Would be fun to travel back in time to meet George Orwell and show him the new "Echo." "George, would you believe that not too long after 1984, people will pay $200 to have an eavesdropping device record everything they say, for storage in a corporate server?”
57 2014-11-12 by rabbits_dig_deep
26 comments
16 atinylittlemuon 2014-11-12
His response would probably be "The fuck is a server? And why is it being sold to me by a rainforest?"
4 [deleted] 2014-11-12
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1 shadowofashadow 2014-11-12
How does one measure a website against a forest? What are you comparing here?
12 macmac360 2014-11-12
"A person can be smart, people are dumb" - Kay from Men in Black
It never ceases to amaze me how people so willingly give up their privacy, even PAY money to give it up
12 DoctorMiracles 2014-11-12
One could say this monstrosity is just a tabletop version of the gizmo most of us already carry in our pockets...
3 larrylegendary 2014-11-12
It even has two cameras
10 OB1_kenobi 2014-11-12
Don't try and force it on them. Coercion generates resistance. Instead, portray your device as being desirable.... fashionable even. Make it expensive so that the consumers can brag to their friends about their latest purchase. Then, as time goes by... reduce price so that everyone can afford one.
Before long, there'll be one in every home.
6 rabbits_dig_deep 2014-11-12
Worked with cell phones. If you don't have one, or the latest one, you're seen as being a fuddy duddy.
But I like that I can take the battery out of mine (which is ancient).
5 MrToolBelt 2014-11-12
There are new phones you can remove the battery from: the best options IMO are the galaxy s phones, and several of the windows lumia phones :)
In terms of privacy, you're pretty screwed with w.e device you get. I personally am tech savvy and removed the bulk of the spyware off my gs5 (there was amazon, T-Mobile, samsung, and google software tracking things like text and calls installed by default). I'm sure there is some tracking software I missed, but I feel a little better knowing I got all those guys off my phone.
2 lacksfish 2014-11-12
CyanogenMod anyone?
2 MrToolBelt 2014-11-12
CyanogenMod is pretty awesome. I can't really put it on my phone yet though. It's missing some features I use a lot, namele: Wifi Calling, VoLTE, and the heart-rate monitor.
1 thickbanana 2014-11-12
How difficult was that to do?
1 MrToolBelt 2014-11-12
Not particularly. I rooted it and started uninstalling services. Where it gets tricky is if you accidently remove something important to the system. Then your phone won't boot and you need to reflash the ROM.
As long as you're careful it's fine, but I can't in good faith say "oh it's easy and not that risky" because if you do delete something critical, and you can't figure out how to reflash it, your kinda screwed. Plus this of course voids your warranty.
6 JamesColesPardon 2014-11-12
I am definitely getting one.
I am hooking it up to a new Amazon account.
I plan on taking deliberate steps to turn it "on" and talk about specific things and see how it influences how Amazon advertises things to me (that's why they do this... Right?)
Then I will make sure to talk about outrageous, crazy things while I know it is "off," and not listening, and then see if these other ridiculous products start to be advertised as well, proving my hypothesis that it is actually always listening, and then plan on suing for a billion dollars. Or something. Anyone want to get in on this class action?
I am also far too bored.
5 Ambiguously_Ironic 2014-11-12
Would be a good experiment for sure. If you do actually go through with something like that let me know your results, I'm curious.
1 [deleted] 2014-11-12
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2 JamesColesPardon 2014-11-12
I shall. I've taken half of December off of work so I can play with this idea (among others) a little more.
3 JediMasterSteveDave 2014-11-12
There was some research done in a country like Malaysia or something (I don't remember exactly where), that essentially was looking to see how understanding of the technology the users are.
The main question was two part:
"What do you use the internet for" and "What social media is your favorite" or something similar.
People pretty much came out saying they don't use the internet but only use Facebook. Meaning that when they check their mobile device and open the app, its not clicking that its an INTERNET application. They just see it as an 'app.'
This is pretty much the view of our leaders today - they don't understand it so they have someone tell them how it works. It just so happens that the person telling them is a high priced lobbyist for major telecommunications companies and the result is hardly in the consumers favor.
2 Geo-USA 2014-11-12
While the device opens the door to surveillance, 'no such agency' would only be interested in some households. Otherwise, that is a crazy amount of data.
A bigger question is what is the likelihood Amazon will watch for keywords and specific events for marketing to the home?
5 TPbandit 2014-11-12
This also assumes that we are aware of the most current technology. I'm willing to bet we are not.
2 rabbits_dig_deep 2014-11-12
There could be some Joe Sixpack, who installs it in his house today, still trusting the government. Ten years from now, he wakes up and becomes a dissident, but it's too late. Amazon (and hence, the NSA) already knows everything about him and his family.
3 Abroh 2014-11-12
They will know that he is a dissident before he himself knows it.
1 MrToolBelt 2014-11-12
That's the benefit of cross correlation in massive data sets. It's actually fascinating if used for good purposes, but who knows how this data will be used :(
2 MrToolBelt 2014-11-12
I'm going to bet 100% chance of that. That's why companies are pushing voice assistants so hard. The way this tech works (in many implantations) is that besides the key word to wake it up, all voice processing is done server side. There's no reason for them not to have a "word cloud" tied to your account so they can target you with ads.
1 spays_marine 2014-11-12
Why would they be interested in only some households? Have you spent the last 5 years in a cave? It's by their own admission that we know the purpose is to collect everything and look for "problems" later.
1 Geo-USA 2014-11-12
How did you know I live in a cave? Are you watching me?
1 brendeho 2014-11-12
forgot about cellphone tracking and paying for that privilege as well. =)
0 deus_lemmus 2014-11-12
George wouldn't understand what a server is, but yeah.