A Sleeping Alexa Can Listen for More Than Just Its Name

I'm also not sure the article actually indicates what you're saying, it's kind-of vague. For example, it never states that anybody was able to actually program Alexa with a new wake-word, just the possibility of being able to create different signatures that could be used as wake-words. And the description of how they prevent things like the superbowl ad could all be done after Alexa detects the wake-word wakes up the main processor, but before Alexa actually responds to the user. I don't see anything in the article that indicates Alexa can't be using a separate chip dedicated to listening to the wake-word.

To that end, not to long ago a Reddit user claimed that Alexa did have two separate modes it operated in [0]. Which, it is entirely possible they could be lying, but you could always just open the thing up and take a look. But even if it does have a separate chip my previous point about the iPhone still applies, so besides power-usage I don't think it is extremely notable.

[0] https://np.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/7m91u9/if_go...

For me the most solid guarantee is the lack of a business case. Why risk the huge fallout of when this spying is inevitably uncovered when the profit to be had of listening in to people’s private conversations at scale is small. Individual private conversations might carry huge value, but discerning those from casual conversation at scale is next to impossible.

That's a pain electronically since the brightness of the LED would vary depending on the current drawn by the camera and/or microphone. In order to not blow the LED, the circuit may have to be set such that the LED wouldn't be bright enough to notice reliably when the camera is in a lower power (but still functioning) mode.

You could easily get what you actually want by putting an LED in parallel with the power supply to the camera and/or microphone though. Then the LED would maintain a fixed brightness but wouldn't be able to be switched off unless the power to the camera/microphone is cut.

Separately, it's possible to have unpowered microphones. I suspect laptop microphones are of the unpowered type (and amplified elsewhere). It's still quite possible to have a circuit which is hardwired to be incapable of passing the microphone signal without lighting an LED.

I'm just saying that your "in series" demand is unrealistic, and instead you should prescribe what you actually want rather than specifying an electronic circuit that can't necessarily achieve it.

My bluray player spends a lot of time fruitlessly searching for an internet connection when I put a bluray in it, and eventually it gives up and just plays the disk. I see no reason to connect it to the internet so it can spy on me.

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I can figure out where people are talking spatially.

I can figure out how people are moving around when speaking.

I can voiceprint people.

I can cancel voices individually, or mute all noise past a certain distance from the center of the mic array.

I can 3d map rooms by recording over time how people talk and how they move.

I can connect multiple nodes together to create wider areas of coverage of above.

I can convert all sounds to text if appropriate. I can send tiny messages that include voiceprint, position, and content.

I can tell how many people are in your house at any one time.

I can tell if you have friends over, and when. If they have similar system, can collaborate backend data across all of above

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So yeah, there's plenty of things people aren't thinking of. I doubt they even have the experience to know how possible it is with open source tooling and cheap hardware. But all of these things are possible, and my guess is being done.

The distinction with phones is hard. Apple has stayed within the "we support privacy" aspect. And with things like limeSDR being cheap and common, wouldn't be as hard to attack and prove. Android is tricky, but with some of the anti-crapware systems and basebuild efforts going on, can be considered possibly trustworthy (if edited).

And in general, phones move a lot. Amazon tunacan/tomatocan doesn't. Just add a $1 accelerometer, and detection of movement is trivial. Phones can have this, but doing the above would be a magnitude harder.

At the end of the day, you really can't trust anything completely, and the only real solution is to 1) trust Amazon (which doesn't seem like a great bet right now), or 2) don't own one.

I've thought about making my own open source version using something like Jarvis.

The "nothing to hide" arguments are irrelevant here -- people absolutely do have things to hide. This is where people seek advice about lawbreaking before they are ready or able to discuss with authorities. We can't have even the pretense that something could be listening in on these convos.

It's appropriate to blame the church for having the listening device.... but as technologists we know that off-the-shelf products don't give them much choice without technical proficiency/awareness to reconfigure the defaults.

Edit: and I think I interpreted your joke as you intended; no offense taken.