
Don't Buy Anyone an Echo - rbanffy
https://gizmodo.com/dont-buy-anyone-an-echo-1820981732?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_twitter&utm_source=gizmodo_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
======
xyzzy_plugh
> You don’t need an artificially intelligent robot to tell you about the
> weather every day. Just look outside or watch the local news or even look at
> your phone.

I stopped reading here. This is FUD, or scaremongering, or _something_.

The truth is the reason the Echo family (and others) have seen such success is
because they approach the virtual assistant problem from, in my opinion a
novel and underutilized, place: the home appliance.

Sure I can pull out my phone (or is it charging on the nightstand?) to check
the weather, but I can ask my Echo while I'm tying my shoes and by the time
I'm done grab a jacket if necessary. It's so natural.

I have bought Echo dots as gifts for family and friends -- there seems to be a
50/50 split between the primary use being for music or home automation. It's
far less kludgier than using a phone to turn your lights on and off. What if
you have guests?

Lastly, when I travel I find myself missing the utility of being able to
simply ask a question in the middle of another task, hands free. I've heard
that some hotels are installing Echos, I think that's great.

Overall I think they're a great value add to my life -- I could buy a new
phone for almost a thousand bucks and I barely get any noticeable improvement
(and the improvements are usually along the lines of things _actually working_
the way they are supposed to).

For $30, an Echo is a steal.

~~~
Supernaut
> It's far less kludgier than using a phone to turn your lights on and off.

Why can't you just stand up and, you know, flick the light switch? This kind
of nonsense puts me in mind of "Wall-E". Fat, inert humans being hauled around
on hovercrafts, their every need tended to by a watchful panoply of machines.
If someone in my family gives me an Echo/Alexa/whatever, it's going in the
trash.

~~~
madamelic
>Why can't you just stand up and, you know, flick the light switch?

Because it is more efficient to yell at Alexa "Turn off the bathroom lights"
than stand up, walk to the bathroom and turn them off.

Or better yet, having all your lights and things turning on as you walk in the
door. Or having Alexa wake you up by turning on your lights slowly.

Or baking something and telling Alexa to set a timer. No more having to type
into Google "20 minute timer" then remembering to keep that tab open and your
sound on.

~~~
nisse72
No more having to glance at the clock on the wall (or the stove, or the
microwave, or whatever) and mentally noting "in 20 minutes, it will be half-
past".

~~~
Nursie
And then forgetting because that tricky synchronisatiin problem from work pops
into your head and you wander off...

------
Someone1234
This quote about half way down largely unravels this article's central point:

> microphones only send recordings to the servers when you use the wake word.

This is a fact we can verify with tools like Wireshark. Their other point
about "open microphones" largely ignores smartphones which all have open
microphones and a baseband operating system which can activate the microphone
to spy (which the NSA did[0]).

Their point about existing hacks targeting the Echo is also largely unraveled
by a quote further down:

> This particular exploit only worked on devices made before 2017 and required
> the hacker to have physical access to the Echo.

Essentially if you disassemble an Echo and reprogram it, it will do something
else. Compelling stuff...

[0] [https://www.wired.com/2014/06/nsa-bug-
iphone/](https://www.wired.com/2014/06/nsa-bug-iphone/)

~~~
dgritsko
Perhaps only tangentially related, but your comment reminded me of one of my
favorite quotes from Charles Babbage, regarding his analytical engine:

> On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into
> the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a
> member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this
> question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas
> that could provoke such a question.

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage)

~~~
tialaramex
Note that Babbage has the wrong end of this.

Part of Google's success is realising that yes, your goal needs to be that the
right answer comes out when asked the wrong question. If you type "Rebecca
Editor of Star Newspaper" it doesn't matter that's not how she spells her
name, or that she was never editor of the Daily Star, nor that she's not now
editor of anything at all, having been effectively promoted, Google correctly
determines that you probably want results about a famous British woman named
Rebekah Brooks.

There's an SF story, I thought it was a Multivac story but a list of those
doesn't find it for me, where the world computer has been making "mistakes"
and the technicians trying to diagnose it eventually realise its "mistakes"
are actually causing humans who've disobeyed its instructions to fail. The
computer has been tasked with improving efficiency, and disobedience results
in inefficiency, so it has arranged for those who are disobedient to be
unsuccessful. It isn't murdering anybody, but maybe they'll go bankrupt or
miss out on a promotion and so the overall inefficiency is reduced.

------
jmduke
I thought it was amusing that a mere two weeks ago, this exact same author
wrote a review of an Echo-enabled speaker entitled _The Best Bluetooth Speaker
Now Works With Alexa and It 's Amazing_.

[https://gizmodo.com/the-best-bluetooth-speaker-now-works-
wit...](https://gizmodo.com/the-best-bluetooth-speaker-now-works-with-alexa-
and-
its-1820549358#_ga=2.115804230.1748931467.1512493496-1635615934.1510354171)

~~~
dpark
From _" If you can afford it, and you like your friend a ton, the Blast is a
great addition to anyone’s life."_ to _" Think long and hard about buying an
Amazon Echo or a Google Home for your friends and family. They might not like
it. In my opinion, they shouldn’t."_

Ugh. This story really was just written to be controversial clickbait. Utter
lack of journalistic integrity.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Do journalists only get to represent a viewpoint they honestly hold? Surely
part of the role is to cast arguments/positions that they don't hold
themselves.

You can write a promo putting yourself in the position of your standard
demographics, you can write an opinion piece, the chances they'll coincide
aren't that high.

Online sometimes I push a viewpoint to be more extreme, or take a contrary
position in order to shed light on, and develop, my own belief/position. [I'm
doing it now!]

~~~
dpark
> _Do journalists only get to represent a viewpoint they honestly hold? Surely
> part of the role is to cast arguments /positions that they don't hold
> themselves._

Typically a journalist's job is to report without bias (to the extent
possible). They might present others' viewpoints as well as factual
information, but they shouldn't be presenting their own viewpoint in the guise
of objective information. At least this is what I think.

For op-eds, obviously the expectations are different. But I think it's pretty
shady that we have an op-ed here presenting the Echo as a terrible idea when
two weeks ago the author was touting the same thing as amazing in a review.
Best case it means that the author is intentionally being provocative and
presenting an opinion he doesn't hold simply because it'll get views.
Sensationalism is not a hallmark of quality journalism. Worst case I'm left to
believe the positive review was purchased, which is even worse.

~~~
pdkl95
> report without bias

That isn't possible. Everything contains bias. The simple choice to report a
particular story instead is a bias against the other stories left unreported.
The duty of a journalist is to disclose their bias when it might affect the
story, so people can interpret their report with the proper context.

Reporters are not mere stenographers that repeat official statements and press
releases. They choose what they feel is important enough to report on and give
their _interpretation_ of the facts _as well as_ their opinion about the facts
(which should be properly labeled as op-ed).

> presenting the Echo as a terrible idea when two weeks ago the author was
> touting the same thing as amazing in a review.

People can change their mind about a product. Maybe the author learned about
the risks from comments made on the review.

> Best case it means that the author is intentionally being provocative

You're seeing what you want to see, not the best case which is simply that the
author learned more and change their recommendation. (however, it would be
good to clearly state that this change in the beginning on the article)

------
rhindi
The french privacy council just issued an official warning regarding cloud-
based voice assistant. They recommend switching them off when not using them,
and telling your friends you have one when the come over!

Not sure they will be GDPR compliant if it continues like that..

[https://www.cnil.fr/fr/enceintes-intelligentes-des-
assistant...](https://www.cnil.fr/fr/enceintes-intelligentes-des-assistants-
vocaux-connectes-votre-vie-privee)

------
dpark
> _We do know that Amazon will hand over your Echo data if the gadget becomes
> involved in a homicide investigation. That very thing happened earlier this
> year, and while Amazon had previously refused to hand over customer data,
> the company didn’t argue with a subpoena in a murder case._

Bullshit. Amazon fought the subpoena up until _the defendent_ essentially said
"whatever, give them the whatever recordings you have". The linked article
even says this.

This whole thing is luddite fear mongering. There are legitimate reasons to
worry about IoT devices, but mostly not for the reasons outlined here.

------
CobrastanJorji
> I am here to say that smart speakers like the Echo do contain microphones
> that are always on, and every time you say something to the speaker, it
> sends data back to the server farm.

Yeah, you're here to tell lies then, unless you have some sort of evidence
that this happens that we don't know about. Unless someone says "Hey Google"
or "Alexa," ain't nothing happening. When Google found out a small number of
Home Minis might accidentally do this because of a hardware bug, they
responded by immediately crippling the physical button on every device.

Amazon and Google do plenty of terrifying stuff with privacy; there's no need
to make up new stuff in order to write a fluff piece.

------
mikeash
> The newfound privacy conundrum presented by installing a device that can
> literally listen to everything you’re saying represents a chilling new
> development in the age of internet-connected things.

I say this every time these home assistants are discussed: this is not new.
There are no new privacy implications whatsoever, unless you're one of those
very few people who doesn't have a cell phone. The vast majority of us have
had devices that can literally listen to everything we're saying for _years_
now, many of us for _decades_. And to make it worse, we _take them with us
outside_ , they're not just in the home.

Why do home assistants awake this privacy fear, but nobody cares about cell
phones listening in on you? I seriously do not get it.

~~~
ianai
I’ve turned off “hey Siri” on all of my devices. Primarily for battery life.
You can’t say everyone’s for their phones listening to them.

~~~
mikeash
And you know that this actually stops it from listening to you how, exactly?

~~~
eikenberry
I'd assume because they don't want the liability. Believe it or not most
companies take this sort of thing very seriously and don't want to open
themselves up to lawsuits.

~~~
mikeash
Why doesn't that logic also apply to Amazon promising not to transmit anything
unless it hears the trigger word?

------
ideonexus
Isn't this the problem with _everything_ connected to the internet now?
Facebook is recording your ex-stalking, your phone is recording every place
you're traveling, email servers have your private messages, Google now has
your photos, and your ISP knows what porn and political sites the people in
your home are viewing.

Yes, the echo and other voice-recognition devices have certainly upped the
surveillance ante, but this is not a new problem unique to this technology. We
have no privacy whatsoever online in any way, shape, or form. Everyone laughed
at all the poor suckers who got caught using Ashley Madison, but imagine the
blackmail material these companies we have trusted since the dawn of the WWW
could have on their users.

------
pdkl95
The important part that everyone seems to be ignoring is Kyllo v United
States[1]. When new technology is involved, the 4th Amendment's protections
against searches is present _if and only if_ the technology "is not in general
public use"[2]. If a technology becomes common and familiar to the public, _a
warrant is no longer needed_ to use it to see "details of a private home that
would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion"[3]

The details of how your internet microphone works doesn't matter, because it's
not thoe microphone that you should be worrying about. If these devices are in
"general public use", you no longer have an expectation of privacy from the
technology itself (not any particular product). The police in Kyllo v United
States brought their own infrared camera.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyllo_v._United_States)

[2] [http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-
court/533/27.html](http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/533/27.html)

[3] Ibid.

------
coffeedrinker
I use mine almost exclusively for playing music. I just bought a second one
and found they can sync play (which makes for a nice whole house audio
solution for cheap). They also function as in house intercom.

I have no concerns over privacy. My web browsing habits and phone leak far
more personal data to google.

~~~
yosamino
> I have no concerns over privacy.

And that is your right. Where I have problems with this attitude is the
question wether all those around you, family or guests you might have over,
feel the same way. They're also impacted by this decision, yet they get no say
in it.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
Spot on. You might choose to live without a smartphone and other devices but
your peers are putting you under corporate surveillance without asking your
permissions.

~~~
coffeedrinker
Almost everyone I know willingly puts themselves under corporate surveillance
(credit card?, cell phone?, license plates on car?, web browser?, cable tv?,
netflix?, shopper rewards and discounts?).

If you were in my house Amazon wouldn't even know it was you talking.

~~~
danieldk
_Almost everyone I know willingly puts themselves under corporate surveillance
(credit card?, cell phone?, license plates on car?, web browser?, cable tv?,
netflix?, shopper rewards and discounts?)._

Still, everyone should be able to decide which corporate 'masters' they trust.
For instance, Netflix may be surveying my watching habits, but I trust them
more than Google and Amazon. They can only collect a small subset of data
(viewing habits) and it least they get the majority of their income out of
subscriptions. Over time, I have started making more principled choices of who
I want to give my data and who not.

I don't think it is fair to ask that because I share data with Netflix, I
should also be willing to share data with Google or Amazon when I visit you.

Unfortunately, this is only going to get worse. For example, there are a lot
of cloud connected cameras with exploitable vulnerabilities. My parents had
such a camera and I asked them to cover or disconnect it when I visit them.

------
swlkr
There's a line between genuine useful products and extras. Smartphones for all
of their addictive games and chat bots are still very useful.

A smart speaker isn't so useful that the tradeoff in privacy is worth it.

I think a lot of people are starting to have a tech hangover. We're not
turning into luddites and embracing FUD, we're just tired of the major tech
co's telling us that every new gadget is life changing when they aren't.

------
Filligree
I dunno about the _utility_ of these, but before you assume they send every
single bit of data back to the mothership...

Remember that we've seen them fail horrifically just because a few too many
were activated at once due to commercials.

------
abrahamepton
I think the author is right, for the simple reason that it's irresponsible of
us as technologists to support a product like this. We're training an entire
generation that it's a good idea to pay companies money so that those
companies can wiretap your most intimate moments. I just have a huge problem
with that.

------
melling
Personally, I'm considering getting an Echo or Google device simply to help
contribute to turning "voice as the user interface" into a solved problem.

We've thought we were close for 50 years. Siri was cool for a couple years but
I want to move beyond the 5 year old.

For those who truly hate these solutions, Mozilla is crowd sourcing a
solution. Perhaps it will help to get us there.

[https://voice.mozilla.org](https://voice.mozilla.org)

Once the problem is solved, we can move it completely offline. For now, I'm
excited that Google and Amazon have turned this into a race.

~~~
icc97
I tried the Mozilla voice recognition through the Firefox addon. It was
unusable, the recognition of words was very poor.

I really want an open source version, but there's not much point if it is not
usable.

------
elheffe80
As a partially disabled veteran, screw that. Getting up to turn off the lights
can be challenging. Also, being able to turn off the TV, AppleTV, speakers,
SteamLink, and other appliances for the entertainment center with a phrase
saves not only electricity, but is really convenient when the kids are being
little shits. With home assistant running on a pi locally, I can automate the
ever loving shit out of my house. All those dangerous hue lights turn off
slowly late at night and on around sundown. The cool porch lights for the
holidays are turned off through zwave, probably a disastrous protocol that
should be avoided because it can be controlled by hackers through SDR and
Pringle cantennas /s. I get that there are security implications, but the
ability to have things be automated has saved me the painful experience of
moving to turn off a light when we wanted to watch a movie. Someday I’ll own
my own home, then even the wall switches will be zwave!! 🧐🧐

------
wakkaflokka
I personally think any battle to prevent widespread adoption or use of always-
on listening devices is fruitless. The only option is to provide safer
alternatives with the same functionality.

My opinion is that the proper way to deal with the privacy implications of
this are to come up with better alternatives - open-source voice assistants
and entire ecosystems that do everything locally _and_ that are easy to setup
by Joe Shmoe. More in-depth auditing by security experts to see exactly what
data is being sent from these devices back to their servers. Privacy laws that
will take a company down and send people to jail when violated. Encryption on
everything that can feasibly be encrypted.

The truth is that I have succumbed to the utility of my Google Home (and the
enormous amount of fun I get from having it interface with Home Assistant),
but I'd like to be a part of whatever the front line is in making sure these
are as privacy-conscious as possible.

------
danjoc
Opinion aside, you're dumb to buy an Echo or similar device now. Why? Because
people who really really don't want one will be receiving them as gifts in
about 3 weeks. Those are going to end up on eBay for nearly nothing. If you
actually want one, wait a month.

------
fredliu
I feel these type of commentary often times achieving exactly the opposite of
what it advocates, if it ever achieves anything. Maybe because the TL;DR is
buried midway through the post, or because the actual reasons to dissuade
buying an Echo is nothing new (Privacy and Security? and to be fair, there
indeed is something new in the post that I didn't know about, regarding Echo
data being used in a homicide investigation). At the end of the day, the
impression left in an average reader's mind might be: nothing to see here, but
maybe buying an Echo as a gift is a neat idea...

------
plandis
Better get rid of all cell phones for the exact same reasoning, except it’s a
listening device that follows you around.

------
samlevine
If someone else is running code you can't read on your device where you don't
have root, it is someone else's device.

Failing this, we rely on the hope that companies can make more money off
protecting our privacy than they can from exploiting our data. It remains to
be seen which will win in the marketplace.

------
darkpicnic
How are articles of this quality still shared and passed around? I honestly
couldn't tell you if this was written by a 25 year old or a 14 year old. The
hyperbole, reciting already known security concerns/risks and the teen-like
language used throughout... There's nothing of value here.

------
tonymet
I like the Echo and I'll admit that there are privacy concerns. What do you
think are ways to mitigate those (besides hitting the mute button)?

I was thinking about monitoring the outbound data (to detect voice streaming).
What tools would you use for that?

~~~
sp_nster
Wait... does hitting the mute button solve this invasion of privacy?

~~~
logfromblammo
So all you need is another robot that can hit the mute button for you when you
give it a less sophisticated audible command?

------
coding123
The future of these devices will be such that the speech recognition can be
placed in local only mode, and queries will be erased immediately after.

------
vanwalj
Everyone already owns smartphones, which are at least as bad as home
assistants in term of privacy, so what’s the point of this paper ?

------
nailer
> You don’t need an artificially intelligent robot to tell you about the
> weather every day. Just look outside or watch the local news or even look at
> your phone.

This sounds like someone who's never actually lived with an Echo (which, being
gizmodo, wouldnm't be surprising).

Being able to think of a song I remember from my childhood, say it, and have
it play while I cook dinner is _magical_.

------
amriksohata
Watch the documentary "nothing to hide"

------
lern_too_spel
The only thing that I've seen a smart speaker do that seems remotely useful is
finding a phone. For everything else, I can just ask my phone.

~~~
neaden
My Echo is near my kitchen, and I mostly use it when I am doing stuff there.
So I can tell it to play my news briefing and get the weather while I make my
coffee in the morning. I can listen to music, set timers, and convert units
when I am cooking and may have touched raw meat. The speaker is also much
better than my phones, so its nice to be able to tell it to play specific
songs, playlists, artists, or stations when I want to listen to music.

~~~
lern_too_spel
I do literally none of those things. I prefer TV to radio, have measuring
instruments in the right units, and my oven has an easy to use timer that will
even shut the oven off — no smart plugs required.

~~~
dpark
> _my oven has an easy to use timer that will even shut the oven off_

Mine too. I literally never use it because turning off the oven is not the
timer's job. An external timer is much more friendly, because often the thing
I'm cooking still needs 5 more minutes, or needs to be basted again in 20
minutes, etc.

~~~
lern_too_spel
When that happens, I easily add another 5 minutes to the timer.

~~~
dpark
No. If your timer turns off the oven, you turn the oven on and then set a
timer. Much more annoying than just setting the timer.

~~~
lern_too_spel
The controls are right next to each other, unlike with a separate timer and
oven. You're trading one annoying thing for an even more annoying thing. With
voice-only control, you add the annoyance of dealing with voice confirmations
on top of that and have no way to glance at a timer and see how much time is
left.

~~~
dpark
> _The controls are right next to each other, unlike with a separate timer and
> oven. You 're trading one annoying thing for an even more annoying thing._

I fail to see how it's more annoying to _not_ have the timer incorrectly shut
off the oven. Coupling oven functionality to the timer just makes the timer
less convenient. Using it to time basting etc is far more annoying and you
essentially just can't use it for, say, timing something on the stove.

> _With voice-only control, you add the annoyance of dealing with voice
> confirmations on top of that and have no way to glance at a timer and see
> how much time is left._

"Alexa, how much time is left on the timer?"

You lose the ability to look directly at the timer, but you gain the ability
to check the timer when you're in the pantry, or across the room with guests
or playing with your kids.

~~~
lern_too_spel
My oven timer has an option not to turn off the oven in the rare cases when I
don't want to turn off the oven, but I can see this is going nowhere. You use
timers differently. You apparently want to know the time left in another room
more often than you want to know the time left in the same room, like I do.
Maybe you have measuring instruments in the wrong units, too. To each their
own.

~~~
dpark
> _Maybe you have measuring instruments in the wrong units, too._

Maybe this makes you feel superior but it also makes you look like a prick.
This is completely unrelated to the topic.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Maybe calling somebody a prick makes you look like a prick. Now I'm in the
same boat as you, so you don't have to feel so bad about yourself.

I was referring to the first comment I responded to, where neaden said they
use their Echo for unit conversion.

------
fbnlsr
That article read like a Linkedin post.

------
SubiculumCode
No worries, mate. I won't.

