment><USER12> Where did I say "above criticism" and what does "obedience" have to do with this? (Is Mr. Cunningham bossing you around?)

The attitude that actually is unhealthy is when someone graciously provides a service to the community for years, and then stops doing that, and people whine as though they are entitled to the continuation of that service.

Respect in cases like this should mean to appreciate the work done to keep the thing running until now, and if someone decides to stop doing that work, respect that choice, even if you don't understand it or agree with it.

<comment><USER13> You very much stated and continue to state that no one should complain about Cunningham's choice here out of respect. This absolutely implies that his action is above criticism and that the appropriate response is to remain silent. This is painfully obvious from your last line. You say "respect that choice" and clearly mean "accept it and shut up".

I don't think it counts as "whining" to ask if there is another way (e.g. switch to static content) to address Cunningham's concerns/costs without outright taking the wiki down.

In no way do I think Cunningham owes the community continued indefinite hosting of the wiki. At the same time, its removal _is_ a loss to the community and it's unsurprising that some would ask if this could be handled differently.

<comment><USER14> > This absolutely implies that his action is above criticism and that the > appropriate response is to remain silent.

It does not. An alternative explanation: We recognize him as an autonomous adult who does not owe us anything. We trust that if he wants our advice, he will ask us for it.

Ward Cunningham has a long track record of doing very smart things. I met him a number of times at the early conferences, and he was consistently sharp, kind, and generous with his time.

To criticize his decisions about what he does with his own stuff is a level of presumption that I would be unlikely to indulge in. Just because I don't understand what he's doing doesn't mean he doesn't understand.

<comment><USER13> Does "we respect Ward Cunningham" mean we should sit silently when we disagree with his decision or not? It's either yes or no and speaking of autonomous adults and smart things doesn't change that.

Either respect means we shut up when we disagree or it doesn't. You can't claim that respect _doesn 't_ mean we should shut up and then claim that we _should_ shut up in this case ... because of our respect for Ward Cunningham.

And I'd like to be super clear that Ward Cunningham doesn't owe me anything and if he wants to turn off his wiki and burn the archives that's his business and I actually don't care too much and I wish him all the best regardless. What I don't like is this frequent assertion that criticizing someone's actions implies a lack of respect, or conversely that respect implies silence in the face of disagreement.

<comment><USER14> You are making a complicated thing into a binary. I'm sure that feels pleasantly dramatic, but it confuses issues where we need clarity.

If you complain in a way that you are setting yourself up as judge and jury (a common mode here on HN), then yes, I'd rather you put a sock in it. Ward's a smart guy, he knows more about the topic than you, and he's spent much more time thinking about it. Truly respecting that eliminates certain kinds of critique.

Note that this doesn't stop you from commenting. If you would like to mention your feelings in non-judgmental ways, that's fine. E.g., "I'm worried: what will happen to the archives?" Or "I don't understand how he will solve problem X." It also doesn't prevent you from expressing different values, as long as you respect his values.

But you are only competent to disagree with his decision once you have as much information as he does and has put a similar level of thought into it. Otherwise you're one of those people who froths at a trial outcome without actually looking at the trial record and carefully reading the judge's decision. Not all opinions are equally valuable. If I suggest my ignorant opinion is just as good as somebody else's informed one, I am unavoidably being disrespectful to them.

<comment><USER13> > _You are making a complicated thing into a binary. I 'm sure that feels > pleasantly dramatic, but it confuses issues where we need clarity._

I'm happy to recognize the middle ground where someone can effectively just be whining and have nothing useful to say, and the appropriate thing to do is just shut up. That middle ground has nothing to do with respect though, which gets back to my point.

Certainly I agree that the way a concern is voiced has a major impact on how it will be received.

> _But you are only competent to disagree with his decision once you have as > much information as he does and has put a similar level of thought into it. > Otherwise you 're one of those people who froths at a trial outcome without > actually looking at the trial record and carefully reading the judge's > decision. Not all opinions are equally valuable. If I suggest my ignorant > opinion is just as good as somebody else's informed one, I am unavoidably > being disrespectful to them._

Absolutely not. This is a terribly unhealthy attitude. By this logic, you can virtually never question someone's choice because you effectively never know everything that goes into someone else's choice. This is yes man logic that leads to an echo chamber. Less charitably, this is apologist behavior. This is the argument put forward to defend every shady government decision in history. "Oh, you don't have all the information so you can't have an opinion on the issue."

What you should be doing in a situation where you disagree but don't feel well informed is to _become_ well informed so that you can either defend your position or understand the decision.

<comment><USER14> > That middle ground has nothing to do with respect though, which gets back to > my point.

I said "complicated". You took that to mean a continuum, but that's not the case. There is more than one dimension here.

> By this logic, you can virtually never question someone's choice because you > effectively never know everything that goes into someone else's choice.

You were talking criticism. Here you have shifted ground to questioning. Which is still a little entitled, honestly. You could ask questions, though.

Also, your parallel to government decisions is ridiculous. Government is of, by, and for the people. People have a right to know. Ward Cunningham, on the other hand, is of, by, and for Ward Cunningham. You have no right to get up in his business.

> What you should be doing in a situation where you disagree but don't feel > well informed is to become well informed so that you can either defend your > position or understand the decision.

Yes, and I for one wish you had done that here instead of pitching a fit.

But ultimately, Ward doesn't owe us an explanation. If he chooses to inform us, that's great. But if not, the respectful thing to do is to, absent evidence to the contrary, assume he knows what he's doing.

<comment><USER13> > _I said "complicated". You took that to mean a continuum, but that's not the > case. There is more than one dimension here._

It feels like you're trying really hard to avoid addressing the point directly. It's really not as complex as you're making it out to be. I literally posed a yes or no question about the specific example of Ward Cunningham and somehow it's now a multi-dimensional issue that you've been unable to answer?

I think your answer is "no" but for some reason you're unwilling to just say so, which is why you're bringing in other dimensions that are unrelated to respect in order to try to make the question seem difficult. If you think the commenters should shut up about Cunningham's actions because you think their complaints come from a place of ignorance or entitlement, that might be reasonable, but it's got nothing to do with respect.

> _You were talking criticism. Here you have shifted ground to questioning. > Which is still a little entitled, honestly. You could ask questions, > though._

You're trying to nitpick semantics. To question someone's decision is to criticize it.

> _Also, your parallel to government decisions is ridiculous. Government is > of, by, and for the people. People have a right to know. Ward Cunningham, on > the other hand, is of, by, and for Ward Cunningham. You have no right to get > up in his business._

The government example was provided to illustrate why this mindset is fundamentally wrong, not to equate government actions and Cunningham's actions. I could have provided equivalent examples involving business, or friends, or strangers. But it doesn't matter because you're nitpicking the example instead of addressing the unhealthiness of the attitude.

> _Yes, and I for one wish you had done that here instead of pitching a fit._

Where do you imagine I pitched a fit? Is criticism something you just fundamentally don't agree with? My comments here have been polite and, yes, respectful.

> _But ultimately, Ward doesn 't owe us an explanation. If he chooses to > inform us, that's great. But if not, the respectful thing to do is to, > absent evidence to the contrary, assume he knows what he's doing._

I never claimed he did and repeatedly stated that he didn't owe me anything. I think I made it extremely clear that I was criticizing the comments/attitude linking respect and silence, and not Cunningham's actions. (I'm not sure why you're equating whether he owes us something with whether he knows what he's doing, though. These are unrelated.)

<comment><USER14> Your yes or no question contains a framing I reject. I will not answer it as written. If you would like to ask an actual question where you intend to learn something, I'm glad to take a swing at that. I will not participate, though, in your rhetorical attempt to prove a point I believe wrong.

> You're trying to nitpick semantics. To question someone's decision is to > criticize it.

No, criticizing is saying the decision is bad for given reasons. Questioning it often implies the decision is bad, but needn't. Asking questions is a way of learning more about the decision. For a given level of knowledge, these demonstrate different levels of respect.

> it doesn't matter because you're nitpicking the example instead of > addressing the unhealthiness of the attitude.

Some possible attitudes are unhealthy. But quite a lot of them demonstrate healthy humility and respect. Your continued insistence on collapsing all possible attitudes that result in silence into one attitude is the reason we are not getting anywhere.

> Where do you imagine I pitched a fit?

Right here. Your whole discussion here is you raising a ruckus because you imagine people must hold an a particular attitude you don't like. They don't, but you are unwilling to listen.

> I never claimed he did and repeatedly stated that he didn't owe me anything. > I think I made it extremely clear that I was criticizing the > comments/attitude linking respect and silence, and not Cunningham's actions.

Either you believe you are entitled to opine vigorously upon decisions you don't yet understand, or you believe the person you are criticizing is required to explain their decision to your satisfaction. Otherwise you would be able to see that not saying anything is a respectful way to deal with a decision made by someone who has more data than you and has spent longer thinking about it.

So yes, you have claimed he doesn't owe you anything. But you still act like he does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Code and Preview of the wiki rewrite at [https://github.com/WardCunningham/remodeling](https://github.com/WardCunningham/remodeling)

<comment><USER16> So an Ajax call loading in half a MB of data (names.txt)... This rewrite really comes of as strange.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was afraid that they'd get taken in by this federated wiki nonsense; I fear we might have lost one of the greats to second system syndrome.

Federated wiki is a cool idea and all, but I don't want to have to build my own wiki of everything, or decide what concepts should be included in my own wiki. The whole strength of wiki to me is that it massively multiplayer user curated content, where the whole state is determined by everyone working together. I don't know what happens to that curation if there's no authoritative source -- it seems like federated wiki isn't really wiki at all, and is something else entirely.

<comment><USER18> Has federated anything every really caught on?

<comment><USER19> The USA.

<comment><USER20> There's a pretty pronounced trend in the US to be less federated. For example, "states' rights" is commonly viewed as a euphemism for "racism".

<comment><USER19> I don't necessarily mean the states -> USA relationship. One of the things I've come to understand, as a regular visitor to the US, is that there's a community for everybody. No matter how idiosyncratic (or even extreme) your political, social and economic preferences, you can find a community to take you in. And if you can't, you can create one and find others of like mind. And somehow it all still comes under a single umbrella notion of being "American". This exists practically nowhere else on earth. And I say that as a resident & citizen of another country that has a federated state structure.

And yes, I know it's a work in progress, and that this hasn't lead to equity of representation or systemic fairness. But still, in my view, establishing that framework and unifying _je ne sais quoi_ in the face of such diversity is the single greatest political accomplishment of the last few hundred years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The part I don't understand is why they would take down a working site. They should of waited until they were ready to switch over.

<comment><USER12> ("should of" should be "should have")

The post explains this. Closing gives space. That could be technical, psychological, social. Shutting down what's there is cleaner. If you miss it, this would be a good chance to thank the people who kept it running all this time.

<comment><USER21> Good to know, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So what was this?

</comment><comment><USER23> So, where's the content? How many backups are there? How many backups are offsite? Are any publicly-available?

<comment><USER24> Read the article. Unfortunately the content is looked up in a tangle of different character encodings and Ward needs to do a lot of work to convert it all into UTF-8. When that is done, it will all come back, better than before.

<comment><USER23> Why does Ward need to do that before putting a tarball up somewhere?

I've seen so many sites cease to exist after undertaking ambitious overhauls like this.

<comment><USER25> At the very least, fortunately, archive.org seems to have it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you find good new ebooks? - <AUTHOR>

I check Amazon Kindle deals, and even kind of peruse the listings on the kindle app, but there is so much, and so much of it seems like complete dreck, or just not up my alley.  How do you find good recommendations?  External apps, word of mouth, or just from looking really hard?<p>I love biographical stuff (but not everything interests me), Science and nitch stuff gets me occasionally (yes, even stuff like Malcom Gladwell), and I am a huge Science Fiction and Fantasy escapist, but (especially in SciFan) there is a huge influx of entry level(?, ish) authors, and most just don't seem worth the time let alone the 99 cents.  Since there is no field for "real authors" how do I sort through the low end stuff; compound that with the fact that some of those are actually very good... <comment><USER2> I'm a sci-fi/fantasy fan too. I often find interesting new reading by researching one of the writers I know is good, and finding out the writers that they're friends with or who influenced them or who were influenced by them. For example, I like Alan Moore, who is friends with Michael Moorcock, so I'll give him a go. I like Richard K. Morgan and he was influenced by William Gibson, Poul Anderson and Bob Shaw, so I'll probably give them a go.

It's not the only way to do it, but it's one way. I would never have known about Richard K Morgan if a friend of mine hadn't been looking through a brick and mortar library one day, literally judging books by their covers, found one of his books and subsequently recommended it to me. But once I've found a good writer via whatever means, I usually find that you can follow threads from them to other good writers.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would start by dropping the "e" part of your requirement. Don't look for good e-books, look for good books.

Then I would drop the strategy of looking mainly at the "deal" books, since at best there is a zero correlation to quality, and at worst a negative correlation.

That said, finding good books is a problem that people have been facing for decades if not centuries, and with mixed success. You've got to kiss a lot of frogs...

Talking books with people whose opinions you trust is a good start. Then there are internet forums dedicated to discussing books of different sorts. There are lots and lots of review sites. One strategy is to find a review site that positively reviews a book you know you like, then see what else that reviewer recommends.

You can also find a library and browse the shelves. Browsing, at libraries and at decent brick-and-mortar bookstores (RIP), is how I found most of the books that I ended up liking the most. Literally at least three of my favorite books in the world I had never heard of until I picked them up from a bookstore shelf (and two of them, I had never even heard of the author).

In a way, reading lists of e-books that are available, rather than going in via a search on an author or title you think you might like, is somewhat akin to browsing. The main difference being the extremely low quality of the ability to spot-read, that electronic bookstores offer. The ability to randomly sample a book's writing in 4-5 places is an immeasurable aid to finding a book you might like, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER4> I browse goodreads to find new books.</comment>


Amazon device recorded private conversation, sent it out to random contact - <AUTHOR> https://www.kiro7.com/www.kiro7.com/news/local/woman-says-her-amazon-device-recorded-private-conversation-sent-it-out-to-random-contact/755507974 <comment><USER3> I am oversimplifying here but:

* install device that is designed to listen to speech in the house

* the device is connected to internet

* the device is capable of contacting other internet peers/services/hosts

* the device knows a bit about its owner's internet presence such as contacts

* the device is equipped with simple conversational user interface based on fuzzy human speech-command detection

These basically bound the failure modes of the complete system. I am not surprised that a glitch like that happened. I can certainly attest to how shocking it might be to discover first hand that it really did happen, but given the context I can't say it's hard to not foresee something like this.

<comment><USER4> I remember the first voice command stuff on google. Buddy of mine was trying it out and I couldn't help myself but shout:

"NEW TEXT MESSAGE TO JENNY! FUCK YOU! SEND!"

Fortunately the phone was too slow to take it all (even if it had Jenny would have found it amusing, she was a cube or two away). But yeah first thing I thought of was that if it's listening how easy is it for it to mistake intent or someone else or etc.

Humans talk funny, computers don't get it, they're gonna mistake commands all the time.

As it is I hate how I can't talk ABOUT "ok google" around my phone... because it always goes off.

<comment><USER5> My friend installed IBM OS/2 WARP beta when it came out, it too was voice controlled. We would shout into his room, "select all, delete" or "format c" or other childish fun commands.

<comment><USER4> Humans are terrible. When the computers take over.... I won't be happy about it, but I'll kinda understand.

<comment><USER6> Just shout "self-destruct" all the time and we'll be fine.

<comment><USER7> Alexa has 4-5 joke responses to self destruct. E.g. "I'll start the countdown but only on the understanding you'll dramatically cancel it at the last second", and "3-2-1 Boom. Hmm that didn't quite work did it?" or something like that, and a few others.

<comment><USER8> Like the countdown at the end of _Monsters vs. Aliens_ :

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ5DA22tBOY#t=4m27s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ5DA22tBOY#t=4m27s)

"8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

…

Hmm, nothing happened, maybe my count w… [BOOM]"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have this idea of a system I would like to have in my house. It contains cameras in every room that are constantly watching where people are and relaying the coordinates to a central server. That server makes decisions on if lights should be on or if A/C should be running in that room. But I would never buy this system. I would have to make it myself. I am hopeful that open source software and hardware can produce individual components that I can trust to piece together.

<comment><USER10> > I have this idea of a system I would like to have in my house. It contains > cameras in every room that are constantly watching where people are and > relaying the coordinates to a central server. That server makes decisions on > if lights should be on or if A/C should be running in that room. But I would > never buy this system. I would have to make it myself. I am hopeful that > open source software and hardware can produce individual components that I > can trust to piece together.

You don't need cameras for that, just motion sensors.

> That server makes decisions on if lights should be on...in that room.

You don't need a server for that, just a motion-sensing switch. They can be totally offline. My office has them to _shut off_ lights automatically when a conference room becomes unoccupied.

[https://www.homedepot.com/b/Electrical-Wiring-Devices- Light-...](https://www.homedepot.com/b/Electrical-Wiring-Devices-Light- Controls-Motion-Sensors/N-5yc1vZc32r)

It can get annoying if you're not moving much, but the key point is: no camera or server required.

> That server makes decisions on...if A/C should be running in that room.

Ecobee thermostats can already do that using motion/temperature sensors. They run fine without an internet connection.

[https://www.ecobee.com/room-sensors/](https://www.ecobee.com/room-sensors/)

<comment><USER11> Might be cool to add thermal sensors to that, so the lights don't shut off because you're not moving enough.

<comment><USER12> That's the main problem with motion activated office lights tbf, especially when you're doing software development for example - not enough motion to keep them on.

<comment><USER13> My problem with the motion activated office lights (at least the ones at the wework my company is located) is that you can't turn them off. The button appears to turn the lights off and disable the motion sensor for some (short) period of time, then movement turns the lights back on again. Very annoying.

<comment><USER14> My office has a piece of paper taped over the motion sensor on the roof for that reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Amazon's response, from Ars' article:

> _Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like > "Alexa." Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a "send message" > request. At which point, Alexa said out loud "To whom?" At which point, the > background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customers contact > list. Alexa then asked out loud, "[contact name], right?" Alexa then > interpreted background conversation as "right." As unlikely as this string > of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely._

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/amazon-confirms- that...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/amazon-confirms-that-echo- device-secretly-shared-users-private-audio/)

<comment><USER16> I want some YouTube tech channel to test this out and see if this story by Amazon is bullshit or not. Have a private-sounding conversation and intersperse it with a sudden nonchalant, 'hey, alexa visited me today and...' and then keep talking and then 'I really want to send a message to these students, you know and...' and so on and so forth.

<comment><USER17> I think it's decently plausible if your Alexa hears you, but you don't hear your Alexa. So you continue on your conversation, and you say enough to keep progressing the flow.

I would assume any failed speech recognition attpempts are recorded so Amazon can have a human look at and classify them, but at the very least they probably keep logs, so they should have this information when debugging. Maybe we'll get a more detailed postmortem later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I received one of these messages just a week ago. Alexa sent me a message of my friend and his girlfriend having a private conversation. I immediately texted him to ask if he intended to do that and he did not- so weird.

<comment><USER19> Can you explain a bit more. What was the context of the message? was it an email? What was the subject line and the text? Was the audio an attachment or a link? A link to where...?

"Amazon sent me a message" is so frustratingly vague...

<comment><USER20> You're able to send voice messages to other people that have an Alexa. Basically like voicemail.

<comment><USER21> That means that, unlike butt-dialing, you're more likely to accidentally send a message to someone you're actually talking about since the person's name is part of the command. Yikes!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Summary of vague technical details (which may be all we hear about this):

> an Alexa engineer investigated ... they said 'our engineers went through > your logs, and they saw exactly what you told us, they saw exactly what you > said happened, and we're sorry.' He apologized like 15 times in a matter of > 30 minutes and he said we really appreciate you bringing this to our > attention, this is something we need to fix!"

> the engineer did not provide specifics about why it happened, or if it's a > widespread issue.

> "He told us that the device just guessed what we were saying" The device did > not audibly advise that it was preparing to send the recording, something > it's programmed to do.

<comment><USER23> > The device did not audibly advise that it was preparing to send the > recording, something it's programmed to do.

Apparently it's _not_ programmed to do that. Unless this was a hardware glitch or cosmic-ray event.

<comment><USER24> As developers, we use 'programmed' in that manner all the time, to mean what we were trying to get it to do rather than what it actually does.

<comment><USER23> I don't. And in this particular scenario, it's an important distinction to make because there's a risk of Amazon using equivocation to deflect responsibility.

<comment><USER24> If this was intentional, then yes they shouldn't be able to deflect responsibility. However, if it was just a bug, I think it is a bit unfair to vilify either the company or the developers. Bugs happen, and hopefully they can learn what caused this and prevent this class of bugs in the future.

<comment><USER25> And this is where "software" diverges from "engineering".

Bugs happen in architecture, aircraft, etc. too. the difference is that the actual engineers are paid to have a precautionary approach and spend significant resources to actively prevent bugs from making it into the final product.

In contrast, software is often written to "ship first", be "agile", and "move fast and break things". Yet when it causes problems, they just say "bugs happen", and "it is unfair to vilify them".

Features are not better than reliable security.

And yes, negligence is less bad than malice, but it is still damaging and developers and managers need to be held to account.

If your manager is pressing you to do unsafe crap in too big a hurry, it's your responsibility to push back, and if unsuccessful, leave for saner pastures and make it more difficult for that management to proceed.

<comment><USER24> > Features are not better than reliable security.

Well, yes and no. Bugs, security, reliability, etc are all important things to consider, but they can't be the only focus. Security doesn't matter if the thing you are creating has no features; it would be the same as if it didn't exist at all.

Instead, we must manage risk; the risk of bugs, the risk of security vulnerabilities, etc. Nothing we do is risk free. Even walking across the bathroom floor has SOME risk; we might slip and fall. Does that mean we should just stay in bed all day to avoid any risk?

No, we measure risk by factoring the chance of the bad thing happening and the consequence of the bad thing happening. We then determine how much effort we should spend on that risk, since there are infinite risks and only a finite amount of effort we can expend.

If the consequence of a risk is death, then we should absolutely put a lot of effort into minimizing that risk. If the consequence of a risk is that a private conversation is sent to a contact, we should definitely put a lot of effort into minimizing that risk, but probably not quite as much as you would into something that has the consequence of death.

Even when the risk is death, however, we don't put infinite effort into avoiding it. We choose to cross the street, even when we know there is a risk of death when we do it. We drive cars that have chances of mechanical failures that could cause our death, but we don't bring the car to the shop every day to check for failures.

Things are not so black and white as to say "security is always the most important thing"

<comment><USER25> I did not say >"security is always the most important thing". I did not suggest that anyone should develop such that >" the thing you are creating has no features". I certainly never suggested that no one get out of bed because they might slip in the bath. These are strawman arguments.

You do not need to lecture me about risk. I've had a career in international downhill ski racing, have won auto racing championships, and enjoyed lots of technical rock climbing, all of which require a high degree of risk assessment, both in extended preparation phases and at split-second time scales. I've also run risk analysis for UAV flight systems

I understand well the difference between smart-crazy and dumb-crazy, and where the pseudo-mathematical risk models like yours break down.

Your 'analysis' to "...measure risk by factoring the chance..." would have fit right in at the meetings where Ford decided to just go ahead with the design of the Pinto/Bobcat because the lawsuits would cost less than the fix -- they wound up killing dozens of people.

Your 'analysis' would have fit right in where the trading algorithms were being designed, which worked fantastically profitably, until they didn't and ended up crashing the global economy in 2007-8.

You cannot simply multiply the cost of the consequences by the expected probability and get an allocation of resources. That is what you do to see if the lottery jackpot is big enough for you to want to buy a $2 ticket this week.

You must instead 1) fully examine the system for potential critical failure points/modes and then 2) allocate WHATEVER resources are necessary to account for preventing those critical failures, then implement those remedies along with the features.

These preventative measures may involve installing redundant systems around the critical points, redesigning the points so they fail in a safe mode (e.g., fail to send the data vs sending it off, shut down vs, explode, etc.), adding check procedures around the potential critical failure, etc.

Note that NONE of these measures involve not implementing the feature. They involve 1) checking for critical failure modes, 2) allocating R&D to develop preventative & fail-safe measures, 3) implementing the measures, 4) testing, and 5) field monitoring.

This is what you do if you are serious about risk.

<comment><USER24> Ok, I never said that the 'analysis' should be purely based on dollar value. I never even said it should be a mathematical model. You accuse me of a strawman and then turn around and do the same to me.

I was simply pointing out that we can never get to zero risk, and since we can't, we have to weigh risks based on consequences and probability.

> 1) fully examine the system for potential critical failure points/modes

Sure, to the best of your ability. How can you know for certain you have found all potential critical failure points? You can get pretty sure, but never fully sure. We still have industrial accidents, in every single industry in the world.

You also have to define what a 'critical risk' is. I don't think it is an a priori fact that accidentally sending a recording of a conversation to a contact is a 'critical risk'.

<comment><USER25> So your model isn't even mathematical, it's what, just a SWAG of the combined hazards and odds? That works for linear, small risks.

It absolutely does NOT work for serious risks, e.g., of death, serious injury, massive privacy violation, and other potential life-changing events.

The concept you are clearly avoiding or missing non-linear risk.

You (and amzn_engineer1) are advocating for simply subsuming risk assessment into the ordinary development cycle, and calling it "taking it seriously".

That is fooling yourself.

Taking it seriously is actually making full and serious effort OUT OF THE NORMAL DEVELOPMENT CYCLE for no other purpose than to SEEK and identify potential critical risks.

It is then engineering a variety of in-depth solutions to prevent those critical failure points from ever seeing the light of day. And implementing them. and testing them. And monitoring them.

>> I don't think it is an a priori fact that accidentally sending a recording of a conversation to a contact is a 'critical risk'.

This is an exact example of this sort of failure: 'it's not a priori bad'..., minimize it and streamline it into dev.

I really want to know in what world any sane person would say that it's OK to randomly divulging an intimate conversation to a contact or random recipient -- seriously, who would say that?

I mean sure, most conversations are benign, but some could be utterly life- changing if revealed. and that's OK with you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > _But Danielle is hoping Amazon gives her a refund for her devices, which she > said their representatives have been unwilling to do._

Based on Amazon's admission and apologies, I'd think they'd be willing to give a lot more than just a refund. Seems like a huge liability for them.

<comment><USER26> Unless it's expected behavior that malfunctioned. Antecdotally I've found a lot of companies support have almost no leeway for appeasement if the triggering behavior is considered "expected behavior" or a bug based off of it.

<comment><USER27> But this is Amazon. I guess things have changed for the worse on the customer service front though. This happened not too long ago (2-3 years) - <USER2> around the time they posted a net profit

In terms of the big picture, this was dumb PR wise and this story should have never happened. For less than a $1000, Amazon could have stopped the story if the PR dept were more in sync with customer service

<comment><USER26> I don't disagree at all on the PR side. Spent sometime in the contact center tools space and my general experience is if a company allows it exempt higher level employees avoid engaging with customer service directly at pretty much all costs.

Not saying it happened here but thats how you get $10/hour vendors making judgement calls on customer situations that are front page news.

<comment><USER27> Yes, I also used to work in that space, our software / platform was used by Fortune 500 companies.

My point still stands. This is Amazon and not random company X's customer service. There are very few companies like this that people can name (e.g. Nordstrom, Patagonia, ...) It this used to not happen at Amazon. Customer service used to be empowered to make customers happy, which was what made Amazon legendary. Things have changed. Customer service is now crippled like almost every other mediocre company. This is just one of the symptoms. Maybe Amazon feels that it has enough market share now, so it doesn't matter as much?

<comment><USER26> I see what you are saying it definitely could be the market share or maybe even just the overall volume (QA at scale).

I guess I just don't have a long enough track record with them to see them in that grouping of great customer service. They've pretty much fought me tooth and nail over price matching and prime shipping that doesnt meet the two guarantee over the last couple of years which is probably biasing my view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've told my roommate I'm moving out if he ever buys an Alex/Google/Apple assistant device.

I have a microphone and I've been intending to get one of the open source solutions working and just tie it in to mpd, weather and a few other things. But all the processing should really be done on your own device, by hardware you own, software that's open and that you configure, and not send up to someone else's computer (aka "the cloud").

Of course non-tech people probably wouldn't bother because that's a steep curve and you're talking about more expensive devices to do on-board processing. There are some companies that are trying to make this more accessible to regular consumers. I hope we see a move in this direction.

<comment><USER29> > I've told my roommate I'm moving out if he ever buys an Alex/Google/Apple > assistant device.

Do you have an Apple or Google device near you right now? Does it have a microphone, battery power, and a connection to the internet? What about your roommate? Do you ever have sensitive conversations near these devices?

Of course I'm not suggesting you should abandon such technology. I'm just wondering why you draw the line at "Alex/Google/Apple assistant device"

<comment><USER30> > _I 'm just wondering why you draw the line at "Alex/Google/Apple assistant > device"_

There's a big difference between:

\- Devices which are by design always actively listening and sending real-time audio to computers you can't control or even really trust, with unknown security properties, and consumer-appliance security life-cycles/support

\- Devices that _can_ be configured to do that, but which you have some control over (phones, laptops, etc.) and generally won't, without some form of consent (even if via a dark pattern, e.g. LinkedIn on Android).

<comment><USER31> To be fair, Apple's homepod doesn't send any data until it's activated with the wake word. Amazon and google products send a ton of data back constantly.

<comment><USER32> Where have you read that Amazon and Google send a ton of data back? I've heard that none of these devices send anything back until they're activated by a specific phrase.

<comment><USER31> I've seen and blocked it on my own network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> What actually happened: Alexa misinterpreted some voice commands and activated a "call" skill. The people involved and local news got very excited and escalated this into a conspiracy story.

Amazon takes customer privacy EXTREMELY seriously. There's no way a team would get the "ok" to build a skill that randomly records private conversations then sends them to a random contact. It also doesn't make any logical sense to build such a skill.

Yes, I might sound biased because I am an engineer at Amazon. This statement is my own and unrelated to Amazon's opinion.

<comment><USER34> I get what you are saying but I would say that Amazon does _NOT_ take privacy extremely seriously or this couldn't have happened. Let me be clear that I'm not saying they don't care at all or they are conspiring with the NSA.

What I mean by the above is that the "call" skill is _much_ different than the "weather" skill. All Alexa has to do is have a confirmation prompt in the "call" skill and this wouldn't have happened. That is what extremely serious looks like. This is exactly the same as the phantom laughter incident from a few months ago. Alexa "heard" someone say 'Alexa laugh' and laughed, but that wasn't the user's intent. It was fixed by moving to 'Sure, I can laugh,' followed by laughter.

Voice UI is very hard and still in its infancy but ability for personal harm (physical or emotional) must be considered in these interfaces. Turning off the lights may not need confirmation but unlocking the doors or turning off the alarm probably should. Sending recordings or answering calls or even calling people should require more hoops or at least allow the user to control the risk/reward.

<comment><USER35> > they are conspiring with the NSA

There is absolutely no reason to believe they are _not_ conspiring with the NSA. They have a huge deal with the CIA, plausible some of these funds are for surveillance capabilities. They would not (and likely would be legally prohibited from) disclosing any relationship they have.

[https://venturebeat.com/2014/03/18/snowden-slams-amazon- for-...](https://venturebeat.com/2014/03/18/snowden-slams-amazon-for-leaking- customer-data-to-the-nsa/)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-d...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the- details-about-the-cias-deal-with-amazon/374632/)

<comment><USER36> > There is absolutely no reason to believe they are not conspiring with the > NSA.

Or, more likely, being made an offer they can not refuse by the NSA. And the rank-in-file engineers may not even know it's happening, all it takes is inserting some diverting code into the pipeline and calling it "QA monitoring" or something. Couple of people in the whole org would know that somebody from some IP connects and downloads these "QA" data periodically, all the rest would be completely ignorant and indignant at the thought. Don't see anything preventing this from happening at Amazon - or anywhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The most shocking thing about this story is how a customer was able to get qualified engineering support for an unusual support request, from a large company.

Or... what's missing is the hours spent going through support tiers 1 through N, and somehow not getting dropped/lost along the way.

</comment><comment><USER38> Back in the early 90s, I remember seeing a cartoon in one of the tech magazines, possibly BYTE or PC/Computing. It featured an elevator opening onto a floor of office cubicles.

The guy in the elevator screams "COMPUTER! FORMAT SEE COLON SLASH WHY ENTER" across the whole cube farm. The doors close, and the elevator is gone.

Caption was something along the lines of "Speaker-independent voice recognition might be a bit tricky."

</comment><comment><USER39> I feel creeped out by these home listening devices and I don't own one, but don't our phones already have this capability? You can turn "Ok Google" on on an android phone. I sometimes record audio, and the mic is incredibly good. Is there a substantial difference between our phones and these devices?

EDIT: Just realized the substantial difference is that Google and Amazon own all of these things. They don't control all makes and models of phones.

<comment><USER40> I got an Echo Dot a month ago, because there was a special offer on Amazon for the Philips Hue system, and it included one free. After reading this and having a discussion with my girlfriend last night about how she needs a backup of something, but we don't have a DVD writer at home (she's not tech savvy and thinks people still back-up stuff on DVDs), and now, the second day my Amazon daily offers is filled with portable DVD writers, it starts to creep me out and the first thing that I want to do when I go home is to unplug it. I know it can be a crazy coincidence and I was never the kind of guy that believed this Facebook is listening to you, but still, what if they actually just listen for some keywords?

<comment><USER41> It might just be a coincidence and a psychological bias that you noticed it, but given that it would have a very, very clear economic benefit to Amazon if it were true, we're stuck with these facts:

1.) They have an economic incentive to do so

2.) Only they know how their systems work

3.) Their network traffic is encrypted

4.) They face legal risks and user backlash if caught doing so

Given 2+3, you can't be entirely sure that they aren't doing it. If they deny it, your only recourse is to hope that their cost/benefit calculus considers 4.) to be more costly in terms of dollars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This devices should by law always have a big LED on when recording, you would have the option to set it's brightness though.

Also why could it send data out without any confirmation from the user.

<comment><USER10> > This devices should by law always have a big LED on when recording

And the LED should be forbidden by law from being software-controlled.

They should also have a physical inline toggle switch to disconnect the microphone(s) entirely, whose state is easy to visually confirm.

<comment><USER43> I wonder how would you even do that? It's not a tape recorder, where someone has to physically press a button, there are no moving parts, thus it must be software controlled.

<comment> rolha-capoeira I assume they mean that the light should not be accessible to software, just wired so that "if camera is on, light is on"

<comment><USER44> Which means the light is always on. The device _must_ be listening or the wake word won't work.

<comment> squeaky-clean There are usually 2 stages, a local processor that can only detect the wake word, and then once that hears the wakeword it begins streaming data to the internet.

<comment><USER44> I'm aware. The microphone is always on in order for stage 1 to work.

<comment> squeaky-clean It doesn't need to be based on the microphone, it can be based on that second processor. It can be based on network activity (my USB Wifi adapter blinks whenever data is sent/received, even though it's connected 24/7, I don't see why anything else couldn't do that).

We're also discussing theoretical hardware changes, there's no reason it can't have 2 sets of microphones where one is hardwired only to the wake-word processor which has no direct connection to the main processor except some one-way signalling, and the LED is hardwired to the second set.

<comment><USER44> Your WiFi led is probably blinking pretty constantly, which would freak people out if they were told that blinking means active listening (as opposed to checking it updates or any of dozens of other things that might use the network). It's probably also software controlled anyway.

The idea that there would somehow be a dedicated wake word microphone is a little ridiculous. Firstly, no one would trust this supposed 1-way connection. Second, it would require a dedicated processor to make the wake word even work, driving up costs. Third, the echo uses an array of microphones so your wake word would either be unreliable or drive costs up further as you duplicate the entire array. Hardly a net win.

The reality is that if you don't trust amazon to do the right thing you shouldn't install their listening device in your home. (Likewise for your phone.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Every day I become more convinced that we've really let tech get a little too out of control, and could probably benefit from putting the brakes on a bit to get some very critical stuff under control first (e.g. security/privacy).

Don't get me wrong, technology is amazing and the cutting edge stuff going on today is super exciting... But it seems the capabilities of software now are far, far outpacing our abilities to ensure an adequate level of security and personal privacy. We've been blinded by flashy tech, too busy being amazed at everything all the time ("look at what AI can do!") and not stopping to consider the huge hidden price we're paying.

The reasons this has happened are kind of obvious... I just fear that it's going to take things getting to a point where we have a really major catastrophe on our hands for anyone to be willing to really do anything about it. A lot of people can and will get seriously hurt. I can imagine such an event resulting in a great "cooling" period in tech where advances are slowed while bigger investments are made into security, cryptography, solving the "identity problem", etc. But it would be nice if we could just have the foresight to fix things before it gets to that point...

</comment><comment><USER46> The article doesn't explain much, but it sounds to me like the device mistakenly interpreted a voice command to record and send a message.

<comment><USER47> Sure, but isn't that still terrifying? It brings me back to something I wonder about with these voice activated devices: you have no idea what it can do. Voice UIs are so utterly opaque, and Amazon(/Google/whoever) pushes new software updates without informing you. So it'll add new commands all the time, and you won't know about it until you accidentally trigger it, making it do... _whatever_.

But either way, they should surely be confirming this before send, the same way Siri does when I ask it to send a text.

<comment><USER46> yeah it's still off-putting.

I haven't used a smartphone in years. Looking back on the days when I did use a smartphone, there was always this tiny fear in the back of my head that maybe I'd pocket-dialed someone and they'd be able to hear my conversation. It actually had a subtle chilling effect.

The Hawthorne effect (which discusses how people react to being observed) seems to be especially relevant nowadays as there's a real possibility that we're being recorded at any time. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect)

It's actually a big theme in _1984_ where the mere possibility that you were being listened to via telescreen was enough to keep you in line and influence your behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I imagine there are a number of normal conversations that can trigger unexpected behaviors from these smart devices, especially when you consider the thousands of different regional accents, along with the thousands of ways of speaking the same words with various speeds, pitches, and annunciations. The article mentioned they were talking about wood floors:

...Oak in the annex and for the record...

 _recording begins_

...it's just the annex, stop fretting...

 _recording stops_

just send [flooring person] a quick message with samples you like.

 _sends recording to someone with same name as flooring person_

It sounds like the problem is that it was overly confident it understood the user's intentions, and did all of this silently.

</comment><comment><USER49> Tangential point, but you would think that Amazon would have immediately given this woman the refund she asked for, rather than instead offering to take her through a technically complex de-provisioning process. It just makes them look even worse during the inevitable bad publicity that they had to know they were going to get from this.

</comment><comment><USER50> Google let me listen to my own queries following, "okay, google." Mostly they were reasonable, but sometimes it heard "okay google" in what sounded to me like regular driving noise. It's a good reminder that even though we've trained computers to recognize sounds and images, we didn't train them to listen & see the way that we do. The mistakes that these algorithms make need not be anything like the mistakes that a person would make.

</comment><comment><USER51> The explanation for this is fairly unremarkable ([https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/family-claims-their- echo-s...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/24/family-claims-their-echo-sent-a- private-conversation-to-a-random-contact/)):

Echo woke up due to a word in background conversation sounding like "Alexa." Then, the subsequent conversation was heard as a "send message" request. At which point, Alexa said out loud "To whom?" At which point, the background conversation was interpreted as a name in the customers contact list. Alexa then asked out loud, "[contact name], right?" Alexa then interpreted background conversation as "right". As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely.

<comment><USER41> Actually it's _very_ remarkable on how bad the voice recognition is, and how Amazon can knowingly ship this crap to people, putting it in their homes, recording their _private_ interactions. Ya'll recorded people having sex yet?

It sounds like the machine learning models are tuned for specific phrases and have terrible, terrible false positive rates. "Evaluating options to make this less likely"? Now I don't even know what _mental_ model you guys are using (if you are from Amazon). This shouldn't be a matter of "likelihood". But OK, fine, let's use math. AFAICT there is about a 0% chance that a human would make such a string of errors interpreting human speech, but let's call it 1 in a trillion. If you guys aren't doing better than about 1 in a trillion for this string of at least 4 interactions, then one of those terms is stupidly, stupidly high.[1] It actually interpreted random conversation as the name of someone on a contact list? Horrible.

trust--

[1] Not even to mention, a human has context, understands boundaries, preferences, and has a ML voice recognition model developed and tuned over _decades_ of _interacting_ with _real people_. A human would also be smart enough to _understand_ the other human's situation, context, state of mind, and realize that even just the cadence of the conversation not changing in response to queries was indicative of the humans not acknowledging the query. Machines are f'in stupid.

<comment><USER51> It's a 1-in-a-million edge case.... I would hope people on HN at least would understand this stuff happens in software.

<comment><USER41> 1 in a million happens about 4000 times a second on a single CPU running at 4ghz...

Did you really want to talk concrete numbers? Because if so, I am wondering about the probability that Amazon's voice recognition mistakes random conversation as a valid entry in someone's contact list, as well as the other terms in this equation.

I don't know if you work for Amazon, and if so I don't want to single you out specifically, but this is a pretty bad screwup, and it does not inspire confidence. Please don't brush it away with "oh it's a 1-in-a-million edge case". That attitude is even worse, and if it is indeed that attitude inside of Amazon, then I am even more strongly against this and I hope that further, deeper scrutiny is applied here, because this screwup is actually _illegal_.

<comment><USER51> I do not work in Amazon. I side with them on this because look at this protocol:

1 Wake up w "Alexa." 2 respond to "send message" 3 respond to "To whom?" 4 respond to "[contact name], right?"

As an engineer (well, an AI researcher who used to engineer), that looks to me like they were not negligent and it was hard to predict background conversation would produce this unlikely set of inputs - it would be nice to see stats but this is the first time it is covered in the media to my knowledge. And as with the laughter story, they will now change the inputs to make it likely 1-in-a-trillion this will happen.

However, it does seem like Alexa etc. will have to be better about recognizing audio from TVs/conversations and stuff directed at it - and I am sure they are working on it.

PS comparison to CPU is not great obvs since it's about number of instances (how many times does "Alexa" get woken up by background audio - not 4ghz)

<comment><USER41> They would like to put this in a billion homes no doubt, and suppose that people are home, talking, a couple hours a day. Now we are talking real numbers. A few billion conversation-hours per day, 365 days in a year-- suddenly one in a trillion is starting to look like it's gonna happen a couple times a year. Now if Amazon knows these probabilities--which they don't, because they clearly have not done due diligence in understanding their rapidly evolving, inscrutable voice models--they are now knowingly violating eavesdropping laws, probabilistically.

This is part of the problem. People want to handwave away small probabilities when they should be busting their asses to make probabilities _actually_ 0-- solutions like not having this crap in their house at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I am seeing comments saying, Alexa misinterpreted some voice commands and activated a "call" skill. This sounds like a good excuse but does absolve Amazon of responsibility. If their voice and command recognition is broken they should add second step verifications like "Are you sure you want to call X" or "Okay, I am calling 'X' in 10s" or something similar. Crazy to imagine Amazon is shipping this device with capability of video calling people and buying stuff online without having fully testing and thinking about all scenarios.

If there is even a slightest possibility that Alexa/Siri/Google/Cortana is going to misinterpret commands (with privacy implications) then they should do two step verification of some sort.

</comment><comment><USER53> "Always listening" is a fundamentally unsafe design.

Once recordings of private conversations leave the local environment and make it to the cloud, eventually they will leak. It's akin to data collection by law enforcement: once the data exists, eventually it will be abused.

<comment><USER32> So you're saying that all data that has made it to the cloud will eventually leak? That seems like a strange assumption to me.

<comment><USER53> Yes. Assume that all data uploaded to the cloud will eventually be compromised. That is the only safe assumption.

Not even the most responsible companies (e.g. Google) can hold out 100% of the time in the face of determined assault by government. Some of that data is going to leak to three-letter agencies, or similar.

Somewhat less responsible companies (e.g. Amazon) will leak data more often, to a wider range of threat agents.

So then we have to consider how valuable this data is. Random sampling of private conversations within the home? Sometimes innocuous -- but if the wrong moment gets leaked, the consequences are potentially life-shattering.

<comment><USER32> That seems like an extreme perspective. Kind of like the tech version of abstinence only sex ed. Sure, it's the only 100% safe way, but it's not useful for most people. It doesn't weigh the benefits against the potential cons, or even take into consideration the actually likelihood of data being leaked.

<comment><USER53> The alternative perspective you're presenting sounds to me utterly cavalier about the prospect of ruining people's lives. It's like Equifax's attitude towards identity theft: it doesn't affect their profitability, so why care?

It's because such blithe dismissal of the damage caused by data gathering is so prevalent in the industry that the likelihood of devastating compromise is so high and the costs borne by the populace are spiraling upwards.

Some data should never be collected. Some data should never even be uploaded.

<comment><USER32> The problem I have is that you are conflating _potential_ damage and _actual_ damage as the same thing, which is not how you accurately measure risk.

I am honestly confused as to how you interpreted my last comment as "utterly cavalier about the prospect of ruining people's lives", when all I said was that your assumption doesn't take into account the _actual_ probability of data being leaked and it doesn't weigh any of the benefits of data collection against that risk.

<comment><USER53> Small-likelihood times many-chances times grave-consequences equals a finite but significant number of lives wrecked. A gamble you deem acceptable.

I can only hope that karma visits those who arrogate to themselves the decision to sacrifice a few of their fellow human beings: may they and their loved ones become the sacrifices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> If you bug your own home and consent to third-party, opaque management of the surveillance, things like this will happen[1].

I expect worse to come.

[1] Am not saying anyone deserves this, or that AZON is either evil or beneficent, or anything else other than precisely what was stated.

<comment><USER55> Amazon's ticker is AMZN.

<comment><USER54> Oops, no idea what my fingers were doing there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> These devices are all driven by machine learning voice recognition. I have no idea how I am supposed to derive trust in the software running on them when even the engineers themselves are arms-distance away from their machine models, and the machine models are tuned to terabytes of input data and are trained with reinforcement learning. I don't want to disparage engineers working on these products, but hell, we don't even know how big software systems really work anymore, and we've got neural networks thrown in the mix. We're all just plugging shit together until it limps these days.

I vote no on telescreens.

</comment><comment><USER56> Well, when you consider that Amazon's devices once interpreted random noises as a "<trigger>, laugh" command (as per their explanation), that a voice command to record and send a message could be created from random conversation is not in the least bit surprising.

Inappropriate, worrying, but not surprising.

</comment><comment><USER57> I wonder how similar this is to [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sbhagava/papers/face- rec-ccs16.pdf](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sbhagava/papers/face-rec-ccs16.pdf) ?

That's the "Facial recognition fooled by funny-colored glasses" study from Carngie Mellon, where researchers were able to make machine learning algorithms fail disastrously (e.g. mistake a man for Milla Jovovich) with a pair of glasses printed with what looks like a random assortment of colorful pixels, but is in fact a targeted attack specifically designed to trick the algorithm.

This Alexa failure is obviously not a targeted attack; but when your system is exposed to enough data, eventually you will stumble over some input that happens to resemble a targeted attack by pure chance, right? It's equivalent to saying that if you aimed the facial recognition algos in that paper at millions of faces wearing randomly-colored glasses, eventually some of the glasses would be close enough to the targeted-attack glasses to produce the same effect.

Obviously I'm theorizing on almost no data here - I don't know anything about Alexa's voice recognition, maybe it contains no ML at all. But it seems plausible that this might be what happened here - not a bug per se, but the natural and totally expected result of giving an opaque, machine-generated system with a very low failure rate so much input data that the failure rate is significant.

<comment><USER58> I recently stayed at a house which had an alexa device. In a conversation where I said the words light switch several times Alexa beeped and responded to me each time. I think most of us just believe Amazon when they say "Alexa responds to its name" and don't stop to consider the possible failure modes. We want to believe it can understand our words, when it's really just guessing. Over long enough time it's inevitable that it will misunderstand you and do something you don't want.

Still, I wonder how it heard "record this conversation and send it to someone on my contact list".

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I recall a few weeks ago how some researchers figured out that the voice- commands could be triggered with subliminal messages, too. i.e., you wouldn't have to go 'Ok Google', but rather just play a fingerprint of that sound that makes the algorithm think you said that, without it being audible or understandable to human beings. And you could hide it in other audio like music.

That feels pretty scary particularly because these devices have such a high mandate. Right now you can shop for things online by voice command. Record and send messages. What's next, sending money, sending a data dump of sensitive data like emails, passwords, contact lists?

We've already heard of some reports where you'd have a smart home device listen to a commercial on television where they were demo'ing a purchase of some product via such a device, and interpret it as a command from the owner. Amazon took steps to avoid that with their superbowl commercial, but it seems to have done so by changing the commercial, not the product itself.

Just another attack vector to worry about. I'd happily buy these home speakers if I could limit them to just downloading information, and only uploading limited pieces of information, e.g. a music playlist. I'd want to be able to shut off any of the commercial/financial or social capabilities. I just don't care about them and they're risky.

<comment><USER60> Do you happen to have a link to said research? I'd be curious to fiddle around with that.. for educational purposes of course..

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I turned on recording indication sounds on my Google home in accessibility options.

Now I hear it beep and randomly start listening when my wife and I talk. Sometimes it does it randomly without me making a sound.

I ask it what's up and it ignores me and goes to sleep.

Smart speakers are so dumb I'm hardly surprised by this.

<comment><USER62> Yeah Amazon said there should have been an audible warning it was recording and sending the message. It's apparently just a 'rare' glitch.

Based on Amazon's response I assume the device _didn 't_ notify the user at all and it wasn't just a matter of not hearing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> My concern is that this almost sounds like something not customer facing was accidentally made customer facing imho.

</comment><comment><USER63> This is the story I'm going to link to when my tech geek friend asks me why I don't have an Alexa like he does.

</comment><comment><USER64> How soon until Amazon starts sending the private conversations of people discussing illegal things directly to law enforcement?

It will be pretty easy to justify by bringing up bomb threats, but it would mostly be people buying/using drugs.

<comment><USER22> Amazon could add this to the suite of law enforcement products they've already been selling[1]

1\. [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/technology/amazon- facial-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/technology/amazon-facial- recognition.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Voice is not for personal computing. It is best for social computing. This is a completely new metaphor for interactivity, and problems are to be expected.

This incident speaks more to Amazon's speech recognition rather than a weakness of voice. Am not an expert in the topic, but it certainly seems like Alexa tries to hear patterns rather than translating speech to text then text to commands. Google Home's recognition is much better.

</comment><comment><USER66> Question - how can these potentially nefarious acts be mitigated, where I plug a device into my home network which listens/watches "periodically".

I guess naively I'm thinking some sort of light/display which says "Amazon is sending/retrieving data" \- it would need to be from a third party to have integrity, and I suppose in order to actually allay the fears of the masses it would need to be plug-and-playable.

Does such a thing actually exist?

<comment><USER67> You could always set up a dedicated router for your smart home devices if you really wanted.

</comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash This is why I unplug my Echo whenever I'm not using it.

Side note: why is it that after years and years of privacy breaches, there has been almost no support to use hardware switches for cameras and microphones?

I would feel 100000% safer using my internet-connected cameras and microphones knowing that I can turn off those devices independently of their host devices and that no hacker can monitor my cameras and microphones, even if they've rootkitted every device I own.

</comment><comment><USER68> _" He told us that the device just guessed what we were saying," she said. Danielle said the device did not audibly advise her it was preparing to send the recording, something it's programmed to do._

Is it possible there's an exploit out in the wild for these devices that allows an attacker to control the device remotely.

Is it possible an attacker told the device not to make an audible announcement?

<comment><USER69> Yes, but it's improbable. You can communicate with Alexa at human inaudible frequency and instruct it to set it's volume to 1/10(0/10?) but of course you need to be reasonably local and targeted.

Is it possible that there's a remote exploit? Yeah of course but if it's in the wild enough that this particular individual was struck by a seemingly random (and valueless) attack we'd be seeing a lot more of these in the wild than we are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I feel that while these devices are great in principal, there still needs to be work done on whether the "trigger word" activation is the best way to enable them. Maybe we need longer / more complex trigger words? Maybe there's a different way we can activate them alltogether, avoiding the "always listening" problem?

</comment><comment><USER71> Really, folks... we can't even get the net to work the way we want, but then we heap these enormously sophisticated, delicate tasks onto relatively- untested, non-deterministic warez, and pray all goes well.

Much like running into a human on a bike, but less deadly. (Unless there's a psycho in my contact list.)

</comment><comment><USER72> This makes private-by-design alternatives like Snips ([https://snips.ai/](https://snips.ai/)) even more legit. When everything is processed locally, the user does not have to trust anyone/anything.

</comment><comment><USER73> Same thing with my Android phone. When I am in an area without internet access, but phone-calling signal (at least) the dumb ass phone defaults to using an internal low-quality OK-Google speech recognition. So instead of looking up hours to a nearby restaurant I look at my phone and it is suddenly calling someone in my contact list (that I haven't really talked to in years)... and of course since the speech recognition blasted the CPU's horsepower, nothing on the screen is responsive and my thumbs are constantly slamming the screen with no feedback - the calls goes through for about a second or ringing before my phone decide to hang up fully.

</comment><comment><USER74> Pays Amazon for a listening device and installs in home...gets upset when it listens.

<comment><USER23> That seems overly simplistic to me.

It's like saying that someone buys a car that's powered by an explosive liquid, and then complains when all the gas in the tank explodes at the same time.

<comment><USER75> Both a car and an amazon echo have a switch that turns that functionality off.

<comment><USER76> I feel like you're being purposefully reductive here. You know they're different right? The entire value proposition (and marketing strategy) of Alexa and related devices is that they are voice activated, so you don't have to physically interact with the device to make a request.

Given that, it would be ridiculous to expect paying customers to switch it off when not in use. The onus on Amazon is to protect their customers' privacy while the device is being used as intended.

If you really want to pick apart the car analogy, maybe this is closer to having automatic start and driving capability on a car, but the car sometimes randomly starts and drives away. Are you really going to blame the customer for that, even though they could disable the feature every time they exit the car?

<comment><USER75> The car analogies are usually quite poor. However, it depends on your use case. Echo Dot's have a mute button which prevents monitoring, or at least it seems so. I'm not an echo power user, so my needs are definitely different than for intended uses like home automation.

I think for some, at least users like me would like a feature similar to "su". I'd like to confirm that Alexa should start doing stuff if it has not been confirmed for x number of minutes. I think the real problem with these home assistant devices is they are not designed with a confirmation message. This would be annoying in some cases, but surely a balance can be struck.

I'm not trying to be reductive at all about the car analogy. When you turn on a car, you acknowledge that the engine is running. You can also mute an echo if you have the foreknowledge that you will not be doing activities that require voice activation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> So when will such devices just be made illegal entirely? It doesn't seem they can be made to be safe for average people if stuff like this keeps happening and companies are unwilling to compensate people.

What if this was a lawyer talking about clients or a doctor talking about patients? Is Amazon (or Google, or Microsoft) willing to deal with such legal liabilities? Is this what move fast and break things looks like?

Edit: To those trying to downvote, remember, the Silicon Valley lives in a bubble, and for the safety of people inside and outside of the bubble, the bubble must be poked every so often. This is one of those times.

<comment><USER78> You ever butt dial someone? Should all cell phones be outlawed?

I'd say the Echo needs to have a more difficult activation routine available. Maybe have the option of setting the wake word to "Alexa, can you please" or something similarly long and unlikely to appear in normal conversation.

Also, I wonder if they had their wake word set to "Computer". I did that once, and quickly reverted after so many false activations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> This is something I don't believe we've really figured out in terms of QAing stochastic processes. Doing QA on normal code is binary...did it work or not? Doing a QA on a model is a lot more difficult. You need to think about Type I and Type II error. If I were a product manager thinking about wake words, I'd want my Type I error to be as small as possible...to the point where I'd accept a pretty high Type II error.

Lately I've been seeing Alexa wake on accident more often. It's like someone isn't thinking critically about what kind of Type I error they're willing to accept.

</comment><comment><USER80> "My husband and I would joke and say I'd bet these devices are listening to what we're saying,"

Think about this statement for a sec. Of course is listening to you. It has to listen to you because it needs to be able to respond to "Alexa". So yes, this is always listening.

Now, once you come to terms with that, do you feel comfortable having a technology with access to the internet, location, habits, account, contacts, email, phone, CC information etc etc, to be actively listening to your most intimate private conversations?

It does not take a 5 year old two seconds to figure this out.

<comment><USER32> The problem with this logic is that it applies to phones, tablets, and laptops as well.

There isn't much additional risk from having an Echo or a Google Home if you already keep a smartphone within 10 feet of you at all times, which most of the people who are buying these devices do.

<comment><USER81> Why is that a problem?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> My Echo somehow woke up when we were in another room, then heard itself talking to itself, and called my friend in the middle of the night. You can see the log of what it said and how it heard the last word as the command: [https://www.facebook.com/mike.deeks/posts/10215464075417775](https://www.facebook.com/mike.deeks/posts/10215464075417775)

It was both hilarious and infuriating. I immediately turned the calling feature off (you have to contact support btw) and later we switched to Google Home.

</comment><comment><USER83> I don't see where Amazon would be at fault here. Remember back in the old days of T9 keyboard phones, remember that one time where you forgot to lock your keyboard when you put it into your pocket and it called a random person from your contact list? You didn't immediately call the press to say it was Nokias, Ericssons, Siemens' (or whatever your phone manufacturer is) fault you left your phone unlocked and it called a random person because of the hardware keys being pressed within your pocket.

</comment><comment><USER84> I was chatting with my wife about something the other day and my android phone, from my pocket, randomly added to the conversation "That's good to know". O_O

</comment><comment><USER85> Wouldn't that be a crime to record someone without consent and share that to a 3rd party? I would have called the police or is Amazon too big for the law to grasp?

<comment><USER86> That's an interesting point. In California and some other states, having a device actively recording any conversation without consent from everyone involved is illegal, much less sharing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> My experience is totally anecdotal and I'm not even an Alexa owner, but I had a Skype conversation with a client that had one them set up in his office and it was constantly triggering, even when the word wasn't used.

So if it though it heard "Alexa, send this message to John: {conversation of ten minutes}" it just did what it thought it was supposed to do. But it's weird they didn't hear any audible confirmation or anything.

</comment><comment><USER88> It seems like an easy safeguard to implement to prevent sending unwanted emails/texts would be for Alexa to generate a unique confirmation phrase that the user has to repeat back in order to actually execute the send command. Something like Alexa: "Say 'purple people eater' to send email." Real Person: "Purple people eater." Alexa: "Email sent."

</comment><comment><USER89> Hmm the AI model which is widely considered a undebugable black box glitches on a percentage of users. What else could happen next?

</comment><comment><USER90> >>>But Danielle is hoping Amazon gives her a refund for her devices, which she said their representatives have been unwilling to do. She says she's curious to find out if anyone else has experienced the same issue.

If that's true - that dumb greedy move is going to cost AMZN way more than simply giving customer refund.

</comment><comment><USER91> Is this a surprise to _anyone_? That was literally my first thought the moment they announced these things.

</comment><comment><USER92> And Bank of America is now pushing its Digital Assistant, Erica. Just what I need, another robot to talk too...

[https://promo.bankofamerica.com/Erica/she-is- here/](https://promo.bankofamerica.com/Erica/she-is-here/)

</comment><comment><USER93> >"The person on the other line said, 'unplug your Alexa devices right now,'" she said. "'You're being hacked.'"

Perhaps they were indeed hacked. Got into test group for some black hats project.

</comment><comment><USER94> I've said it before, but this solidifies it for me - I'm never installing a internet enabled hot mic in my home. I'd rather spend the 2 seconds finding the song on my phone.

</comment><comment><USER95> This just seems so unlikely. How was it sent? Was a MP3 file generated and attached to an email? Was it a voice call? I don't really understand a circumstance that this could have happened.

</comment><comment><USER96> I am trying to think what kind of architecture, code design could have led to such a defect if indeed it's a defect. My guess this is a feature that got triggered by an easter egg.

</comment><comment><USER97> I have 3 google home devices and they work very well. It also doesn't feel like a bigger privacy threat than my laptop or my phone. Also, we all want JARVIS!

</comment><comment><USER98> It's okay because they take privacy seriously.

</comment><comment><USER99> I do see a dveice like that useful in some scenarios. Like a lonely elderly person, living alone.. Talking to Alexa might be nice.

</comment><comment><USER100> Please help me in understanding this - are these features built on purpose? If no then what type of testing has their team done?

</comment><comment><USER101> The chances of this happening all the time are unknown but believable.

We as tech users are constantly trying to balance convenience with safety

</comment><comment><USER102> Even though I like Apple stance on privacy, I always turn off microphone access to apps like 'WhatsApp' and others.

</comment><comment><USER103> How did they receive the conversation? email? was the receiving address similar to some other address (the real recipient)?

</comment><comment><USER104> People are volunteerelly paying for their houses to be tapped for the convenience of being able to shout: play me some song.

I'm so out of touch with this world it's scary.

<comment><USER105> It's a little more than just that. Every light in my house is controlled with Alexa which is a very nice and hard to explain until you have tried it. Also my home theater system is all controllable via Alexa as well. This kind of thinking makes no sense to me.

> People are voluntarily paying for their houses to be tapped for the > convenience of being able to shout: play me some song. > I'm so out of touch > with this world it's scary.

I could just as easily say "People are voluntarily paying for their locations to be tracked for the convenience of being able to get live maps on the go" (ie. cell phones, which also are listening to everything you say unless you disable it)

<comment><USER106> There is a massive difference between walking a few steps to turn on a light switch (which is only useful when you are in close proximity) vs having a accurate real-time mapping functionality when on the go.

Similarly, there is a massive difference in the privacy implications of listening to every conversation _everyone_ in your home (including guests) is having vs. having your current location known. Wiretapping laws exist for a reason.

<comment><USER107> Turning _off_ all the light switches that have been left on in a big house though is a meaningful convenience. I think the privacy point is strong enough without having to trash people's use cases.

<comment><USER106> No trashing it at all, just contrasting it. I do see the convenience (luxury) of home automation, but when you compare that against accurate mobile mapping, location finding and navigation, the difference in usefulness is orders of magnitude. One can literally save your life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> How does alexa get your contacts? I don't think I've given it mine.

</comment><comment><USER109> I am very skeptical of this person's claim.

</comment><comment><USER110> But seriously what do you more or less expect from this. Anyone littlely involved in tech will tell to throw this shit out the window.

<comment><USER111> I'm "involved with tech" (developer for 15+ years) and I have two of them. You might also be horrified to learn that my house contains multiple smartphones, computers, routers, and other devices, _all of which are connected to the internet!_

I enjoy living dangerously.

<comment><USER110> I am also a developer,living in countless universes, each enveloped in its own shell, compelled by the wheel of time, like particles of dust blowing about in the sky, and I don't understand what's wrong with you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER112> I am so happy with GDPR right now

</comment><comment><USER113> Obligatory [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAz_UvnUeuU)

</comment><comment><USER114> Not sure why people would be buying the Echo over the Google Home any longer? The GH offers a much better UX and now is well ahead of Alexa in sales last quarter.

"Google takes top spot in global smart speaker market, HomePod nowhere to be found"

[https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/05/23/google-takes- top-...](https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/05/23/google-takes-top-spot-in- global-smart-speaker-market-homepod-nowhere-to-be-found)

Came to the market 2 years later and already passed. This is before we even get Duplex.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1mEm2Fy08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1mEm2Fy08)

Google goes in the lead on something they tend to not give it up.

<comment><USER115> Uh, dude, I know being a fan of Google is _your thing_ here, but this was less than a year ago: [http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/11/technology/google-home- mini-...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/11/technology/google-home-mini- security-flaw/index.html)

And it's a flaw so bad they had to outright remove the button entirely, because they couldn't fix it without replacing the hardware.

It's a little disingenuous to insinuate a bug with recording audio is a reason people shouldn't be buying company X's product over company Y's, which also has had a bug with recording audio.

<comment><USER114> Google quickly fixed the issue caused by the person putting it in the bathroom and causing the button to stick.

The person that it happened to got a pre-release version. Google even went to the persons house on a Friday evening to resolve. The person found the problem on the same day. None of the units sold to the general public had the issue. Realize Google literally dropped everything to take care of the issue. Now that is what you want to see.

The reason you buy a Google Home is because they provide a much better user experience and why Google has already passed Amazon even though they did not get to the market until 2 years later.

"Google takes top spot in global smart speaker market, HomePod nowhere to be found"

[https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/05/23/google-takes- top-...](https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/05/23/google-takes-top-spot-in- global-smart-speaker-market-homepod-nowhere-to-be-found)

We started with an Echo and then purchased the Google Home and then several more Google Homes.

My son had graduation earlier this week at an arena that has a name that is difficult to pronounce. It is named after someone that gave a lot of money to the University.

There was also a MLB game that night that started 15 minutes later than the graduation.

Walking through the kitchen asked drive time thinking no problem as people are leaving the city usually not going to the city.

Google got it the first try and gave drive time which was 2x more than normal.

Google saved my butt as quickly got ready and left and would not have otherwise. Asking our Echo and Siri the same question and neither could handle.

That is why you buy the Google Home. Well also because of new things like Duplex coming.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1mEm2Fy08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1mEm2Fy08)

Google is just so far ahead in every layer of the AI stack and just going to be able to provide a far superior product.

<comment><USER115> Google took the top spot because they're giving them away for free. Sales numbers are easy to pad, see the New York Times Bestseller lists woes in that regard.

<comment><USER114> Wish they were giving away for free. Really wish they would just discount the Max a little. Have one but want a second.

Echo was out 2 years longer and Google already passed as they are just a lot smarter and easier to use. It is that Google AI is just superior in every layer of the stack.

Can't wait for Duplex.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1mEm2Fy08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd1mEm2Fy08)

Once Google leads in an area they do not give it up. Something I just love about Google is they never rest and will just keep innovating.

The new voices are incredible. You can not tell the difference between the machine and a human any longer.

We started with the Echo but then purchased a Google Home and more Google Homes. Looks like made the right decision on which to standardize on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER116> All devices with mics and cameras should come with physical switches to disable them. Even a couple of DIP switches on the back of the device would be fine.

</comment><comment><USER117> People who use these "microphones" are idiots. They are right on up there with the people that give away their DNA to web companies.

<comment><USER118> I'm one of those "idiots." Can you explain how it's any worse than carrying a cell phone?

<comment><USER119> Android has per-app microphone permissions that you can disable, if you want. At least in theory, Google apps honor these permissions, and on LineageOS, you can verify that this is the case - while with the Alexa, not only is there no way to audit any of the code running on the device, but it's explicitly marketed as being always listening.

<comment><USER118> The baseband is a black box and has direct access to the microphone.

<comment><USER119> Oh, this is true - although the likelihood and ease of it being exploited as a listening device are much lower than that of a device explicitly designed to do so.

Edit: Not to mention that the entire Alexa is a black box, too.

Second Edit: Not trying to claim that you're an idiot, just provide some perspective.

<comment><USER118> I suspect that the capability is already there, to be turned on at the request of law enforcement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> It's absurd to me that someone would wire up "every room in their house" with internet connected microphones (in a technology that is still in it's infancy!) and then claim you felt like your privacy was "invaded". At best, it's a Trojan Horse, but the naivety here is astounding. Of course your Echo shouldn't send out private conversations, and it looks like a legitimate bug occurred. But man, the buy-now think-later mindset some people have is worrying.

<comment><USER121> You literally carry an audio & video recording device with a GPS chip and multiple wireless attack vectors on you for nearly every waking hour of your life.

<comment><USER120> Of course I do. But that's not my point. They wallpapered their house with Echos! And now they are 'shocked'. When I get home, my phone usually gets tossed on a charger in my room, and forgotten about (while checking for messages every once in a while). And my phones sole purpose, while capable of it, is not to listen to everything I say and interpret voice commands. I never use Siri, and I would be 'shocked' at this point if it sent out a message, that I didn't intend, without alerting me. It's a older, tested technology (in my opinion).

I'm not surprised that my GPS capable phone knows where I am at all times. I wouldn't be surprised if my Echo recorded my voice and sent a message to someone. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some major bugs yet to be addressed in the software for the Echo. I guess this is a little harsh, but my sympathies are somewhat lost on these people. Not their fault for what happened, but they did take a risk.

"A husband and wife in the _privacy of their home_ have conversations that they're not expecting to be sent to someone (in) their address book,"

It just doesn't sit well with me.

<comment><USER121> > I would be 'shocked' at this point if it sent out a message, that I didn't > intend, without alerting me.

Yep. So was couple. About Alexa. Same thing.

<comment><USER120> But I don't use that function on my phone. And it's not the main purpose of the device. And it's been around longer than Alexa. That's my point. Not the same thing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>