Comment on ‘Alexa, what do you know about us?’ What I discovered when I asked Amazon to tell me everything my family’s smart speaker had heard

tal@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• uberdroog@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I got several free from both google and amazon. My electric company gave me one too.

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  • FourWaveforms@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Why would they do that

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    • indomara@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Because we are the product…

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      • AtariDump@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Image

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    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      remember when Texas power turned off peoples heaters when they were freezing to death as Rafael Edward Cruz went on a tropical vacation?

      yeah, they did that because those people registered their smart thermostats with the company and gave them control to set the temperatures in their own damn homes.

      “smart” means, “you don’t own it”.

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      • FrederikNJS@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        That depends on the kind of “smart”.

        I have a bunch of IKEA “smart” light bulbs, but they are connected through a Sonoff USB Zigbee dongle. And all of it is controlled through the open-source zigbee2mqtt and home-assistant.

        No one, but myself and my family, have any control or ownership of any of those devices.

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      • NotJohnSmith@feddit.uk ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        In the UK, the take up of smart meters for electric and gas has been slow due go concerns that this would enable companies to do the same.

        It’s not a bad argument (haven’t paid, turn it off) but then if you’re struggling financially is it better not to be allowed to rack up further debt anyway?

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  • Damage@feddit.it ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    My parents’ ISP router has Alexa integrated into it

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    • uberdroog@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Gross.

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    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      whatthefuck

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• eleitl@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  60% of people in UK are certified morons. Slightly higher than I expected.

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• rottingleaf@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  What is the absofuckingworstly scariest thing about this is that I’ve personally read quite a few sci-fi books, like in half of them, like in any universe, such things were usually a Trojan horse by the threat of the week to exterminate the good guys, or at least Palpatine’s way of spying, or whatever.

  OK, Palpatine’s coolest microphone was decorative trees with skin changing colors depending on vibrations, and a very complex system of restoring the sounds from image, if I remember that correctly, in one X-Wing book.

  So how the hell does it happen that such things are presented in movies and books and series like a threat, and yet people buy them?

  I can believe in people loving touchscreens because touchscreens were unfortunately popularized in Star Trek and even, sigh, Star Wars prequels, and everything sci-fi.

  But this is something that was being recommended against in such media for decades.

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  • NoForwardslashS@sopuli.xyz ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    A Torment Nexus sounds cool

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• GreenKnight23@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I have three unopened google pucks that I received as gifts over the years.

  I had four, but I opened one to take apart to help identify if it was possible to hack it.

  at the time it was not. the only part that can be reused it the plastic shell.

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