Intel Patent Addresses Privacy Issues with Voice Assistants

Intel wants to give you peace of mind when talking to your digital assistant.
The company filed a patent application for a “privacy preserving digital personal assistant.” Rather than sending your raw voice data to the cloud for processing, Intel’s tech encrypts that data to keep your personal information and identity from being shared in that environment.

“Existing digital personal assistant technologies force users to surrender the content of their voice commands to their digital personal assistance provider, and most actions of the available digital personal assistants are performed in the cloud,” Intel said in the filing. “This presents a large privacy and security concern that will only grow (over time) with increased adoption.” more

Woman Allegedly Hacked Ex’s Alexa to Scare off New Girlfriend

Double Feature!
An IoT Cautionary Tale...
A Crazy Ex Tale...

A jilted London woman allegedly hacked into her ex-boyfriend’s Amazon Alexa device and used it to scare off his new girlfriend, a report said.

Philippa Copleston-Warren, 45, was accused in a London court of using the virtual assistant to flash the lights inside her former boyfriend’s house on and off and tell his new sweetie to scram after he ended their relationship of two years, The Sun reported.

“The defendant spoke through the Alexa account to tell the complainant’s friend in the property to leave and to take her stuff,” prosecutor Misba Majid told Westminster Magistrates’ Court, according to the newspaper.

“This so distressed the girlfriend, it caused her to cry and she left.”

Copleston-Warren (inset), a management consultant, controlled the device from London, about 130 miles from her businessman ex-beau’s house in Lincolnshire, the paper reported.

She is also accused of hacking her ex’s Facebook account and uploading nude pictures of him. more

Spybuster Tip # 721: Learn how to adjust ALL the features of your digital assistant. This could have been prevented.

Digital Assistant Speakers Know More Than Just Their Names

As voice assistants like Google Assistant and Alexa increasingly make their way into internet of things devices, it’s becoming harder to track when audio recordings are sent to the cloud and who might gain access to them.

To spot transgressions, researchers at the University of Darmstadt, North Carolina State University, and the University of Paris Saclay developed LeakyPick, a platform that periodically probes microphone-equipped devices and monitors subsequent network traffic for patterns indicating audio transmission. 

They say LeakyPick identified “dozens” of words that accidentally trigger Amazon Echo speakers. more

More stories about Digital Assistant Speakers.

Think Your Smart Speaker is Spying On You... get Paranoid

(Note: As of this date the manufacturer is only accepting pre-orders. Gauging demand before going into production is not uncommon. The following is just an interesting bit of news; not a product endorsement. Also, it might be an April Fool's prank.) 

Their headline reads, "Blocks smart speakers from listening, while keep them voice-activated. Just say "Paranoid" before your usual commands." more

"How?" ...you may ask.

A. In one of three ways.

1. The BUTTON model begins with the mute button pressed.  When it hears you say, "Paranoid" it presses again, thus letting your next command to pass through. After your command is finished it re-mutes with another press.
2. The HOME model (it appears) uses ultrasound to block the speakers microphones. Click here to learn how ultrasound blocking works. The volume needed for this application is very low so it shouldn't be a health risk.
3. The MAX model requires you sending them your smart speaker so they can physically install their solution. People who use this option are not true paranoids. True privacy paranoids would be afraid the unit might come back, bugged!

With a Laser, Researchers Say They Can Hack Alexa and Other Assistants

Since voice-controlled digital assistants were introduced a few years ago, security experts have fretted that systems like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa were a privacy threat and could be easily hacked.

But the risk presented by a cleverly pointed light was probably not on anyone’s radar.

Researchers in Japan and at the University of Michigan said Monday that they had found a way to take over Google Home, Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri devices from hundreds of feet away by shining laser pointers, and even flashlights, at the devices’ microphones. more

Turning Amazon and Google Smart Speakers into Smart Spies

Researchers at Germany’s SRLabs found two hacking scenarios — eavesdropping and phishing — for both Amazon Alexa and Google Home/Nest devices. They created eight voice apps (Skills for Alexa and Actions for Google Home) to demonstrate the hacks that turns these smart speakers into smart spies. The malicious voice apps created by SRLabs easily passed through Amazon and Google’s individual screening processes...

For eavesdropping, the researchers used the same horoscope app for Amazon’s smart speaker. The app tricks the user into believing that it has been stopped while it silently listens in the background. more

Google Accused of Spying with New Tool

Google employees have accused their employer of creating a surveillance tool disguised as a calendar extension designed to monitor gatherings of more than 100 people, a signal that those employees may be planning protests or discussing union organizing. Google parent company Alphabet “categorically” denies the accusation. 

The accusation, outlined in a memo obtained by Bloomberg News, claims severe unethical conduct from high-ranking Google employees, who they say allegedly ordered a team to develop a Chrome browser extension that would be installed on all employee machines and used primarily to monitor internal employee activity.  

Employees are claiming the tool reports anyone who creates a calendar invite and sends it to more than 100 others, alleging that it is an attempt to crackdown on organizing and employee activism. more

Welcome to our home. Your visit may be recorded for no apparent reason. Would you like a glass of wine?

The privacy backlash against AI-powered digital assistants has just taken an interesting twist, with a senior exec from one of the core proponents of the technology admitting that he has his own privacy concerns over the tech.

Google hardware chief Rick Osterloh told the BBC that guests visiting a home where smart speakers are stored should be warned that their conversations might be overheard and recorded. more

The Peregrination of a Childhood Promise

Finally, another childhood fantasy becomes reality. Hard on the heals of wall screen TVs; Dick Tracy's wrist radio.

• The now iconic 2-way wrist radio premiered in 1946 and was replaced with a 2-way wrist TV in 1964.
• 1952 prototype wrist radio.
• 1960's wrist radio.
• Apple watch Walkie-Talkie.
• FutureWatch: A "Real" Dick Tracy wrist radio watch. (Bluetooth)
• Wrist radios on ebay.
• Wrist radios on Amazon.
• In June of 1954, the radio was upgraded to increase the range from 500 miles to 1,000 miles, then again in 1956 to 2,500 miles. 

Chester Gould’s idea of Tracy wearing something like this on his wrist in the comic strip was actually turned down by his employer because it was thought to be too much of a cheat, so-to-speak, an easy way out for the detective who had been written into a scene where he was held captive with no possible way of escaping from the criminals.

It was then that Gould decided to call an inventor he had met, Al Gross (pictured above).

Al Gross was a man way ahead of his time with inventions such as the walkie-talkie. When Gross was just 16 years old, he already had an amateur radio operator's license and had built a ham radio going on to invent the first telephone pager in 1949.

When Gould stopped by, Al Gross had just recently invented a two-way radio that people could wear on their wrists, just like a watch. Gould asked Gross if he could use his idea and that’s where Dick Tracy’s wrist watch radio came into being. Gould was so appreciative that as a Thank You, he gave Gross the first four panels of the cartoon where Tracy is seen wearing and using the soon-to-be infamous gadget. The device proved to be the exact answer for Dick Tracy to rescue himself from the seemingly impossible situation.

Still on my list...
  UPDATE - 8/27/19
Apple reportedly kills project to turn iPhone into 'walkie talkie'
Damn!

Amazon Alexa's New Dump the Human Eavesdropping Switch

Alexa users who don’t want their recordings reviewed by third-party contractors finally have an option to opt-out...

Unfortunately, Amazon has never made opting-out of data collection on its devices particularly easy, and this new policy doesn’t buck that trend.

According to Bloomberg, users need to dig into their settings menu, then navigate to “Alexa Privacy,” and finally tap “Manage How Your Data Improves Alexa” to see the following text: “With this setting on, your voice recordings may be used to develop new features and manually reviewed to help improve our services. Only an extremely small fraction of voice recordings are manually reviewed.” more

"Sooo, what are you wearing Mr. big, strong, Alexa man."

Tens of millions of people use smart speakers and their voice software to play games, find music or trawl for trivia. Millions more are reluctant to invite the devices and their powerful microphones into their homes out of concern that someone might be listening.

Sometimes, someone is.

Amazon.com Inc. employs thousands of people around the world to help improve the Alexa digital assistant powering its line of Echo speakers... more

Idea: Taunt them. "Sooo, what are you wearing Mr. big, strong, Alexa man."

"Alexa, what’s my neighbor doing?"

Alexa, what’s my neighbor doing? ‘Human error’ allows user to eavesdrop on stranger’s life.

A German Amazon customer was able to access hours of audio files from a stranger‘s Alexa device that included recordings of him in the shower thanks to a “mistake” by one of Amazon‘s human employees.

Amazon sent the customer a link that included 1,700 recordings of another man and his female companion when he asked to play back the recordings from his own Alexa voice assistant.

He reported the anomaly to Amazon, but the company did not immediately reply, except to delete the files. By then, he had already downloaded them. After weeks of no response from Amazon, the customer notified German trade c‘t, worried the company would just cover up the incident otherwise.

Using the information contained in the recordings, which included their first and last name, the name of their partner, where they lived – even audio of the person in the shower – c‘t was able to locate and the victim, who was... more

Yup, like I said two years ago. ~Kevin

Amazon Echo/ Google Home/ HomePod spying on you? Fight Back!

The recent incident of a smart speaker secretly recording a couple’s conversation and sending it to one of their contacts has implanted a seed of doubt in every smart speaker’s user. 

While manufacturers assure their customers of protecting their privacy, it often gets tough to believe in their claims.

Following some simple steps can ensure you aren’t spied by your smart speaker.

• Mute the microphone/camera when not needed...
• Turn up the volume to the max...
• Keep it disconnected from the Wi-Fi...
• Don’t give access to contacts...
• Turn off calling and messaging...
• Lastly, don’t buy one, if you are suspicious... more

Need some smartphone security tips?
Check here.

In other news...
Facebook is now delaying the release of its smart speaker, based on widespread fears of eavesdropping and unauthorized audio recording. Those fears appeared in a recent focus group conducted by the social network... or, Because There’s No Way In Hell Any Sane Person Is Buying That Right Now. more

Alexa - Busted for Eavesdropping

A Portland family contacted Amazon to investigate after they say a private conversation in their home was recorded by Amazon's Alexa -- the voice-controlled smart speaker -- and that the recorded audio was sent to the phone of a random person in Seattle, who was in the family’s contact list.


"My husband and I would joke and say I'd bet these devices are listening to what we're saying," said Danielle, who did not want us to use her last name.

Every room in her family home was wired with the Amazon devices to control her home's heat, lights and security system.

But Danielle said two weeks ago their love for Alexa changed with an alarming phone call. "The person on the other line said, 'unplug your Alexa devices right now,'" she said. "'You're being hacked.'"

That person was one of her husband's employees, calling from Seattle.

"We unplugged all of them and he proceeded to tell us that he had received audio files of recordings from inside our house," she said. "At first, my husband was, like, 'no you didn't!' And the (recipient of the message) said 'You sat there talking about hardwood floors.' And we said, 'oh gosh, you really did hear us.'" more

Hidden Smart Device Commands: Manchurian Candidate, or "Yes, master."

Many people have grown accustomed to talking to their smart devices, asking them to read a text, play a song or set an alarm. But someone else might be secretly talking to them, too.

Over the past two years, researchers in China and the United States have begun demonstrating that they can send hidden commands that are undetectable to the human ear to Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant.

Inside university labs, the researchers have been able to secretly activate the artificial intelligence systems on smartphones and smart speakers, making them dial phone numbers or open websites.  

In the wrong hands, the technology could be used to unlock doors, wire money or buy stuff online — simply with music playing over the radio. more

Audio Adversarial Examples: Targeted Attacks on Speech-to-Text

We construct targeted audio adversarial examples on automatic speech recognition. 

Given any audio waveform, we can produce another that is over 99.9% similar, but transcribes as any phrase we choose (recognizing up to 50 characters per second of audio).

We apply our white-box iterative optimization-based attack to Mozilla’s implementation DeepSpeech end-to-end, and show it has a 100% success rate.

The feasibility of this attack introduces a new domain to study adversarial examples. more audio examples

From one of our Blue Blaze irregulars... "Audio Adversarialism is the practice of fooling voice-to-text and voice recognition systems by effectively embedding ‘hidden’ commands in audio files which are inaudible to human ears but which are picked up by speakers and mean, in theory, that we might hear the telly saying “Should have gone to Specsavers!” where instead our Amazon Echo is in fact hearing “Alexa, lock all the doors, turn on the gas and start sparking all the bogs in 00:59, 00:58…”. This is...not scary at all, oh no. Hi Siri! Hi Alexa!"

Digital Assistants: The Eavesdropping Attacks Begin

It's important not to overstate the security risks of the Amazon Echo and other so-called smart speakers. They're useful, fun, and generally have well thought-out privacy protections.

Then again, putting a mic in your home naturally invites questions over whether it can be used for eavesdropping—which is why researchers at the security firm Checkmarx started fiddling with Alexa, to see if they could turn it into a spy device. They did, with no intensive meddling required.

The attack, which Amazon has since fixed, follows the intended flow of using and programming an Echo. Because an Echo's mic only activates to send sound over the internet when someone says a wake word—usually "Alexa"— the researchers looked to see if they could piggyback on one of those legitimate reactions to listen in. A few clever manipulations later, they'd achieved their goal...

There are clear limitations to this eavesdropping approach. It would only have given attackers transcriptions, not audio recordings, of a target's conversations. more

Our advice to clients, "Keep these things out of offices and conference rooms where confidential discussions are held." ~Kevin

Are Google and Amazon Patently Eavesdropping?

Patent applications from Amazon and Google revealed how their Alexa and Voice Assistant powered smart speakers are 'spying' on you.
The findings were published in a report created by Santa Monica, California based advocacy group Consumer Watchdog.

The study warns of an Orwellian future in which the gadgets eavesdrop on everything from confidential conversations to your toilet flushing habits...

The study found that digital assistants can be 'awake' even when users think they aren't listening...

In fact, the devices listen all the time they are turned on – and Amazon has envisioned Alexa using that information to build profiles on anyone in the room to sell them goods. more