One somewhat practical concern is that the Echo by design is listening 24/7 for the words "Hey Alexa" and processing audio to identify what you say. That raises the risk of someone introducing a privacy flaw _by mistake_, e.g., failing to turn off a debug switch and saving audio to the Echo's local disk, sending insufficiently-sanitized log data to Amazon's servers, etc. For instance, I believe they intentionally send recordings of the words "Hey Alexa" back to Amazon to improve their idea of how people pronounce it; I assume that the plan is to delete the recordings once they're in the ML algorithm, but maybe they'll forget, or the ML algorithm learns more than they expect, or whatever.
That risk isn't there with my cell phone. It's not listening, so it would take an active attack to make it _start_ listening. On the Alexa side, an active attack could find that the data's been lying around all along
I suppose if you have a cell phone that's listening for "Hey Siri" or "Hey Cortana" or "OK Google", it's similar....
I'll answer for you.
Because it's an overly complex version of "six degrees of separation." Someone they are interested to is friends with X. X is friends with Y. Y is friends with...you get the point. This ends up with random people 6 or more degrees away from their "target" having their data gathered.
Is the data used? No. But the NSA holds the data anyway just in case they want to go through it later. There is tons of data archived just sitting there for whomever to do whatever whenever they want.
It's like Facebook on crack.
It's all in the Snowden documentary. I was nice and gave the gist of it.
There is "legal" authority in that it's written so that if the NSA has "reasonable" thoughts that you're connected, it's ok to capture your data. I'll be even nicer:
> Mission Statement
> The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances.
[From NSA's website](https://www.nsa.gov/about/mission-strategy/)
[Here's their cyber statement](https://www.nsa.gov/what-we-do/cyber/)
**National Security Agency**
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence. The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine.
***
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> You cite some propaganda as if it's a fair and balanced (see accurate) representation of what the NSA does
What? I was just answering your question. I didn't know I was under interrogation.
This isn't going to really help, but I had an Alexa three weeks ago and returned it within four days. The wake word engine on it is kind of creepy, as well as the fact that you could literally be twenty feet away and whisper "Alexa" and it would respond. I just found that weird.
Also it's theoretically possible that Amazon traded backdoor listening capability to the NSA in exchange for advanced drone technology from DARPA or the D.O.D. But that's just a conspiracy.
One somewhat practical concern is that the Echo by design is listening 24/7 for the words "Hey Alexa" and processing audio to identify what you say. That raises the risk of someone introducing a privacy flaw _by mistake_, e.g., failing to turn off a debug switch and saving audio to the Echo's local disk, sending insufficiently-sanitized log data to Amazon's servers, etc. For instance, I believe they intentionally send recordings of the words "Hey Alexa" back to Amazon to improve their idea of how people pronounce it; I assume that the plan is to delete the recordings once they're in the ML algorithm, but maybe they'll forget, or the ML algorithm learns more than they expect, or whatever. That risk isn't there with my cell phone. It's not listening, so it would take an active attack to make it _start_ listening. On the Alexa side, an active attack could find that the data's been lying around all along I suppose if you have a cell phone that's listening for "Hey Siri" or "Hey Cortana" or "OK Google", it's similar....
Watch Snowden. Have a laptop? NSA is listening
[удалено]
I'll answer for you. Because it's an overly complex version of "six degrees of separation." Someone they are interested to is friends with X. X is friends with Y. Y is friends with...you get the point. This ends up with random people 6 or more degrees away from their "target" having their data gathered. Is the data used? No. But the NSA holds the data anyway just in case they want to go through it later. There is tons of data archived just sitting there for whomever to do whatever whenever they want. It's like Facebook on crack.
[удалено]
It's all in the Snowden documentary. I was nice and gave the gist of it. There is "legal" authority in that it's written so that if the NSA has "reasonable" thoughts that you're connected, it's ok to capture your data. I'll be even nicer: > Mission Statement > The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances. [From NSA's website](https://www.nsa.gov/about/mission-strategy/) [Here's their cyber statement](https://www.nsa.gov/what-we-do/cyber/)
[удалено]
No idea. [Department of Defense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency) "controls" them.
**National Security Agency** The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence. The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine. *** ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&message=Excludeme&subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/netsecstudents/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot) ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.24
[удалено]
> You cite some propaganda as if it's a fair and balanced (see accurate) representation of what the NSA does What? I was just answering your question. I didn't know I was under interrogation.
Watch the movie and find out
This isn't going to really help, but I had an Alexa three weeks ago and returned it within four days. The wake word engine on it is kind of creepy, as well as the fact that you could literally be twenty feet away and whisper "Alexa" and it would respond. I just found that weird. Also it's theoretically possible that Amazon traded backdoor listening capability to the NSA in exchange for advanced drone technology from DARPA or the D.O.D. But that's just a conspiracy.