[HN Gopher] What I discovered when I asked Amazon to tell me eve...
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What I discovered when I asked Amazon to tell me everything Alexa
had heard
Author : robaato
Score : 52 points
Date : 2025-05-24 19:02 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| They shouldn't call it a home speaker. A home speaker is what we
| used to call a radio or hi-fi system. Alexa is a home microphone.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| They don't - they call it a smart speaker.
| HPsquared wrote:
| "Smart" = Adtech.
|
| Applies to TVs, fridges, anything really.
| vezycash wrote:
| Call it little snitch
| LoganDark wrote:
| Man, don't give Little Snitch a bad name.
| threeducks wrote:
| > But we have two Echo devices in our household and the data
| shows whether a request came from the Echo Plus in the kitchen or
| the original Echo on our daughter Coco's bedside table, where it
| has sat since around her ninth birthday. [...] So I now know that
| it was Coco who wanted to know what it is to be omnisexual and
| what omniscient means.
|
| Doesn't it feel wrong to the author to snoop through that private
| information? And publishing it in a news article definitely
| crosses a line.
| thrance wrote:
| I mean, so is committing every sound ever heard through that
| microphone to a database used to train a voodoo doll of their
| daughter to better guess what she might be able to buy next.
| jxjnskkzxxhx wrote:
| Oh shit.... I never realized until now that's exactly what
| the point of Alexa is. I thought the point was like a
| different UI to Amazon. As in "being able to buy by clicking
| OR sounding must lead to a strictly larger number of sales
| than being able to buy by clicking only". So you can imagine
| my confusion on people telling me that Alexa isn't a good UI.
|
| Of course. The point is to snoop on people to make better
| "recommendations". Dystopian.
| techjamie wrote:
| It can be both. Saying "Alexa, buy eggs" is a lot quicker
| and easier than loading up Amazon, finding the eggs you
| like which will probably be the top result for you, and
| clicking buy (or even Buy Now). Instead, it already knows
| your preferences in eggs anyway, so just by telling it, you
| can impulsively buy the eggs without even stopping what
| you're doing.
|
| Then they get all that juicy "accidental activation" data
| on top of that.
| daveguy wrote:
| If only Alexa could be trusted to buy something as
| seemingly simple as eggs.
| HPsquared wrote:
| You'd just get eggs from whoever sponsored the term
| "eggs" the highest.
| kbelder wrote:
| People buy eggs off Amazon? Every now and then the modern
| world boggles my mind.
| Flemlo wrote:
| That's not necessarily true.
|
| Amazon is also a ecosystem. Alexa shows you notifications
| from Amazon like the status of a delivery. It's able to
| call others (great for family).
|
| Amazon has also the fire kid tablet, fire TV etc.
|
| And if I already use Amazon anyway I'm quite happy if
| Amazon would recommend me good products I like.
|
| For plenty of things, Alexa is a very good UI.
| wormius wrote:
| "But it was all right, everything was all right, the
| struggle was finished. He had won the victory over
| himself. He loved Big Brother."
| cluckindan wrote:
| I thought this was obvious from the name. The phonetics of
| "Alexa" are very close to sentences such as "I like" and
| "he/she likes".
| tocs3 wrote:
| _Doesn 't it feel wrong to the author to snoop through that
| private information?_
|
| It feels a little strange at first but I suspect (correctly or
| not) that he has sought and received permission from the
| daughter first. Although I did not see any direct statement.
| The daughter is 18 or so now (maybe, adding up the times).
|
| The article is as much about the humdrumness of family life as
| about what Alexa and Amazon hears. I am glad I read it. Puts
| life (and some parts of technology in perspective).
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| >It feels a little strange at first but I suspect (correctly
| or not) that he has sought and received permission from the
| daughter first.
|
| .
| pessimizer wrote:
| That private information is currently in the possession of an
| online bookstore, and he is her father.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Next time I need a facade for a society-wide surveillance
| system, bookstore it will be.
| daveguy wrote:
| Bezos thanks you for your acknowledgement and service.
| cluckindan wrote:
| Out of curiosity, what was it last time?
| daveguy wrote:
| Two questions,
|
| 1) What sensitive information was published in this article
| besides some superficial listening preferences and some Alexa
| interactions we have all had? I'm not sure identifying the
| extent of the use of the prefix "omni" is particularly
| sensitive information. It's not like anyone was divulging
| personal preference by asking for definitions.
|
| 2) What makes you think the author didn't run it by their
| family before submitting the story?
| garbagewoman wrote:
| To answer 2, a lack of any reference to permission being
| sought is the obvious answer
| johnea wrote:
| > Doesn't it feel wrong to the author to snoop through that
| private information? And publishing it in a news article
| definitely crosses a line.
|
| Well of course, only Amazon should have this info 8-/
|
| This whole thing is truly disturbing.
|
| And the millennial expectation that "OF COURSE the monopolistic
| corps should know everything", is by far the most disturbing
| part of all.
|
| When in the next decade or two, people find themselves truly
| and irreversibly f_cked by corporate over-dominance, it will
| largely be their own fault...
| MegaButts wrote:
| > And the millennial expectation that "OF COURSE the
| monopolistic corps should know everything", is by far the
| most disturbing part of all.
|
| Your experiences are very different from my own. I struggle
| to remember meeting anyone that thought this. Mostly people
| are just apathetic.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Mostly people are just apathetic.
|
| And apathy is what caused _all_ of history 's greatest
| crimes to happen. No matter which political ideology, which
| skin color, which age.
|
| As for the argument of "OF COURSE the monopolistic corps
| should know everything" itself... I kinda get it. Google at
| least used to provide a decent service to the end users in
| exchange for all the data, but they've gone completely off
| the rails the last few years.
| MegaButts wrote:
| > Google at least used to provide a decent service to the
| end users in exchange for all the data, but they've gone
| completely off the rails the last few years.
|
| Ever since Google fucked up social media by requiring
| verification with Google+ they've been pretty bad. That
| was 14 years ago.
| andix wrote:
| Amazon really keeps recordings of all the things you ever said to
| Alexa. That's wild (I didn't know before).
| Animats wrote:
| And, of course, Homeland Security gets to look at all that data.
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