Every smart phone ever can do this. You have no way to verify the mic isn't in use, you have no way to verify cellular data transmission is not taking place, and you have no way to know the modem is not doing a remote execution injection to change whatever aftermarket free software OS you have running on the device is doing.
No, it means that you're sitting in your house without a roof, and saying "I would never forget to close my windows during a rainstorm." Never mind the rain is pouring through your roof.
You're seriously willing to carry smartphones, which have both microphones and cameras, and give no indication visible or otherwise, of when they are listening or recording or sending data, and run whatever dodgy code some asian device manufacturer wanted it to run, but you won't trust a device made by Amazon that people have run wireshark captures against and lights up with big blue LEDs whenever it is listening.
In defense of the downvotes (albeit its bad manners whoever is downvoting you), camera / mic LEDs are nonsense. They are all software controlled, and the control software is almost always proprietary, and thus you cannot trust those either.
Additionally, I'm pretty sure the Amazon Echo is just rebranded third party mic / soc boards put together by Amazon. It is still "asian device manufacturer" firmware.
> No, it means that you're sitting in your house without a roof, and saying "I would never forget to close my windows during a rainstorm." Never mind the rain is pouring through your roof.
I don't disagree. If there was a legitimate alternative, I would use that, but there isn't. I do everything I can to make sure it runs as much FOSS as it can.
> Reality called - it wants the tinfoil hat back.
How can you claim that attitude? You just admitted we have 2 giant vectors for attack/compromise, then dismiss them without any reasoning?
His point is that no one is concerned about the always on hot mic in their pockets, but it's the only thing people talk about with the Echo. Why aren't people claiming that everything you say is recorded on your iPhone or android phone? Or that it's all sent to apple/google? Yet they feel justified in claiming that of the Echo?
> Why aren't people claiming that everything you say is recorded on your iPhone or android phone? Or that it's all sent to apple/google?
uh... there's tons of people complaining about that all the time. I don't know about you, but that's a constant criticism of both companies that I see.
I've seen it, but not every time there's a discussion about Android or iOS. Maybe it's just because the always on mic is the sole feature of the Echo, while it's just a feature for phones. That said I feel like a lot of people do criticize the Echo while not realizing the phone in their pocket is capable of the same thing. Especially people saying they wouldn't buy an Echo or put one in their house because of privacy concerns, while they surely have an iOS or Android device on their person.
