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[Link Posting] The Terrible Truth About Alexa

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  [Link Posting] The Terrible Truth About Alexa Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2019-06-09 21:33 +0000
    Re: [Link Posting] The Terrible Truth About Alexa RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2019-06-09 21:52 -0400
      Re: [Link Posting] The Terrible Truth About Alexa Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2019-06-10 01:58 -0300
        Re: [Link Posting] The Terrible Truth About Alexa Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> - 2019-06-10 18:19 +0000
      Re: [Link Posting] The Terrible Truth About Alexa Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2019-06-10 09:06 +0000
    Re: [Link Posting] The Terrible Truth About Alexa gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) - 2019-06-15 16:58 +0000
      Re: [Link Posting] The Terrible Truth About Alexa not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2019-06-15 23:30 +0000
      Re: [Link Posting] The Terrible Truth About Alexa mausg@mail.com - 2019-06-16 08:30 +0000

#18159 — [Link Posting] The Terrible Truth About Alexa

      ####################################################################
      # ATTENTION: This post is a reference to a website.  The poster of #
      # this Usenet article is not the author of the referenced website. #
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<URL:https://gizmodo.com/the-terrible-truth-about-alexa-1834075404>

The text below is a quotation from the URL above:
>
>  This week, I read through a history of everything I've said to Alexa,
>  and it felt a little bit like reading an old diary. Until I remembered
>  that the things I've told Alexa in private are stored on an Amazon
>  server and have possibly been read by an Amazon employee. This is all to
>  make Alexa better, the company keeps saying. However, to many people,
>  it's not immediately obvious how humans interacting with your seemingly
>  private voice commands is anything other than surveillance. Alexa, these
>  people say, is a spy hiding in a wiretapping device.
>
>  The debate over whether or not Alexa or any voice assistant is spying on
>  us is years old at this point, and it's not going away. Privacy
>  advocates have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
>  alleging these devices violate the Federal Wiretap Act. Journalists have
>  investigated the dangers of always-on microphones and artificially
>  intelligent voice assistants. Skeptical tech bloggers like me have
>  argued these things were more powerful than people realized and
>  overloaded with privacy violations. Recent news stories about how Amazon
>  employees review certain Alexa commands suggest the situation is worse
>  than we thought.
>
>  It's starting to feel like Alexa and other voice assistants are destined
>  to spy on us because that's how the system was designed to work. These
>  systems rely on machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve
>  themselves over time. The new technology underpinning them is also
>  currently prone to error, and even if they were perfect, the data-hungry
>  companies that built them are constantly thinking of new ways to exploit
>  users for profit. And where imperfect technology and powerful companies
>  collide, the government tends to struggle so much with understanding
>  what's going on, that regulation seems like an impossible solution.
>
>  ...

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#18161

On 2019-06-09, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>>  It's starting to feel like Alexa and other voice assistants are
>>  destined to spy on us because that's how the system was designed to
>>  work. These systems rely on machine learning and artificial
>>  intelligence to improve themselves over time. The new technology
>>  underpinning them is also currently prone to error, and even if they
>>  were perfect, the data-hungry companies that built them are
>>  constantly thinking of new ways to exploit users for profit. And
>>  where imperfect technology and powerful companies collide, the
>>  government tends to struggle so much with understanding what's going
>>  on, that regulation seems like an impossible solution.

I personally don't get the fascination with this tech, but hey I'm on
Usenet and maintain a gopher server, so clearly I don't understand
mainstream tech interests these days.

The "convenience" of being able to shout out voice commands seems to me
to be of little worth, and you gain it at the expense of accepting all
these other privacy risks.

"Alexa, order more extra-soft toilet paper and cancel my subscription to
the Daily Taco."  People are insane.

BTW I've had several people admit the apple watch isn't that useful to
them, but they bought it because it seemed like the next big thing and
they wanted to be a part of the trend, play with it, check it out, etc.
I don't find it does very much that's useful.

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#18164

RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> writes:

> The "convenience" of being able to shout out voice commands seems to
> me to be of little worth, and you gain it at the expense of
> accepting all these other privacy risks.
> 
> "Alexa, order more extra-soft toilet paper and cancel my
> subscription to the Daily Taco."  People are insane.

Just so.

> BTW I've had several people admit the apple watch isn't that useful
> to them, but they bought it because it seemed like the next big
> thing and they wanted to be a part of the trend, play with it, check
> it out, etc.

Watch?  Hmmm... Oh, yeah, Dick Tracy's watch.  Here's hi tech from 70
years ago:

     http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/temp/tracy.jpg



-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

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#18176

In comp.misc, Mike Spencer  <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
> Watch?  Hmmm... Oh, yeah, Dick Tracy's watch.  Here's hi tech from 70
> years ago:
> 
>      http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/temp/tracy.jpg

Dick Tracy's watch had some super battery power.

Elijah
------
just one modern reflection on the tech

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#18165

RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> On 2019-06-09, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>>>  It's starting to feel like Alexa and other voice assistants are
>>>  destined to spy on us because that's how the system was designed to
>>>  work. ...
> 
> they wanted to be a part of the trend, play with it, check it out, etc.
> I don't find it does very much that's useful.

This, I think, is a huge part of the cause.  Too many folks who measure 
their self worth by how 'trendy' they are at the moment.

The result: fanbois lined up for 3 days outside of the apple store to 
be first to get the new, overpriced, apple product.  Or buying an Alexa 
just because "everyone else is doing it".

The general public seems to have more in common with lemmings than with 
intelligent individuals.

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#18211

In article <h6hPswq+eHTwCPW5PuwT6Yqe@dont-email.me>,
Rich  <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>      ####################################################################
>      # ATTENTION: This post is a reference to a website.  The poster of #
>      # this Usenet article is not the author of the referenced website. #
>      ####################################################################
>
><URL:https://gizmodo.com/the-terrible-truth-about-alexa-1834075404>
>
>The text below is a quotation from the URL above:

The key question here is: Does it monitor you when it shouldn't be?
I.e., when the lighted ring is not lighted.

I know that there are privacy concerns about the whole idea - the idea that
every interaction with it is recorded, saved, listened-to-by-humans, etc,
etc, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.  I think most sensible people
understand that going in (yes, I know, hundreds of millions of Americans
are not sensible - and they do need to be protected from themselves, as is
the case with lots and lots of consumer goods).

As long as when it's off, it's off, I'm OK with it.

But the lingering fear is that that's not the case.  I wonder how long it
will be until we find out definitively one way or the other on that
question.

-- 
Modern Conservative: Someone who can take time out from demanding more
flag burning laws, more abortion  laws, more drug laws, more obscenity
laws, and more police authority  to make warrantless arrests to remind
us that we need to "get the government off our backs".

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#18219

Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
> 
> As long as when it's off, it's off, I'm OK with it.
> 
> But the lingering fear is that that's not the case.  I wonder how long it
> will be until we find out definitively one way or the other on that
> question.

The fact that the devices recieve automatic updates (well presumably,
everything else seems to these days unless you go to great pains to
stop them), means that even if we know definitively for one moment,
you never know when it might all secretly change when a new round up
updates goes out a minute later.

Similarly, the risk of hacking is ever-present. Which may be a more
likely approach to mass-surveillance by a state actor.

-- 
__          __
#_ < |\| |< _#

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#18220

On 2019-06-15, Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
> In article <h6hPswq+eHTwCPW5PuwT6Yqe@dont-email.me>,
> Rich  <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>>      ####################################################################
>>      # ATTENTION: This post is a reference to a website.  The poster of #
>>      # this Usenet article is not the author of the referenced website. #
>>      ####################################################################
>>
>><URL:https://gizmodo.com/the-terrible-truth-about-alexa-1834075404>
>>
>>The text below is a quotation from the URL above:
>
> The key question here is: Does it monitor you when it shouldn't be?
> I.e., when the lighted ring is not lighted.
>
> I know that there are privacy concerns about the whole idea - the idea that
> every interaction with it is recorded, saved, listened-to-by-humans, etc,
> etc, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.  I think most sensible people
> understand that going in (yes, I know, hundreds of millions of Americans
> are not sensible - and they do need to be protected from themselves, as is
> the case with lots and lots of consumer goods).
>
> As long as when it's off, it's off, I'm OK with it.
>
> But the lingering fear is that that's not the case.  I wonder how long it
> will be until we find out definitively one way or the other on that
> question.
>

During the 'bad times' in Northern ireland, a group of men from the 
Republic were motoring up to Belfast for a   quite legitimate meeting

The passenger, front seat, was telling the rest of his vast 
knowledge of life, when one of the rear passengers said that there was a 
police land rover following at a constant distance, the man who knew
everything said that such vehicles had equipment that could listen to what 
was being said in other cars.

The retort from the back seat was.

"Well, they must hear a lot of bullshi*"


-- 
Maus@ireland.xxx
Will rant for food.
You are taking the IPCC, right?

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