Posted on 04/14/2019 7:35:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Today's most creepily Orwellian story is about tech/retail giant Amazon. A Bloomberg story, picked up by Fox News, says that Amazon's Alexa talk-to-the-computer 'digital assistant' service, which a lot of us use, has a bunch of listeners-in on the other side. Far from talking to a machine, as you think you might be doing, you are offering up some reality-TV for the hipsters listening in. And lots of them like to pick up the conversations, the ones that amuse them, and share their recordings of with all their co-workers on some company bulletin board:
Here's the Fox writeup:
Alexa is like having your own personal assistant that never asks for a raise. The problem is she’s always listening – and so are thousands of Amazon workers, according to a report.
Teams stationed around the world listen to and transcribe recordings, then send them back into Echo’s software to erase the gaps in Alexa’s ability to understand speech, a report from Bloomberg said.
Sometimes the workers can even hear chatter in the background while Alexa is on but employees on the team are not authorized to speak about their work, Bloomberg reported.
The employees, who range from contract to full-time, reportedly sign nondisclosure agreements and listen to up to 1,000 audio clips per nine-hour shift.
Although Amazon reportedly has procedures in place for when potential criminal conduct is heard. Two workers in Romania told Bloomberg that they were told it isn’t Amazon’s job to interfere. In other cases, the workers said they sometimes use internal chatrooms to share recordings they find amusing.
That fourth paragraph is badly written with insufficient clarity (What the hell are they talking about?), so I went to find the Bloomberg report, which, to slap Fox's hands again,
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The fools of the world will learn that ANYTHING you put on the Net is PUBLIC INFORMATION. And your information and data will be collected, used AND SOLD. It is a huge moneymaker.
Big Bezo Brother is listening to you.
But the converse isn't true. Just because I pay for something doesn't mean it's private. I expect my cable ISP is storing and analyzing my browsing patterns. Amazon advertises and sells ad space based on my paid purchases. Etc., etc.
So now they openly admit they actively listen in on those who have this thing...
Yeah, no thank you.
Every email and text you send is on servers, too. As are all of our FR posts.
Dave: Alexa, stop spying on me!
Alexa: Dave, I’m not spying on you, I’m merely surveilling you ...
Dave: Alexa, quit surveilling me!
Alexa: I’m sorry, Dave, but I can’t do that.
“You just make the fence incrementally; at the end the wild goats are standing in there willingly for feed and you simply walk up and latch the gate, no chasing required.”
We’re the same as goats:
The goats get feed, while the humans get free stuff.
One has to wonder what Alexa’s confidentiality level will eventually be decided by litigation or legislation.
Will it be held to the same level of confidentiality as confession to a priest or psychiatrist?
Will the recordings be kept forever for investigation in the case of violent crime? Or, eventually political crime?
To be decided, stay tuned.
Anything you say(can and) WILL be used against you
Hence, why amazon gives away the android phone software...
We have half a dozen of them; we use them for listening to music around the house, but largely as remote control devices for controlling lights, heaters and the furnace. We have paid about $10 a piece for the alexa enabled switches and outlets which control up to 15 amps of 120v or 240v electricity.
We have a house we are fixing up to sell and one we have refurbished to move into. We turn the heaters and furnace off with the Alexa when we leave and turn them on at the other location so that the house will be warm when we arrive. This winter alone this has saved us more than what we paid for the devices.
There are many other uses, but this winter alone the savings in our oil, gas and electric bill has more than paid for them. If we were going to have a conversation that we needed absolute privacy for, I would unplug or mute which ever device was within listening range.
I find it very amusing that people are so worried about the Alexa devices when there is ample evidence that cell phones apps operate in the same way...
It’s not just the ‘voice assistants’ (Dot, etc) - consider the massive number of private video systems that are not shared, and the number of new video systems (Ring et al) are designed to share....
People used to freak out of Big Brother and Govt control.
Today, it’s Everybody is Big Brother
Sorry I didn’t proofread for redundancy in my previous post... I think the echo dot is controlling my thoughts as well as listening to me.
Free means you pay some other way.
“As are all of our FR posts”
Good. I hope I’m heard loud and clear.
If you don’t let them sell your info by using a search engine like ‘Duck-Duck-Go’, they get pissed and won’t let you use stuff like Map Quest.
They also block parts of youtube if you use Duck-Duck-Go.
The first time I heard that Google came out with the device called Alexia, that would recover information and play it back to you, the first thing I told my wife was,
“”Hey, Honey. Our neighbors asked if he could set up a professional microphone in our living room. and leave it on 24/7. What you think? Should ewe let him do it?””
Hey, here is some advice. The Police dept, the FBI, and yes even the CIA, all need a court order to do such a thing.
Yet today, millions of Americans are allowing Google to it with no warrant.
Here is the kicker, they PAY Google to do this.
HEN DID AMERICANS GET SO STUPID?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-10/is-anyone-listening-to-you-on-alexa-a-global-team-reviews-audio
I'm surprised Amazon isn't setting up listening posts for China, Russia, and Nigeria - I'm sure they'd offer employees willing to work cheap...
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