Upon reading the headline, I thought it was bad by all means, but I didn't expect there to be so much personally identifying information in there. I don't use any voice assistants, but I didn't...
Upon reading the headline, I thought it was bad by all means, but I didn't expect there to be so much personally identifying information in there. I don't use any voice assistants, but I didn't expect that much information to be in there. Some interesting quotes:
The shocking part of the story is how quickly the investigative reporters were able to identify the victim.
They were also able to hear the man in the shower while he was issuing certain commands. There were also alarms, Spotify commands, public transport and weather inquiries.
That's rather scary, but I thought it was still rather vague. Apparently not.
“Using these files, it was fairly easy to identify the person involved and his female companion; weather queries, first names, and even someone’s last name enabled us to quickly zero in on his circle of friends,” according to the report.
It's also not a one-off.
Earlier this year a family in Portland, Ore. said their Echo device recorded their conversation and sent it to a random person on their contact list.
I don't think this kind of data scrounging is a unique problem to home assistant devices though. As the article says, much of a person's information is readily available on social network sites,...
I don't think this kind of data scrounging is a unique problem to home assistant devices though. As the article says, much of a person's information is readily available on social network sites, and you could pretty easily find all of this same info using any number of starting points, not just voice recordings from an Echo.
Maybe so, but the last quote is kind of worrying. I might have nothing to hide, but there are definitely conversations I don't want going to certain people.
Maybe so, but the last quote is kind of worrying. I might have nothing to hide, but there are definitely conversations I don't want going to certain people.
Interesting, I would have assumed that a bugged automated process was the cause. I would obviously be livid if I were the victim of this mistake, but this doesn't change my outlook on home...
A spokesperson for the tech giant told us: “This was an unfortunate case of human error and an isolated incident."
Interesting, I would have assumed that a bugged automated process was the cause.
I would obviously be livid if I were the victim of this mistake, but this doesn't change my outlook on home assistant devices. I use my Google Home everyday for a variety of things, and I don't believe it to be any more scandalous than my smart phone, which contains and has access to A LOT more of my personal data than my Home does.
That's understandable. Frankly, I don't use voice assistants because if I need my phone to do something, I can navigate the GUI quite quickly, and also because I'll probably look like a nutter....
That's understandable. Frankly, I don't use voice assistants because if I need my phone to do something, I can navigate the GUI quite quickly, and also because I'll probably look like a nutter. Now that you bring it up, I'm actually kind of surprised the process isn't automated.
Upon reading the headline, I thought it was bad by all means, but I didn't expect there to be so much personally identifying information in there. I don't use any voice assistants, but I didn't expect that much information to be in there. Some interesting quotes:
That's rather scary, but I thought it was still rather vague. Apparently not.
It's also not a one-off.
I don't think this kind of data scrounging is a unique problem to home assistant devices though. As the article says, much of a person's information is readily available on social network sites, and you could pretty easily find all of this same info using any number of starting points, not just voice recordings from an Echo.
Maybe so, but the last quote is kind of worrying. I might have nothing to hide, but there are definitely conversations I don't want going to certain people.
Interesting, I would have assumed that a bugged automated process was the cause.
I would obviously be livid if I were the victim of this mistake, but this doesn't change my outlook on home assistant devices. I use my Google Home everyday for a variety of things, and I don't believe it to be any more scandalous than my smart phone, which contains and has access to A LOT more of my personal data than my Home does.
That's understandable. Frankly, I don't use voice assistants because if I need my phone to do something, I can navigate the GUI quite quickly, and also because I'll probably look like a nutter. Now that you bring it up, I'm actually kind of surprised the process isn't automated.