Amazon "Echo" and Google "Assistant"
Posted on 07/12/2019 6:37:00 PM PDT by ETL
Google's smart speakers allow contractors for the tech giant to listen to excerpts of private conversations, including some with potentially sensitive information, according to a new investigation from a Belgian public broadcaster.
This news is the latest in a series of reports about recordings from Big Tech's in-home devices being accessible to workers.
According to VRT NWS, which reviewed more than 1,000 recorded excerpts – 153 of which should not have been recorded because the "OK, Google" command was not given – one contractor said he transcribes around 1,000 audio clips from Google Assistant every week.
However, sometimes the recording can be triggered when someone in the room or nearby utters a word or words that sound like "OK, Google."
The Sundar Pichai-led tech giant calls those instances a "false accept."
One of the sources who spoke to VRT NWS described a recording in which he "heard a woman who was in definite distress."
Other conversations recorded included those in bedrooms and conversations between parents and children.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Amazon 'Echo'
From memory set in the 1950s:
Mr Green: “J. Edgar Hoover is on your phone?”
Wadsworth: “Why shouldn’t he be? He’s on everyone elses.”
(Lesson: watch what you say because you don’t know who is listening)
The 2010s ...
“Hey, espionage device, what is showing at the matinee?”
It’s foolish to pay to be spied on.
For years, I found Microsoft to be the most corrupt company in the multiverse.
Then there was Google.
Hopefully, they’ll allow us to take out Google sites by air sometimes in the future.
Bookmark.
Another that gets little attention are the satellite and cable TV voice remotes like xfinity. Yes you ‘have’ to push a button on the remote to speak a request, but who is to say a remote command to listen is not in there also ? Unlike google/amazon devices just used on the internet and those companies do not know a precise location (unless they have a gps within them), xfinity has a customer database and knows exactly where a request comes from. Something to ponder.
Would you allow a person unknown to you into your home to be there 24x7 with a video recorder taping everything that goes on? You wouldn’t?
Then why do you have an Alexia or a workalike?
In George Orwell’s book 1984 these were called Telescreens. Sorta like today’s ‘smart’ TVs.
You have to be pretty STUPID to buy anything that connects to the Internet, other than a computer or phone.
How do you know what I have in my home? Have you been spying on me though one of these gadgets???
:)
I talk to my smart TV a lot. I tell it how full of it fake news is and how Demoslobs are nothing but cowards and criminals. They are getting an ear full. Lol
An a most amazing incident a few days ago. A friend of mine and I were discussing firearms. We are shooting friends of many years. We were discussing a particular firearm of interest as shooting aficionados do. We both had our cell phones with us. Within five minutes he had a pop up advert on his cell phone about that exact firearm we were discussing.
They are listening both for commercial and state reasons.
And gee, ya left out facebook.
Wow! That’s kinda creepy. Some one or ‘thing’ listening in on you like that.
BTW, why were you shooting at these old friends of yours?
“We are shooting friends of many years.”
:)
Lol! And I thought that Windows 10 ‘Cortana’ stuff was weird and creepy.
I now sleep with one eye opened fearing that she’ll climb out of the monitor and try to kill me!
Keep mobile devices in ‘airplane mode’ as much as possible and never allow this kind of crap in your home...
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