Alexa is always listening

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

So Ann and I were watching a Tyler Perry movie last night.

In the opening scene Danica is getting ready for work and her morning routine is to get dressed to music. On this particular morning she asked Alexa to play:

 

 

No sooner had she asked Alexa to play the song, OUR OWN Alexa played the song. Both the TV and our Alexa were synchronized!

We couldn't stop laughing. 

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

I will NEVER have one of those in my house.

[Ozark Huckleberry]

Would a government that has enlisted the assistance of social network companies, and pushed financial institutions into broad surveillance and reporting of private bank transactions, even flinch at surveilling home digital assistants?

[Chantry]

28 minutes ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

I will NEVER have one of those in my house.

 

Might want to check some of your remote controls and make sure they don't have microphones on them.  The one remote that did have it (Amazon) I taped over the microphone.  The same for computers with cameras and/or microphones.

 

Remember, the microwave is always watching and listening to you!  

[Gracos Kid]

My wife and I can be walking our dog and having a conversation and SIRI on my I-Phone starts asking questions or commenting about our conversation.   Nothing had been opened on my phone, just on.     Makes one wonder just how much privacy we actually have.    Bet she's heard some blistering words from me on occasion.......

[Pat Riot]

My daughter and son-in-law bought us an Alexa puck. Echo Dot?
After receiving this I heard all these stories of how “Alexa” would make errors or butt into conversations. I am not a fan of AI interaction or having an uncontrolled listening device in my home so we plugged it in once. I set it up and messed with it. It was entertainment for a rainy afternoon. 
That evening we heard “I didn’t quite catch that. Would you repeat that for me?” or something similar. We were in the kitchen. Alexa was in the living room. Alexa was unplugged and that was the end of that. 
 

[watab kid]

i dont like the idea of a listening device in the house , bad enough the computer is tracking what you look at , 

[PowderRiverCowboy]

DARPA thanks you  for  adding yourself to a watch list

[bgavin]

When #2 daughter and grand daughters were away on vacation, we had cat feeding duty.
While opening the front door, I was telling my bride some ideas I had for our next Date Night.

Then, lo and behold, #2 daughter starts talking to us through the Ring doorbell.

It has both audio and video capabilities.
#2 has no illusions about how she came to be in the world, plus being an R.N. for twenty years, so she got a good laugh.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

2 hours ago, Chantry said:

 

Might want to check some of your remote controls and make sure they don't have microphones on them.  The one remote that did have it (Amazon) I taped over the microphone.  The same for computers with cameras and/or microphones.

 

Remember, the microwave is always watching and listening to you!  

The only remote that has a microphone is the Cable remote, and it requires that one pushes a button. Then push it again because it never seems to work on the first push. My desktop doesn't have any communication capabilities, and I hardly ever use my laptop, which has the camera taped over. 

And all my appliances are "dumb" appliances. Intentionally so. 

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

4 hours ago, Pat Riot said:

My daughter and son-in-law bought us an Alexa puck. Echo Dot?
After receiving this I heard all these stories of how “Alexa” would make errors or butt into conversations. I am not a fan of AI interaction or having an uncontrolled listening device in my home so we plugged it in once. I set it up and messed with it. It was entertainment for a rainy afternoon. 
That evening we heard “I didn’t quite catch that. Would you repeat that for me?” or something similar. We were in the kitchen. Alexa was in the living room. Alexa was unplugged and that was the end of that. 
 

My son gave us one and and we had the same experience. That's when I threw it out.

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

5 hours ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

I will NEVER have one of those in my house.

 

 I don't have the desire neither  

[Pat Riot]

My daughter and SIL use it to turn lights off and on. Turn on music. It’s connected to their security cameras and communicates with them when something is detected on the cameras. 
Of course they had to buy special Bluetooth plug adapters and such for the Echo Dot to interact with everything. 
In one sense it’s kind of cool but in another sense it’s just creepy. 
 

I guess I read and watched too much Sci-Fi growing up and I am perfectly fine turning on my own lights and what not. 
 

EDIT:

Oh, I forgot. Their appliances are tied into it as well. I had a heckuva time getting their coffee maker to work. 

[ShadowCatcher]

[Mossy Horn Gent]

29 minutes ago, ShadowCatcher said:

The same to Alexa!

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

5 hours ago, Pat Riot said:

My daughter and SIL use it to turn lights off and on. Turn on music. It’s connected to their security cameras and communicates with them when something is detected on the cameras. 
Of course they had to buy special Bluetooth plug adapters and such for the Echo Dot to interact with everything. 
In one sense it’s kind of cool but in another sense it’s just creepy. 
 

I guess I read and watched too much Sci-Fi growing up and I am perfectly fine turning on my own lights and what not. 
 

EDIT:

Oh, I forgot. Their appliances are tied into it as well. I had a heckuva time getting their coffee maker to work. 

My son and wife do this too. Both are fitness freaks, so I don’t understand why they can’t get up and flip a switch 10 feet away.

[T.K.]

Your cellphone listens in on your conversations as well

 My daughter didn't believe me so we did a little test. We set our phones in front of us and started talking about baseball gloves

 And sure enough we started seeing pop up ads advertising baseball gloves in text messages and ads on our browsers.

[bgavin]

Years ago I wrote a program to control a series of home controllers to control lights and appliances.  It required an adapter that communicated over the power lines similar to power line Ethernet does today.

 

this is viable today because it is not attached to the internet so it can’t be hacked.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

1 hour ago, T.K. said:

Your cellphone listens in on your conversations as well

 My daughter didn't believe me so we did a little test. We set our phones in front of us and started talking about baseball gloves

 And sure enough we started seeing pop up ads advertising baseball gloves in text messages and ads on our browsers.

Since my phone is a flip phone, I don't have this concern.

[bgavin]

You are on the internet posting the message above mine.
They are listening and recording.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

2 hours ago, bgavin said:

You are on the internet posting the message above mine.
They are listening and recording.

They may be watching, but they aren't able to hear everything. Besides, I'm sure that I'm already on The Lists.

[bgavin]

Ring doorbells, TVs, Alexa home devices and Smart Phones all have mics built in.

If one could become a fly on the wall at NSA, I think one would be appalled at the breadth of surveillance capabilities.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

2 minutes ago, bgavin said:

Ring doorbells, TVs, Alexa home devices and Smart Phones all have mics built in.

If one could become a fly on the wall at NSA, I think one would be appalled at the breadth of surveillance capabilities.

That's why the smartest "device" in the house is my Wife. No Ring doorbell, no smart appliances or TV, the aforementioned flip phone. Windows 10 desktop without a mic of camera.

I don't think that I'm paranoid, but if They ARE out to get me, I'm making it as hard as possible.

[bgavin]

My Navy daughter worked in the classified terrorism arena.
She says they know everything there is to know about you already.

If you access anything with your computer, they know about it.
Anything at all.
That is why when you look at a garbage disposal at Lowes.Com you get an ad for the same from Fox news.

One would have to become a total Luddite to go "off grid" and that would not remove what has already been collected.

 

"The only winning move is to not play"
-Joshua, War Games, 1983