I do. And I recognize the hypocrisy of that. I think the difference for me is that my phone isn't a permanent fixture in my house - it's not explicitly a surveillance device. Echo/Home are explicitly audio surveillance devices, though ostensibly benevolent in their design. I can stick my phone in a Faraday bag easily enough if I want to.
I guess what it comes down to is that while I recognize that I sacrifice a measure of potential for privacy with my phone, I judge the benefits to be worth it. I can't say the same for Echo/Home, and it somehow feels qualitatively different in that phones aren't designed to be always-on microphones constantly processing audio to send it off to a server somewhere else for analysis.
To be honest, I trust that Google and Amazon are probably acting in my best interests with these products, for the most part. I don't think it's all an evil conspiracy to get microphones and cameras into my inner sanctum or anything. I believe it's very possible for a product like this to be mutually beneficial for provider and consumer. And hey, if a state actor wants to surveil me, it's going to happen regardless of these devices being in my house. But as we've learned just how fragile security is, it seems foolish to me to rush off to install black-box monitoring devices all over and just hope that they do what we think they are doing. I love the idea of these things, but they are such potentially powerful windows into our lives that I think that we have to be really sure the value they provide is worth the security risk they entail.
Its not that I don't think that Google and Amazon are probably acting in my best interests now. They probably are. Also not that I think that the government couldn't spy on me if they wanted to. They could.
The scenario that worries me is that years from now, Google and Amazon may be coerced into turning over what I said yesterday to a corrupt government fishing through the past for word-crime. And boy-howdy, it turns out they recorded everything and retained it forever. Surprise!
>The scenario that worries me is that years from now, Google and Amazon may be coerced into turning over what I said yesterday
Amazon has said that they're only recording what happens after the hotword is triggered. That's why they can't do custom hotwords - listening for "hey alexa" is built right into the hardware and it doesn't do anything until it hears that. Unless they're flat-out lying, they can't provide any information about what you said yesterday to anybody because they don't have that data.
My 2012 Moto X has a trained keyword (and in fact a dedicated low-power specialized processor to listen for it - one of the things I like about that phone). No "OK Google" for me; it's "Listen please", in Russian. Never tripped by mistake.
> I think the difference for me is that my phone isn't a permanent fixture in my house - it's not explicitly a surveillance device.
For most people, its a permanent fixture on their person: people these days leave their home more than they leave their phone.
> Echo/Home are explicitly audio surveillance devices, though ostensibly benevolent in their design.
Echo/Home are no more explicitly audio surveillance devices than cell phones are.
> I can't say the same for Echo/Home, and it somehow feels qualitatively different in that phones aren't designed to be always-on microphones constantly processing audio to send it off to a server somewhere else for analysis.
Modern phones (considering the hardware and software stack together) are, in fact, designed to do just that, both Siri and Google Now voice recognition works (though it is, IIRC, disabled-by-default in the latter case) from the lock screen. Its just as always-on as Echo/Home.
One key difference is power consumption, and to a lesser extent, data consumption. It is not practical for your mobile phone to continually spy on everything you say, due to battery issues; however, it can listen for a keyword to wake up to, and then do the more high-powered voice recognition. So the scope is limited, or you will just have a dead phone in your pocket (which, of course, will also not be listening to you).
With something like Echo / Home, the always-on power source makes it technologically feasible for it to always be listening to you as well, without needing to wake up to a keyword. Now, they may as a feature only start processing based on a keyword, but you don't have the "comfort" of knowing that it is technological limitation rather than a software decision that may or may not be in your control.
Cell phones aren't allowed into classified environments in US government buildings because they can be remotely turned into listening devices without the owner's knowledge. There's been guidance on this for a long time. The cell phone in your pocket is definitely a surveillance device.
Let's be real. You don't keep your phone in a Faraday bag and you probably never will.
Unless the device is programmed to automatically enter into that mode in the absence of any signal on the assumption that if it is in a shielded location it is likely interesting.
I guess what it comes down to is that while I recognize that I sacrifice a measure of potential for privacy with my phone, I judge the benefits to be worth it. I can't say the same for Echo/Home, and it somehow feels qualitatively different in that phones aren't designed to be always-on microphones constantly processing audio to send it off to a server somewhere else for analysis.
To be honest, I trust that Google and Amazon are probably acting in my best interests with these products, for the most part. I don't think it's all an evil conspiracy to get microphones and cameras into my inner sanctum or anything. I believe it's very possible for a product like this to be mutually beneficial for provider and consumer. And hey, if a state actor wants to surveil me, it's going to happen regardless of these devices being in my house. But as we've learned just how fragile security is, it seems foolish to me to rush off to install black-box monitoring devices all over and just hope that they do what we think they are doing. I love the idea of these things, but they are such potentially powerful windows into our lives that I think that we have to be really sure the value they provide is worth the security risk they entail.