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Hi Alexa, are you recording everything we say?

Amazon’s Alexa hit the shelves and people’s homes, the expectation was that we could speak to this device and it could provide us with answers to any question and could interact with us as humans.  Sales were intense for this product, and then Google Home come to the market with their product which grew the excitement event more thinking we could interact with Google now, without typing.

These products operate through voice issued commands, firstly indicate to the device that you want to interact with it, and second, issue the commands for the device to do something.  Pretty simple isn’t it.  A listening device in your house, listening to you for all those loud thoughts you may have.  Yes, a device with a microphone that is enabled full time waiting for its startup commands.

Well, those loud thoughts have turned into a nightmare for one family in the United States where a private conversation in the household got sent to one of their contacts configured in the Alexa device.  The conversation was reported to be on hardwood floors but imagine the impact that would arise if the conversation was a lot more controversial.

These devices are activated by calling out the name of the device “Alexa” or through another voice operated command that is programmed when the device is set up.  Once activated, the device waits for key commands to perform an operation such as tell you the weather, or order a book or anything else the device can do.  Being that the microphone is on full time, words that are not intended for the Alexa device could get interpreted as commands as what occurred with his US family.  The Alexa device cannot differentiate between commands and your standard conversation as they are not advanced enough.

If the devices cannot differentiate from ordinary human speech and the commands issued, what threat do they pose to our households and privacy?  In the story of the US family, the random message sent was about hardwood floors but what if the message was that of a derogatory nature or sensitive information is passed onto a contact.  Thinking more futuristic here, how do we know what software is being deployed to these devices when manufacturers are updating these devices and also, what would you do if your device started speaking to you.  There have been reports of Alexa randomly laughing, with a creepy laugh, that has forced owners of the device to unplug the device and not use it.

Some advice about deploying these devices

  • If you don’t need to deploy this device, then Don’t.  This advice is the easiest provided.  These devices are not as mature as they are made out to be and need more work to understand human talk.

  • If you need one of these devices, or want one as a lover of new technology, ensure you read the manuals and understand the devices function and operational commands before plugging it in.  Get to know how it operates, the commands and how you can configure it to get the best experience from the device.

  • In the event you configure a password for the device, do not use a password that you would use for critical sites on the Internet such as Internet banking, ATO etc.  This action is one step to trouble when these devices can start reading your banking balances to you.

  • Do not issue commands to these devices where you require access to electronic information that is considered sensitive.

Electronic devices are great, and these new devices are great and pose many uses for home networks and soon business networks once perfected.  Taking care using the device and ensure a secure configuration is applied to the device.  Good configuration and awareness of its usage can mean the difference between great and potentially harmful outcomes.

About the author

Thomas Jreige, Cyber security and technology expert

www.focuscybergroup.com

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