
Amazon to hand over Echo audio from alleged murder after defendant consents - ghosh
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39191056
======
koolba
This should be a lesson to people who don't understand the distinction between
"can't" and "won't".

If you're running things yourself and control the encryption keys required to
access your data, then your service provider _can 't_ be compelled to release
your data as it's not possible[1][2].

If you're delegating all of that to your service provider and they have access
to the raw data, then you are putting all your trust in them to protect your
data and prevent it's release. And that has to cover everything from hackers,
to snooping employees, to the Feds.

[1]: _Kind of ... I don 't recall the Apple/FBI case going to court for a
final resolution so it's possible they can compel the service provider to hack
you to get the keys but at least they can't get it directly_.

[2]: _And obviously they can always come after you with a court order or
rubber hose (or both)._

~~~
sesutton
>If you're running things yourself and control the encryption keys required to
access your data, then your service provider can't be compelled to release
your data as it's not possible

The court can just hold you in contempt until you do[1]. They also probably
won't buy "I forgot".

[1]: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/child-porn-
suspe...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/child-porn-suspect-
jailed-for-7-months-for-refusing-to-decrypt-hard-drives/)

~~~
saycheese
If you delete the data, prior to getting the notice to produce the data and it
wasn't deleted in anticipation of such a notice, sure the court could hold you
in contempt, but legally you've done nothing wrong.

You cannot easily make a third random third-party delete your data.

~~~
ghshephard
You might put yourself in a worse position if the court compels you to produce
the data, but now you can't. You better be very certain that you are able to
prove that you deleted the data prior to any notice, or you might find
yourself in for a long jail stay.

This is what a lot of people overlook - when the court compels you to produce
evidence, or ill gotten gains, saying ,"I can't" \- isn't a legal defense.

~~~
koolba
> This is what a lot of people overlook - when the court compels you to
> produce evidence, or ill gotten gains, saying ,"I can't" \- isn't a legal
> defense.

We're getting closer and closer to testing that. IANAL but I'd imagine that
some combination of the 4th and 5th amendments should cover that situation.
The onus would be upon the prosecutor to prove that you destroyed the evidence
after the fact.

As a general rule, one does not have to prove they didn't commit a crime, the
prosecutor has to prove that they did. Where this gets murky is if a judge
orders you to present the non-existent data as contempt of court may apply.

~~~
ghshephard
There's lots of case history where people are faced with a court order
compelling them to return ill-gotten gains, and when they claim "I can't do
it, I don't have the money." \- they are found guilty of contempt of court if
the court believes otherwise. Burden of evidence is not on the court to prove
you do have the money, just as in this case, the burden wouldn't be on them to
prove you can retrieve the data....

------
wyldfire
This is a non-issue. The audio Amazon receives is from only-just-barely-before
the wakeword up to and through the command or timeout expiration. Yes, it's
possible that the defendants cat meowed right before the murder and it sounded
like "Alexa". But it seems incredibly unlikely.

Prosecutors are just trying to cover every base but the likelihood that this
will yield anything is very low.

~~~
andrepd
> The audio Amazon receives is from only-just-barely-before the wakeword up to
> and through the command or timeout expiration.

I wonder, how on earth do you know that, that you are able to dismiss it with
such confidence as a non-issue. That's the problem with proprietary systems
(proprietary always-on microphones at that). I would be surprised if they
_weren 't_ actually listening and analysing and storing data from the
microphone feed at all times.

~~~
danielvf
You can just watch the network traffic from the device to see when it is
streaming audio.

Now this obviously doesn't rule out the device saving stuff locally, but
plenty of people have verified that it does generally only send lots of data
to the server when you have just asked it to wake up.

~~~
ben174
It is possible it's doing local voice recognition on all audio, and just
sending the text in their payloads. If the content is encrypted, there's no
way for any network snooping to determine what they're sending.

~~~
chatmasta
This is software... saying there's "no way" is usually incorrect.

For example, you could root the device and disable the encryption.

Or, you could perform experiments in a controlled setting where you play a
series of identical recordings to Alexa and measure the statistical similarity
in the outgoing data for each. The encryption scheme probably provides more
entropy than just the audio, so maybe statistical analysis wouldn't help, but
it's a start.

------
phantarch
How is echo audio data substantially different than something like a tape
recorder that was live in the man's home? What about a cell phone that was on
a call at the time of the alleged murder?

I definitely understand wanting to ensure reasonable privacy for users, but to
me it feels an awful lot of a stretch to say that the echo is off-limits in
this case.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Comparing it to a tape recorder is interesting. If we consider this device to
be the same as a tape recorder for the purpose of admission of evidence: (1)
In some states, by having this device and turning it on you have now indeed
consented for the conversation to be recorded - which would alarm most users
(2) In other states, it is illegal for the device to be functioning without
consent of all who are conversing, and the recording is thus inadmissable as
evidence. Quite the opposite of what I think you're implying by that
comparison. We keep seeing that treating new technology under previous legal
definitions is very unsteady ground. You can see how comparison to previous
technology would protect privacy and hinder investigation in this case, but on
the other hand it makes me think of compelling you to give up encryption keys
because well, they're not "papers" like the 4th amendment refers to (an
argument which HAS been used before). So given that, how am I supposed to know
what my actual rights are in a case like this, when it's so freely interpreted
either way depending on the specific case?

~~~
phantarch
Thanks for the insight.

In regards to comparing new technologies against previous ones to understand
their legal definitions, it feels like the burden is on technologists to
navigate us through the ethical minefield. I'm not very aware of what place
ethicists have in many tech corporations, but it feels like most of us just
build straight ahead and figure out the implications afterward. Not that we
should halt progress on everything until we know if it's "good", but maybe a
tech ethicist could be a kind of QA role during product development.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Definitely. I think I've heard Google has a handful of ethicists on staff? I
don't think it's fair for the burden to be entirely on technologists either,
though, but I don't know how else to progress. Uber & friends make an
interesting case in this area too: Does that business model technically
violate laws in various locales? Is it fair to existing taxi companies to just
throw those laws away too quickly for them to plan or without re-addressing
the original issue they were there for? Could they get lawmakers to re-assess
the need for those laws before they had demonstrated their value and
popularity? A lot of catch-22's.

------
tribune
I own an Echo and this is part of the reason it now sits unplugged. To be
honest, it doesn't provide enough value for me to consider potentially
compromising the privacy of my home.

~~~
shshhdhs
Mentioned this in another comment, but they can only reveal voice data IF the
victim said "Alexa" when the crime was taking place. If the victim didn't say
"Alexa" that day, then there's nothing to reveal.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
The main thing I'm taking away from this is that, if I ever find myself
getting murdered, I'll just keep shouting "Alexa" as a last ditch attempt at
getting justice from beyond the grave. Can't hurt.

~~~
diminoten
I was thinking about this -- I'm too afraid to try it, but if I said, "Alexa
call 911", does that functionality exist?

Is there a skill I can install that would let me say something like, "Alexa
start recording audio to the cloud"?

~~~
chrisfosterelli
"Alexa call 911" doesn't work (at least currently) and it looks like it's
against Amazon's rules to try and create a skill that calls emergency
services: [https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-
sk...](https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-
kit/docs/alexa-skills-kit-policy-testing)

------
orless
> Amazon has agreed to hand over data from an Amazon Echo that may have been
> operating as an alleged murder took place, after the defendant consented.

A much more interesting question is if Amazon would have released the data
without the defendants conset.

~~~
lucaspiller
Well Amazon actually refused at first, even when presented with warrants
requesting the data, saying that they didn't see how the data would be
relevant.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39063113](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39063113)

~~~
orless
I know that, I'm just pointing out that handing the data with persons consent
is absolutely nothing extraordinary.

Many people (also in this thread) are worried and unplug Alexa because of
these news. Some accuse Amazon of putting up a fight for PR only.

From my point of view, these news add nothing substantial to the Alexa
customer privacy debate. It is unclear if Amazon would have (finally) handed
the data over without customers consent. It is unclear how far would Amazon go
fighting for customer privacy.

~~~
vidarh
It's newsworthy in this case because of the initial refusal.

Not because it adds anything substantial to the privacy debate, but because it
means we won't get to see if their argument would be held up by the court.

------
kaino128
Can you call emergency services via Amazon Echo? I've read on a car forum I'm
part of about someone who was working on their vehicle without jack stands and
got trapped when their jack slipped. They used Siri to call their wife and
jack the car back up. They probably would have died without it.

I can easily forsee a future where consumers _ask companies_ for voice
assistants that turn on automatically when they detect duress (not needing to
say "Alexa ...") before one where governments actually compel product
manufacturers to do this.

~~~
skocznymroczny
For all you know, it could be recording all the time, and since it's a closed
device, you can't prove otherwise.

~~~
Klathmon
Yes and for all you know that table you bought could include a large battery,
LTE receiver, and a microphone and could be recording your every sound as
well.

There's a limit to how much paranoia is warranted, and in this case I'm firmly
in the "it's not" column. Yes, it could be recording your every sound for
months on end and uploading it to evil amazon, but not only would they be in
some hot water legally in some areas, but the media would have a fucking field
day with it, and for what gain?

To be able to listen in on your conversations?

And if you want to argue that it could be remotely updated to target you to
always record that data, you could always be targeted by inserting a
microphone into anything else of yours (good 'ole bugs).

You don't need to like them, you don't need to own them, and you don't need to
be somewhere that has them, but some of us see utility in devices like this.
And to me it's well worth the trade off that my recordings could be used in a
court of law when requested with a warrant and I agreed to it.

~~~
shostack
The comparison between a bugged table and a device whose primary purpose is to
always be listening to you is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?

Amazon provides cloud storage and processing to the web. Given their history
of relatively ruthless (if strategically smart) business moves, I don't think
it is unreasonable to consider that they could store this data for use down
the line or do so at government request. This is all software based
permissions that seem to be one invisible server side tweak away from becoming
an always recording (not just listening for a wake word) device.

I got an Amazon Tap because it required a button push to record. They just
enabled the option for always listening just like the echo. In theory I
control it, but clearly I do not in practice.

~~~
Klathmon
To be completely honest, the "save this at government request" is a real
threat, but there is nothing that amazon can realistically do to prevent that
(short of physically not manufacturing the device to have a microphone, but
even then is it that much of a jump from "forcing them to write code" to
"forcing them to add a microphone"?)

But in terms of adding this kind of surveillance stuff for greed? I just don't
see it paying off. Regardless of how shady or ruthless you think amazon is,
they aren't going to brazenly break 1-party and 2-party listening laws. And
all it takes is one guy somewhere who owns one to discover it and it's all
over.

People are more than willing to give up information for very little gain,
there's no reason to try and "steal" it illegally. If the argument is that
amazon is a greedy company willing to do unethical things for money, where's
the money in this? Where's the money in 24/7 audio recordings vs recordings of
when you are speaking to the thing?

------
dade_
At this point I assume they have a warrant, so I don't understand what the
problem is. People should assume their devices can and will be used against
them. A much more tricky conversation is when a friend of mine discovered that
fragments of his a session with his psychologist recorded by his Android Wear
watch.

~~~
njharman
> people should assume

What I assume is that the bill of rights will not be subverted just because I
use technology. The right to not be subject to search and right to not self
incrimate.

~~~
dade_
It's a nice sentiment and sounds like a good legal argument. However, your
constitution doesn't do me any good and doesn't help you with foreign states.
Five Eyes has been a legal work around for years so keep fighting the good
fight, but in the meantime I will keep expecting the best and assuming the
worst.

------
gtirloni
> after the defendant consented

~~~
gjjrfcbugxbhf
But how long before lack of consent is considered incriminating?

There are also many different jurisdictions which don't have 5th amendment
style protections.

~~~
cmdrfred
Wouldn't a jurisdiction without 5th amendment protections be unconstitutional?

~~~
d3ckard
We do not all live in the USA.

~~~
cmdrfred
This case does though and considering its a 5th amendment case I'm not sure
how it would be relevant internationally.

~~~
jMyles
The basis premises (privacy amidst a sea of devices which record at various
times and save these recordings off-site) are universal.

------
ForHackernews
I thought Amazon claimed this was impossible and they didn't have this audio?

------
sumitgt
If the defendant consented, couldn't they just log into their own account and
get the audio?

In the app, you can hear back all the queries you made to Alexa.

------
draw_down
I haven't seen a compelling use case for these things yet, including visiting
the homes of people who own one. But I sure have seen a lot of deal-breakers.

~~~
_rpd
I know someone who is smart and reasonably concerned about privacy issues, but
she loves the thing - uses it instead of a shopping list. I was quite
surprised that she would compromise for such a trivial convenience, but it
made me revise the likelihood that they'll be more widely adopted.

------
heheocoenev
Seriously, screw google home and Amazon echo. If I wanted a wiretap, I'd go to
FISA court.

~~~
rblatz
Odds are you already carry one around with you every where you go.

~~~
jsudhams
It does not matter whether he carries, there lot of people around him who
would carry. And for that matter i dont even believe regular land line phone.

