Aibu to be even more concerned about alexa

[Idobelieveinfairies2018]

Alexa had been a discussion in my house for a while. Dh wanted her but I was slightly concerned with privacy and also a little bit 'what's the point'.
Dh assured me that there was nothing to be worried about and explained all she can do. So we compromised and he bought a amazon fire tablet with Alexa. That was at Xmas, however, today he said to me "see nothing bad has happened so can we get the echo now?" I told him I wanted to research it a bit more and have done so.
To say I am VERY concerned by what I have read is an understatement. I thought perhaps these maybe conspiracy theories or written by ppl who had something 2 hide. Until I stumbled across a link about 3 essential privacy settings and it told me how to check what Alexia is recording.
Anyway, I followed the instructions and was (still am) horrified at wot i discovered.
There were recordings at least twice a week since her set up, at times when we did not 'wake' her.
Most are ok ie the TV programs we were watching or random snipits of conversations I don't remember having, BUT there are a few things that have been part recorded that are very private ie 1 from yesterday was me speaking 2 dh 'I need to phone my dealer for my drugs tomorrow' (its not wot u think, I was talking about the chemist and its a jokey thing between the 3 of us to lighten things up). There was also an incident a few weeks ago where I lost my temper in fear and shouted at the dog and was quite inappropriate, but the recording is of me shouting 'For fucks sake u stupid c* daddy gonna go mad' Now that is going to sound to anyone listening as if I was talking to my dd and could land me in serious trouble.
I have deleted these recordings now but do u think I'm bu in my concerns or is this not an issue? Ie is she perhaps malfunctioning (I do know that I haven't been aware of her responding to these 'voice commands', even with a 'sorry I didnt catch that' so maybe she is faulty?) Or should I trust my gut and refuse entry?

No I am certainly not all over the internet with my dds photos and store cards (why would I have store cards??)
I deny any permissions which allows an app to do something it doesn't need to do.
I couldn't give a monkeys if my shopping habits are public knowledge or if companies want to bombard me with adverts (annoying yes, but that's what the little x is for) but I do care if my private, possible sensitive conversations are being recorded, stored and possibly used without my knowledge. Health conditions have already been mentioned but how many of u would be happy if ur GP had a device that recorded everything while u were discussing ur personal lives.
How many of u, who have echo (and I assume other brands of smart home 'listening' devices) are aware that, unless u turn off or lock down certain settings that any1 with that same device in the immediate area can 'drop in' and eavesdrop on ur conversations or heaven forbid wot u are doing in bed at night? You've seen the ads were u can use multiple devices as an intercom of sorts right??

I'm just pissing myself at you calling your dog a cunt.

And then worrying that Alexa is going to out you.

Poor fucking Fido

"I noticed yesterday that one of my colleagues has one switched on in his office, this is three months after his boss asked him to remove it (and the camera that he’d set up pointing at his door). God knows what it’s recorded."

Frightening.

Nearly everyone has some kind of voice recording system on their phone, by the way, but you usually have to switch it on to activate it. Oh and when you get ads that follow you around the internet, some of them is because Facebook records your browsing activity while you are logged into it on that device.

Poor Fido? Poor me! having 2 carry his kitchen burgleing ass (33kg) to the vets cos I thought he was gunna die.
I dont call him that word in fact that's the only time I have done. He's normally my 'monster munch' or rarely 'fudging dog' wen he's been naughty.

I didn't know it recorded things.

I have a lot of TV recordings and a few conversations.

I should say that I knew it recorded things when I was using it, but not just randomly.

Member of the family is network engineer & would not have any of that stuff in their home.

More concerned about google home than amazon to be fair but sees it as a huge way of harvesting information to sell things to you or sell your details to others. Also possible security issues leaving vulnerabilities on home networks. The more people who have the same tool, the more worth there is in hacking it.

but if you're doing drug deals or murdering people then switch Alexa off
although I’m sure Alexa has some great advice on where to bury a body.

Dead letters and rocks in Texas do sound a bit like Alexa. That was probably the trigger for the recording but she didn't respond as there was no command after to respond to. If you say her name and then nothing intelligible she won't answer you.

I have a Dot and have gone through it's recordings and it's mostly music requests and snippets of TV where she thinks she heard her name. And the daily 6 am Alexa! Stoooooop.

Jeeps, won't your oh be fully aware of your relationship problems anyway? And if he's not, how are you going to resolve things if he doesn't know what's wrong?

As she is panicking about it I am going to guess she is scared for a good reason and has a good reason for not wanting her partner to hear any of those conversations. She didn't ask for relationship advice.

I'm quite worried for your dd tbh, what you said didn't sound like something you'd say to a dog.

Another odd post. You are quite worried for her daughter?

I think it is quite funny how some people are upset at a dog being called a cunt It isn't like they understand what the word means.

Mine is very boring but a lot of strange requests which when I listened were me talking to my son “Alexa brush your teeth, Alexa hurry up and put your shoes on” Needless to say he has a similar name to Alexa. I didn’t call him a ‘c**t’ tho in any recording thank god haha x

I agree U2 my dog only understands "walk" and "biscuit"!

Cambridge Analytic surprised me. I know it shouldn't have done, but it did.
I know it all goes on: I discussed something with my work colleague, next minute it comes up on Facebook!!!
But sometimes I just forget. And then Cambridge, or this thread, reminds me that it really does go on. And I really don't like it. But what can you do? Literally nothing!

It's the old adage, if you are not buying a thing, or selling a thing, YOU are the thing being bought and sold.

In this case, Amazon designed Alexa to harvest (quite mind-boggling, actually) quantities of data that they then use to target and segment and personalise their offerings.

Alexa isn't some fun nice thing they invited to make customers happy, never was, never will be. It's all about making Amazon richer by making their customers ultimately spend more.

Some people are willing to trade their data, some aren't. But don't go and be all surprised that it's even happening.

We had an Alexa as a gift. used it about 10 times, got very bored if it not doing what we expected (I work in a related field so know what is actually possible - and Alexa ain't even touching the sides) and sold it on ebay.

My dd is doing a degree in cyber security and wouldn't have one of these things within 100 yards. She's also on a task force with the police cyber crime unit.

How secure are your devices?

If my dog ate the brand-new expensive lino and then tried to poison itself with chocolate I'd have used worse language than that!

I once watched a documentary about the regime in North Korea. One thing that struck a chill into me was the recording devices every family had in their homes.

That would never happen in the UK, I thought.

I really genuinely couldn’t care less. For me the pros of these things vastly outweigh the perceived cons. If my neighbours want to listen to my bedroom activities then let them crack on. Not that they’d hear much, I tend to turn plugs off when we’re not using them from a ‘with my luck the house will catch fire’ standpoint so it’s not always on but really, not bothered.

Fairies you are hilarious👏🏻 and I agree with you about Alexa

I just checked mine and nothing out of the ordinary, just music and weather.

Is there anyone in your family with a name that sounds a bit like Alexa? I know a family with an Alistair and she picks up his name a lot.

Someone who works in that area told me how it works, in that it does regularly record at 5 second intervals in order to hear it being called/to be triggered but it is disposed of if Alexa hasn't been used.
Once triggered: Alexa where nearest chemist/drugdealer? then it goes to the cloud To give you the info.

I'm still not keen on it I only have it active on fire stick and that's to quick search movies.

It's actually aliens listening to you.

No, it's the Russians.

Incidentally, I have called my cats cunts a few times.

Oh, and never ask her to open the magic door. That's a whole world of weirdness.

How long are these recordings in general? I've heard it only records snippets that are seconds long... Anyone gone into their history and found whole conversations recorded?