Alexa listened to a couple's conversation and sent it to the husband's employee without permission

I won’t even need a speaker! I’m just gonna hide voice commands in my YouTube videos!

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Perhaps Alexa could read it aloud to them?

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Haha! I was thinking that too but I don’t believe that would solve the attention span issue.

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How does that even happen? My first thought was not so subtle attempt at swingers trying to convince female employee to join them… but unless hardwood floors is code for something I guess it’s what was described.

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You’re absolutely right. There’s no reason to be paranoid these days. Nothing to see here - move along!

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I’m hoping that speaking sql injection becomes a thing

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I can assure you that this is possible. It ‘Almost’ happened to wife and I. We were talking about some random stuff when suddenly Alexa blurts out something along lines 'Ok,. You want me to send message to ". We both started to shout No, Noooo when it said ‘Ok. Sending message’ but fortunately then got network error so it aborted !!

We were not talking about the contact and conversation was bland but still, close.

Edit: We have another in room close by so it’s possible that this could happen and might not realize since that one may hear us but we may not hear it responding.

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You’re both the best person and worst person at the same time.

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Is one of the advertised Alexa features to send voice messages as audio files via email to people? I suppose one way that could be avoided is to force some setting so that you issue an affirmative confirmation before sending anything to anyone.

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Yes. You can send audio messages to people in your contacts.You do have to confirm but if it mis-hears it may send it thinking you said yes, also as I said if you hav multiple devices one in another room may be responding and decide to send it.

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“Hey Michael I really can’t stand your mother, you know when she sends these messages, to your sister

“Well yes, I agree those messages are an issue”

edit: brings to mind Heinlein’s novel The Number of the Beast which featured a voice driven AI which was hooked up to a machine which could teleport, with potentially fatal consequences.

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What a nightmare. There’s no way I could use this.

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there are thousands of books and thousands of ways the human race is doomed, so if you could give us a heads up on which one to focus on that would be great!

This will likely be my Darwin/Dunning Kruger moment, but I’m comfortable guessing Alexa is not going to be my downfall.

People make a choice about buying a voice assistant. Things like a giant meteor hurtling towards earth are rather less in our control. :slight_smile:

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  1. It’s actually a book.
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Fatal? Don’t you dare talk about Dora that way, she’d never hurt a fly.

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Totally agree with you yet here I am…

Thanks for the Christmas gift, sis!

FWIW it only gets plugged in for jeopardy or music while I’m washing dishes. And stuff is piled in front of it so the camera never gets a peek.

Yeah, sort of like how I use WiFi or my mobile phone. But I guess we’re the minority amongst all those thoughtless adopters of new tech.

“Gay Deceiver, bounce, bounce, bounce!”

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