My immediate reaction would be that the device is compromised and that there’s a “somebody” on the other end having a warped bit of fun at my expense.
I’ll use Siri on my desktop Mac and my phone, but I don’t laugh at people who cover the camera lens anymore.
No way would I turn my household functions and normal conversation over to such a device.
I’d be willing to bet that’s what it is. I’ve been a home automation hobbyist for many years now and I was looking at how home automation systems use Alexa. The security was completely nonexistent when I looked at it. You were leaving household functions like lights or maybe your thermostat or even door locks open to whomever could find a certain URL and trigger whatever they wanted to. IIRC, I wasn’t even able to use https. It was a massive security hole that I was shocked that ANYONE would ever allow. I guess that’s the problem when inexperienced people start playing around with advanced tech.
I’ll bet what happened is that there’s an online tutorial of how to set up something like SmartThings with Alexa and some guy whipped up a little bot to search for systems with URLs that match the default ones in the tutorial. Once you’ve got that, Bob’s your uncle and you’re controlling their lights and making their Alexa laugh.
DONT laugh at people who cover the camera lense.
Since I have no shame i will tell this story.
I was looking at naughty pictures once about 5 years ago on the internet and a picture of me along with an FBI warning popped up on my screen lol!!!
said the FBI would come arrest me if I didn’t pay 300 bucks through some kind of purchase card with code numbers to enter.
Cause that FBI collects 300 dollar fines /s
I went onto another computer and printed out the instructions on how to get rid of the frozen screen and it worked.
I only needed those instructions another have dozen times :)
Now I’m straight and narrow and NEVER look at porn.
Or even women’s fasino magazines :)