Alexa doesn't snoop. As previously stated, Alexa activates only when a keyword is spoken. Imagine how much storage would be required to record the audio from about a fourth of the households in the United States, then keep it for any length of time... not to mention what would be required to search it for any potential wrongdoing. We have Alexa in my shack and another in our bedroom. We use it as an alarm clock, background nature sounds to cancel out the neighbors yapping poodle, and other things. One cool "skill" that you can enable for Alexa is the resistor color code. I do a lot of building and it's very convenient to say, "Alexa ask resistor color code red red red black". She comes back with the value. Yeah, I know the color code but this is a convenient way of double checking. You can also use it in reverse to confirm which value of component you're putting on the board - before you solder it.
Here's one: http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/07/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-bentonville-arkansas-murder-case/index.html And another: https://www.wired.com/2017/02/murder-case-tests-alexas-devotion-privacy/ I'm sure there are many others. These are just the first two that popped up Dave W7UUU
From the second article: Another question: How do you know when your digital assistant is recording what you say? Amazon provides several ways to activate the recording beyond the "wake" word. A light on the Echo turns blue to indicate audio is streaming to the cloud. After the request is processed, the audio feed is supposed to close. You can also set the device to play a sound when it stops streaming your audio, but what happens if the device is hacked or modified to keep recording? If someone hacks or modifies my Dot, I have a legal case against them. If it's the government...well, they have nukes and I have nothing, so I lose. Other than them, no one is going to care enough to either a) hack my network (a criminal offense), hack my Dot (if it's even possible), and collect my data, or b) break into my house (a criminal offense) and do the same. Either way...seriously? No one cares about me.
Ironic how the steeple actually are willing to pay for the fox to infiltrate the hen house. Nothing like forking out cash to allow your privacy rights to be stripped away. Everything you say, do and research will be used against you by "Big Brother".
Your "blah blah blah" will now reside on the internet for the rest of time and you will not have ownership of it.... you do know this, right? Dave W7UUU
Actually not quite correct. The author of the blah blah blah does indeed in the US own the copyright to this wonderful piece of poetry. Would anybody now go and use said piece in a commercial context, let's say as the copy for any given TV advertisement (it would appear that already happened several times), the author could sue and demand to be paid based on loss of income due to the infraction. This usually is not a very high sum. The amount increases dramatically if the author would have registered his work with the library of congress in which case he could make bank.
All very true indeed. However, the "blah blah blah" as stated will forevermore live on and can be read by countless generations on into the distant future As can (and will!) be what I just wrote.... wow! we're ALL immortal when we post on internet forums Dave W7UUU
When you integrate it to a radio, it might be interesting. But I did that back in 2012. http://kb9mwr.blogspot.com/2012/02/ham-radio-voice-recognition.html
I agree with the basic argument. But it is undermined by the reality of past and present NSA and GCHQ mass-surveillance. Their mentality is, and always was, 'build a file and keep it handy'. Governments are not always benevolent. Look at the 'Patriot Act' and all that rubbish. Patriotic, according to who's criteria? And the, of course, there are the criminal hackers...
