Millions of Americans brought Alexa into their homes only to learn, belatedly, that not only software, but human beings, were listening in on them. Amazon employees and contractors from Costa Rica to India were caught reviewing thousands of recordings, of casual requests, private conversations and intimate moments, and sharing clips that they thought were funny in chat sessions with each other.
The Amazon product is always listening and maintains recordings of your conversations indefinitely.
But now there’s something bigger at stake than privacy violations. Amazon expects a $10 billion cloud contract for the military. The $10 billion contract was a sweetheart deal for a politically influential company that seemed unstoppable until President Trump suddenly slammed the brakes on JEDI.
The deal had always been dubious and many critics had questioned how or why a single company could expect to have a monopoly on the JEDI cloud for the United States military. All the national security eggs were being put into one very fragile basket.
Amazon was the fourth biggest contributor to Senator Mark Warner. And when President Trump put Amazon’s JEDI deal on hold, Warner was among the first to protest the move. In his letter, Warner urged the Secretary of Defense to “resist political pressures” that might scuttle $10 billion for Amazon.
Unless I missed it, JEDI is not explained. An acronym needs to be spelled out in parenthesis before inserting into text. Sorry, but it is just standard practice that is no longer followed.
SO the military can listen in on your Alexa conversations, too?
Glad I don’t have anything Alexa.