Re:Amazon Says It Has Over 10k Employees Working on Alexa, Echo
by chrisco255 on Sunday January 06, 2019 @08:22PM
(#18842007)
Yeah but they're not. It would be obvious from the packet traffic if your phone was constantly streaming everything you said to Google or Apple's servers. It would also be a violation of privacy policy and potentially state law. I think there would be huge backlash if either Google or Apple did this.
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Re:Amazon Says It Has Over 10k Employees Working on Alexa, Echo
by ColanR on Sunday January 06, 2019 @09:39PM
(#18842316)
It doesn't need to constantly stream in order to record everything and send it back in periodic batches. Would it also be possible to determine that from the packet traffic? (not intending to be confrontational here)
Re:Amazon Says It Has Over 10k Employees Working on Alexa, Echo
by wkearney99 on Sunday January 06, 2019 @11:44PM
(#18842819)
The Alexa devices don't have the hardware within to do that. People have torn them down and looked. People have also constructed their own devices (rpi with a mic) to mimic the same functionality and it's consuming the same sort of bandwidth.
Now, of course, nothing will ever placate the conspiracy nitwits.
Re:Amazon Says It Has Over 10k Employees Working on Alexa, Echo
by ColanR on Monday January 07, 2019 @12:15AM
(#18842950)
Thanks for the answer.
I don't see how there's a conspiracy here. Questioning the intentions and actions of an actor that could very likely be hostile to the user is reasonable and has precident.