Everything You Say To Your Echo Will Be Sent To Amazon Starting On March 28 (arstechnica.com) 41
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In an email sent to customers today, Amazon said that Echo users will no longer be able to set their devices to process Alexa requests locally and, therefore, avoid sending voice recordings to Amazon's cloud. Amazon apparently sent the email to users with "Do Not Send Voice Recordings" enabled on their Echo. Starting on March 28, recordings of everything spoken to the Alexa living in Echo speakers and smart displays will automatically be sent to Amazon and processed in the cloud.
Attempting to rationalize the change, Amazon's email said: "As we continue to expand Alexa's capabilities with generative AI features that rely on the processing power of Amazon's secure cloud, we have decided to no longer support this feature." One of the most marketed features of Alexa+ is its more advanced ability to recognize who is speaking to it, a feature known as Alexa Voice ID. To accommodate this feature, Amazon is eliminating a privacy-focused capability for all Echo users, even those who aren't interested in the subscription-based version of Alexa or want to use Alexa+ but not its ability to recognize different voices.
[...] Amazon said in its email today that by default, it will delete recordings of users' Alexa requests after processing. However, anyone with their Echo device set to "Don't save recordings" will see their already-purchased devices' Voice ID feature bricked. Voice ID enables Alexa to do things like share user-specified calendar events, reminders, music, and more. Previously, Amazon has said that "if you choose not to save any voice recordings, Voice ID may not work." As of March 28, broken Voice ID is a guarantee for people who don't let Amazon store their voice recordings. Amazon's email continues: "Alexa voice requests are always encrypted in transit to Amazon's secure cloud, which was designed with layers of security protections to keep customer information safe. Customers can continue to choose from a robust set of controls by visiting the Alexa Privacy dashboard online or navigating to More - Alexa Privacy in the Alexa app."
Further reading: Google's Gemini AI Can Now See Your Search History
Attempting to rationalize the change, Amazon's email said: "As we continue to expand Alexa's capabilities with generative AI features that rely on the processing power of Amazon's secure cloud, we have decided to no longer support this feature." One of the most marketed features of Alexa+ is its more advanced ability to recognize who is speaking to it, a feature known as Alexa Voice ID. To accommodate this feature, Amazon is eliminating a privacy-focused capability for all Echo users, even those who aren't interested in the subscription-based version of Alexa or want to use Alexa+ but not its ability to recognize different voices.
[...] Amazon said in its email today that by default, it will delete recordings of users' Alexa requests after processing. However, anyone with their Echo device set to "Don't save recordings" will see their already-purchased devices' Voice ID feature bricked. Voice ID enables Alexa to do things like share user-specified calendar events, reminders, music, and more. Previously, Amazon has said that "if you choose not to save any voice recordings, Voice ID may not work." As of March 28, broken Voice ID is a guarantee for people who don't let Amazon store their voice recordings. Amazon's email continues: "Alexa voice requests are always encrypted in transit to Amazon's secure cloud, which was designed with layers of security protections to keep customer information safe. Customers can continue to choose from a robust set of controls by visiting the Alexa Privacy dashboard online or navigating to More - Alexa Privacy in the Alexa app."
Further reading: Google's Gemini AI Can Now See Your Search History
Bezos Sees All!!!- (Score:5, Funny)
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Bezos KNOWS All! Bezos knows when you poop!!!
Yes, Yes, YES you cannot shut off the one in your bedroom.
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Cool! I hope Bezos likes IBSers like me! ;P
Feature Bricking? (Score:2)
Did I miss a memo? Since when do we talk about a feature being bricked but not a device?
I don't like it. Take it away.
Understandable, I think. (Score:2)
I think it's somewhat understandable. The processing power of those devices is just inadequate for local only use.
Could they split the functionality between different groups of devices? Sure, but that's more fractured development and support, which translates to higher costs. The decision makes sense even though I totally understand that many people will be pissed off. I would be If I were them.
Having said all that, I never felt that I could trust these devices and always assumed that all audio went to the
Re:Understandable, I think. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really. There are people who were satisfied with what Echo could do without sending anything to Amazon and don'ty want the new features enough to let Big Brother in the house. There is no reason a device that worked like that yesterday shouldn't be able to continue working like that today.
This is just the neighborhood peeper somehow getting the HOA to ban curtains and blinds.
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I already addressed that aspect. It's more trouble and higher cost to have multiple branches, or tiers, of devices and workflows. I totally understand where you're coming from. I've been pissed off by seeming unnecessary removal of features on other devices. But, I understand the reason in this case, even if it is self-serving for them.
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On the other hand, they could just leave those devices at the last good firmware and stick that branch in the archive.
Re:Understandable, I think. (Score:4, Insightful)
I already addressed that aspect. It's more trouble and higher cost to have multiple branches, or tiers, of devices and workflows. I totally understand where you're coming from. I've been pissed off by seeming unnecessary removal of features on other devices. But, I understand the reason in this case, even if it is self-serving for them.
It's more trouble and higher cost to include AI features. Amazon is not incurring those costs for no reason. They want those features so they can ingest every spoken word. You are now helping train their LLMs. More.
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It's more trouble and higher cost to have multiple branches, or tiers, of devices and workflows.
Used to work on accounting software that was able to be customized. The process was to use a code branch decision point shoved into the workflow. The system had a API to load code branch enable triggers (eg: the custom software was A. Paid and B. Desired).
That was for doing code execution. For doing things like custom reports, it was GL codes to control action.
There is some higher cost to maintain the code base but it's not really that high. In a case like this, simply add decision points at the start of a
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I used to be satisfied with what Echo could do, but the service has deteriorated significantly during the past few years, becoming another victim of enshittification.
can I set it on a forbidden loop (Score:3)
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Putin has a large number of suitable speeches.
Even better, play Kamala Harris speeches. The word salad will destroy the AI in short order. Alternate with W ( Bush 2) speeches for faster effect.
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It's like 7up and nuns... (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Ha ha ha... privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
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Rejoice that there is no law requiring you to have Alexa or similar in your house.
There is also no law requiring you to have a cell phone with you at all times, though many people don't seem to realize this.
Re: Ha ha ha... privacy (Score:2)
Don't worry, only the members of the Outer Party are obliged to have telescreens in their homes that can't be turned off. Proles don't need to have telescreens.
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Just like there's no law requiring you to have a car, but good luck living in most of the country without one.
And for you EV owners, good luck charging your car without a smart phone with an active data plan. Most chargers require you to connect or pay through an app. Also failed an extended trip when my data plan filled up earlier than expected.
"There's no law" isn't too meaningful if most needed services are designed around the assumption that you have some common, but not required, things.
Therapy (Score:5, Funny)
So if I play an NPR radio station during the AM and a FOX station during the PM to an Echo, what kind of therapy ads would start to show up customized for me on the Washington Post site?
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So if I play an NPR radio station during the AM and a FOX station during the PM to an Echo, what kind of therapy ads would start to show up customized for me on the Washington Post site?
Grindr ads
Would that make Amazon a copyright infringer? (Score:3)
Dunno on the cross-selling therapy question, but your question raises another issue. If Amazon is keeping copies of everything it hears, and Echo overhears NPR and Fox audio and stores it without formal permission on its servers, what are the legal consequences for Amazon? Or would the Echo customer be considered the infringer (even though the recording was done by Amazon for financial gain by Amazon including by altering the terms of agreement with customers after the device was purchased)?
Maybe this is so
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The criminal statutes aren't what apply in cases like this. However, the non-criminal liability can still be impressively bad.
Let me correct this! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, my immediate thought was "Everything You Say *Near* Your Echo..."
Alexa go fuck you self! (Score:2)
Alexa go fuck you self!
Excellent! (Score:2)
might be time to bail (Score:2)
While I find it convenient to be able to find out the weather forecast, stream some music, etc on occasion, I think it's now time to just bounce these devices from my home. They're also repeaters for extending zigbee signals for my "smart home" which uses a local processing home assistant instance so I'll need to find a replacement for that functionality.
Seeya Echo.....
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For voice, Home Assistant has a voice device in preview [home-assistant.io] that's all local. Arstechnica did a review of it. [arstechnica.com]
Feeling happy today? - Read Slashdot for the cure. (Score:4, Insightful)
It used to be that personal, digital, and computer technologies were fun, exiting, anticipated. People were excited by new devices and gadgets, new paradigms of doing common tasks with greater ease or functionality.
Bit by bit, that has switched. Almost every post on Slashdot these days seems to be about the pernicious and nefarious abuse of users and public by technology. Many might say "not the technology, the tech companies", which is true at face value, but the tech comes to users via the companies that make and control it. Of course, users could boycott the proprietary tech from the dark companies - after all, public domain and FOSS products are wonderful. Well, they are in principle, but mainly popular in nerd circles. The average person still doesn't know how about them or how to access and use them. Otherwise, Firefox would have 90% market share, Chrome 2%.
"The Dark Web" is no longer crime syndicates, terrorists, human traffickers, and the like. It is Google, Amazon, Meta, MS, and the like. As they have the resources to develop and market their products, which FOSS projects hardly do, those bad guys win. Of course, does anybody really need Siri or Alexa, or Cortana (or whatever they call it now), or any of the coming AI Tom, Dick, and Harry Balls products soon to be deployed. I see no real value in them, don't buy or use those products, and never feel I am missing anything (I am heavily fomo immunized). So, boycott the bastards.
Maybe the Slashdot admins could have a quota on the number of bad news male-you-angry, make-you-feel-like-shit, make-you-feel-sorry-for-society posts in a 24 hour period. There might not be much left to post, but your grandma's apple pie recipe would be welcome.
Yes but also "The Optimism of Uncertainty" (Score:4, Insightful)
Sigh, too true. Several years back I saw a slashdot comment on how there were so many hopes decades ago for technology to liberate people (especially with the personal microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, and also hopes for Asimov-style household robots), but now computer technology is used so much to monitor and control people (and make people into robots). I'm still trying to be optimistic in the long-term given various trends and groups (e.g. Mastodon, Matrix, RepRap, widespread FOSS development and use including the Linux kernel, improved web standards, Wikipedia, FarmBot, FSF/GNU, WordPress, the Internet Archive, the Center for Humane Technology, and many many other projects) -- but on days with news like this it is admittedly much harder to be hopeful than on some other with different news.
Even this simple web page some put up that I have been using for years to remove special characters from pasted text in Slashdot posts gives me hope and I am thankful that someone made it and keeps it up:
https://dan.hersam.com/tools/s... [hersam.com]
Or "The World Transformed" produced as essentially a labor of love by two friends and many other participants for more than a decade (even if they have since gone on to other things):
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/... [apple.com]
"A convergence of emerging technologies and emerging possibilities is at the heart of this, the greatest period of transformation in human history. Our world is changing in ways that are hard to predict...sometimes even hard to imagine. The World Transformed is your guide to an astounding future that lies ahead -- and that will be here sooner than you think!"
On Firefox specifically, while Mozilla has done many good things, Mozilla also created its own technical disaster with Firefox (which could be a long discussion in itself). They also created their own financial disaster leading to them defending against Google's breakup by the DOJ -- including by Mozilla not just putting all the Google revenues for the default search engine into an endowment and paying developers with some of the dividends/interest. If they had done that, Mozilla would have become an endless source of FOSS for decades to come instead of now being presumably broke if the DOJ breaks up Google from Chrome. Related: "Mozilla Warns DOJ's Google Remedies Risk 'Death of Open Web' "
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Sadly, if all that was not bad enough, it seems like the Web itself is only going to get worse near-term from AI: ..."
https://maggieappleton.com/ai-... [maggieappleton.com]
https://maggieappleton.com/for... [maggieappleton.com]
"The dark forest theory of the web points to the increasingly life-like but life-less state of being online. Most open and publicly available spaces on the web are overrun with bots, advertisers, trolls, data scrapers, clickbait, keyword-stuffing "content creators," and algorithmically manipulated junk.
It's like a dark forest that seems eerily devoid of human life - all the living creatures are hidden beneath the ground or up in trees. If they reveal themselves, they risk being attacked by automated predators.
Humans who want to engage in informal, unoptimised, personal interactions have to hide in closed spaces like invite-only Slack channels, Discord groups, email newsletters, small-scale blogs, and digital gardens. Or make themselves illegible and algorithmically incoherent in public venues.
That dark forest is about to expand. Large Language Models (LLMs) that can instantly generate coherent swaths of human-like text have just joined the party.
Anyway, I am still trying t
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Wow ! Superlative comment. Thanks.
He knows when you are sleeping... (Score:2)
I am altering the deal. (Score:3)
Pray I don't alter it any further by bricking your device.
I would like to slap anyone and everyone who is surprised by this move, because folks who are stupid enough to buy into this kind of shit are why we can't have nice things. When a significant number of people bend over and spread'em voluntarily, the rest of us are more vulnerable to being bent over by force.
Just say "No!" to oligarchs promising you convenience for a low low monthly fee, because they're going to screw you every single time - and then they'll use the precedent and the momentum and the profit they've gained from you to screw your less-submissive neighbours as well.
Generative AI features (Score:2)
Oh? (Score:2)
which was designed with layers of security protections to keep customer information safe.
Agent: "Hi. Here's an NSA letter. I want all the voice recordings for (list of 10,000 people).
Amazon: Delivery or Amazon Locker?
Why I never bought one to start with.... (Score:2)
Echo (Score:2)
The truth is in the product name .