this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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If Alexa, Cortana and Siri aren't always listening, how can they pick their names out of conversations?
Want an honest answer?
Onboard are >=2 bits of code. At least one of those is a specific system trained to recognize a "wake word". This specific system (ostensibly) doesn't send anything to an outside party. Its entire job is to recognize one wake phrase: Alexa, Ok Google, or Siri, and then if that wake phrase is used it responds and tells the second system to listen. As you can imagine, this is a pretty easy job to get right 80% of the time. So that can be put on a chip. So then it does its job, and it's the second system that sends everything to an internet service for whatever reason.
I didn't ask for honesty!
I'd love to have this properly audited sometime. I'd slap like to think that we're generally protected from big companies doing unethical and unjust things to us, by law, ... but nah
(That's not to say I don't believe this explanation; the second half of my comment was just an addendum.)
Nah, they're always listening, what you described is just a placebo button.
why is this downvoted? you cant prove its not, if its proprietry. and since the companies listening just happen to profit off data collection (and break/bend the law often), its safe to assume they do this.
Because you can prove it by monitoring network requests with a packet sniffer, which has been done.
Interesting. I haven’t seen this myself but it wouldn’t really surprise me.
It's a standard tactic for people who do networking things
Yeah. I work in that general field but not at the user level like that so never got into packet sniffing. Now’s as good a time as ever eh?
Probably bots controlled by people hired by the companies that spy on us through those things.
There are actually 2 processors in the devices. 1 that constantly listens for a keyword, Al la, Alexa, Hey Google. When it hears it it quickly spins up another "computer" that then sends your voice back and forth to the servers for processing and response. It's part of the reason that the listen word isn't easily customized.
It still stores the name triggers, even incorrect matches (last I checked, which was years back).
The recordings can be played back from account history.
The one time I looked at some random, it was mostly snippets of my conversations with friends.
Creepy.
the makers of these things always say that, but I guarantee that long winded explanation is bullshit. Maybe there's even hardware in there that does those things, but even so, they're always listening, recording and submitting everything you say to their maker. Primarily for targeted ads and targeted content of other sorts...but also to snitch on you if the cops accuse you of something.
On top of what the other person said, they are always listening. Amazon has provided audio from Alexa for the police
While the device was muted?
They are "listening", they're just not communicating with their home servers. The wake-up words are processed locally. I mean they have to be.
"Mute" is really a terrible way to describe this switch and breeds distrust. It should just be a WiFi switch or something.
Bullshit. I'm never going to buy one of those and if someone gifts one to me I'm bashing it with a hammer until it's in pieces.
I mean that's fair but it doesn't make what I said "bullshit"