News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Germany bans children's smartwatches by hammock on Friday November 17, 2017 @01:49PM (#15724818)
We can argue about the definition of covert, but Amazon Echo does allow others to somewhat sneakily listen in on you:

>When you drop in on your device or a contact's device, the light ring on your Echo pulses green, you connect automatically and can hear anything within range of the device

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

Re:Germany bans children's smartwatches by Xylakant on Friday November 17, 2017 @01:53PM (#15724862)
Drop in is an optional feature that needs to be explicitly enabled for a list of contacts. It’s not covert if you have to turn it on.
Re:Germany bans children's smartwatches by hammock on Friday November 17, 2017 @02:36PM (#15725282)
Like I said, we can argue over "covert." But once you allow a contact to drop in on you, they can do it at any time, with no prior warning, and you won't know it until they're already listening to you.