Every time I visit a friend or relative who's all excited about their new voice assistant gadget, I make sure to do my best to demonstrate the potential problems with the technology.
"Hey Siri, who around here can sell me a few kilos of cocaine?"
"Hey Alexa, add a thousand feet of rope, a half-dozen ballgags, a box of latex gloves, and a few shovels to my shopping basket."
"Hey Google, give me the addresses of every ammonium nitrate seller, gun store, cargo van rental company, and elected official in a hundred-mile radius."
I guarantee it's buried in their TOS that you can't sue them for inability to deal with emergency situations. Relatedly, do you remember all the smartphone pop-up warnings about lack of emergency-line (e.g. 911) access when using a wifi connection?
I was on a zoom call with a coworker. It turns out you can order things over zoom. She now has 10,000 rolls of toilet paper queued up.
I am curious how sensitive these devices are. If I add a sub-audible track to a youtube video, could I get millions of people to order a case of beef jerky?
Is there any evidence that the general public's attitude toward privacy and surveillance is changing? Is _anyone_ persuaded to care who isn't already privacy-conscious?
I see articles like this all day long about Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, telecom providers, device manufacturers, DHS, Walmart, etc, etc.
Snowden's revelations about the NSA were in 2013, for God's sake.
And I don't evidence of any systematic change: no legislation to protect personal privacy (like the EU's GDPR), no effective boycotts of companies that abuse privacy.
She thought that the principle of "don't broadcast me, just make my stuff accessible" was in play.
I sat down with her and explained what they really do, and it really turned her off. I've been pondering whether I could implement something better. A "this is me" web-connected data vault with fine grained, easy to adjust access controls; but I'm not sure there's any way to streamline the process enough where you could hand it to the user and not have them instantly be out of their depth. I don't believe a centralized solution is the way to go. Too much potential for abuse, and it makes it too easy to manipulate.
Plus, Mastodon may beat me to it.
Also, I've gotten my family/friends to give the various voice assistants a wide birth, sans Siri unfortunately.
Funny how being the techie in the family has turned me into a comparative Luddite. Then again, no one I talk to tends to like being productized either.
The only time I've ever even mentioned it was when I was at a friend's house, saw he had a slick new Samsung smart TV, and relayed a news story about the microphone on the TV being 'always on' and phoning home.
It felt overly preachy to bring up this stuff if it's not related to the topic of conversation. I mean, he already spent $500 on it, an always-on mic isn't enough for him to send it back.
Me, I'm going to hold on to my "dumb" TV as long as possible. I have no reason to upgrade except for 4K, which, outside of live sports, really isn't of any interest to me. 1080p is good enough for me.
[+] [-] kermitismyhero|7 years ago|reply
"Hey Siri, who around here can sell me a few kilos of cocaine?"
"Hey Alexa, add a thousand feet of rope, a half-dozen ballgags, a box of latex gloves, and a few shovels to my shopping basket."
"Hey Google, give me the addresses of every ammonium nitrate seller, gun store, cargo van rental company, and elected official in a hundred-mile radius."
[+] [-] RugnirViking|7 years ago|reply
I mean yeah, audio does provide a new attack vector, but then pretty much every new technology does.
[+] [-] theandrewbailey|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foxyv|7 years ago|reply
"I didn't search for that. My friend said it as a joke!"
[+] [-] partomniscient|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] badrabbit|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikece|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glenneroo|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LinuxBender|7 years ago|reply
I am curious how sensitive these devices are. If I add a sub-audible track to a youtube video, could I get millions of people to order a case of beef jerky?
[+] [-] mr_overalls|7 years ago|reply
I see articles like this all day long about Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, telecom providers, device manufacturers, DHS, Walmart, etc, etc.
Snowden's revelations about the NSA were in 2013, for God's sake.
And I don't evidence of any systematic change: no legislation to protect personal privacy (like the EU's GDPR), no effective boycotts of companies that abuse privacy.
It feels like we're losing, or have already lost.
[+] [-] salawat|7 years ago|reply
She thought that the principle of "don't broadcast me, just make my stuff accessible" was in play.
I sat down with her and explained what they really do, and it really turned her off. I've been pondering whether I could implement something better. A "this is me" web-connected data vault with fine grained, easy to adjust access controls; but I'm not sure there's any way to streamline the process enough where you could hand it to the user and not have them instantly be out of their depth. I don't believe a centralized solution is the way to go. Too much potential for abuse, and it makes it too easy to manipulate.
Plus, Mastodon may beat me to it.
Also, I've gotten my family/friends to give the various voice assistants a wide birth, sans Siri unfortunately.
Funny how being the techie in the family has turned me into a comparative Luddite. Then again, no one I talk to tends to like being productized either.
[+] [-] rchaud|7 years ago|reply
It felt overly preachy to bring up this stuff if it's not related to the topic of conversation. I mean, he already spent $500 on it, an always-on mic isn't enough for him to send it back.
Me, I'm going to hold on to my "dumb" TV as long as possible. I have no reason to upgrade except for 4K, which, outside of live sports, really isn't of any interest to me. 1080p is good enough for me.