Omg we just got Alexa

[reddressinggown]

Tell me what fun things she does

This is freaky!

Seriously can someone answer this?

What if you have an Al/Alex/Alexander/Alexandra in your house. Will the bloody thing get confused and be piping up all the time....

‘Alex time for spellings/supper/bed’ will that drive me potty?

Aaaaand I see here it will play Spotify. But that’s on my iPhone? Will that work?

what would the government get from doing this that they cannot already gain from harvesting other data repositories ie banks, online accounts, social media, phone, emails, internet history etc?
They would get the possibility of listening to your activities. Live streaming of your life at home. Completely different to reading your emails, checking your bank account etc.

What would be the reward which would make the British government .... want to break so many laws, commit so many human rights abuses, invest so much of our tax money that they would move to hook up with amazon and start monitoring their citizens in their own homes to this extent?
As a PP has already said, they don't need to hook up with Amazon. The fact that you believe this shows how little you actually know about the way internet-connected devices work. You should really do some reading on this topic!
Since you asked, I do limit my online activities as much as possible - I don't use social media at all, don't have a Kindle, I hardly use any apps on my phone (not even Google maps), I don't have any loyalty cards, mostly pay cash.

Seriously can someone answer this

You just change the wake word, you don't need to use Alexa, you can use, echo, computer, or dot. So if someone is Alexa or Alex or something similar you'd just change the wake word to something else.

But why would they wish to listen to live streaming in your home? My question is not what can they do. It's why would they and what would they gain that they can't already.

And secondly yes they would have to hook up with amazon, or are you suggesting they will hack their databases? Because that would be pointless as amazon only hold the interaction data for a short period.

In addition I assume everyone has heard of the issu with Apple where they woildnt release data? It's the same with amazon.

There is really no need to be offensive and tell me I need to read up on it. Have a discussion without being patronising.

FranciscoGoya my bad. Sorry! And that’s excellent news that my WhatsApp is still private. I’ve just downloaded Signal to see if I can replace WhatsApp with it, and DuckDuckGo instead of Chrome. Now I just need a new private alternative to Gmail and I can pretty much start a cell. (JOKES FBI 😉)
Anyway, thanks again. That story was interesting and helpful!

No worries. BTW, Protonmail is a highly-rated, free, encrypted email provider.

ProtonMail has end to end encryption

Cross-post ;)

From what I can gather, it wasn't just conversations, it was able to tell who was where and at what proximity , who left the house when, who went where in the house, it records a lot more than convo's!!
These devices control literally everything, and track. They will not cooperate with the police in a murder ffs, wtf is up with them?!?!? That tells me enough. If I was murdered and the device could offer information to lead to the conviction of my murder why wouldn't an owner want that given over??? Its very weird.

@Alabasterangel6. Yes, Alexander certainly does. We find calling DS2 Alec, Aleco or Sandy results in fewer instances of Alexa telling us odd facts about whatever we were saying to him.

Well my mum is buying me an echo for Christmas and I’ve bought the dot gen 3 for the younger dcs. After reading this I’ve ordered 2 more dot gen 2s for my bedroom and the oldest dc

I thought it was a fit bit thing that helped during a murder investigation

Right, this thread has pushed me over the edge.... am buying one today!!!

The reasearch shows that buying an Echo leads to more purchasing on Amazon.
As a frightening amount of my monthly income already goes straight to Amazon, this has no fear for me..... Amazon and the supermarket. That's pretty much 70% of my spending outside of direct debits!

Bluntness he said nothing remotely like "Alexa". We were discussing going to a particular venue, in a particular town.

@Janaana are you saying that you have changed ds2 name to accommodate Alexa?

We’ve had an Alex here today and it never once lit up or answered when her name was used. I just said “Alex” ten times in a row to Alexa and she didn’t answer. As soon as I said “Alexa” she did.

Oh no, @shriek! I didn't mean that. I like Alec as a nickname and DH likes Sandy but somehow he didn't seem to suit a nickname as a little baby, so has mostly been Alexander in full so far, which gets so many unintentional responses. She isn't sure if she wants a breastfeed, apparently! Now he is starting to toddle about and seems less babyish, I have been using the nicknames a bit and noticed that we got far fewer unintended responses from Alexa. DS1 can't say Alexander properly yet and says Alizada instead which also doesn't trigger it and Alexa is rather uppity about responding to his pronunciation of Alexa too (Anetsa) so we call her that when we want to talk about her instead of to her.

We even tried changing it to the other options but so many phrases seemed to trigger them that it was even worse, e.g. Echo would get triggered if ever I said "Let's go", "Let go", "We go" "He goes", "Lego" etc.

That is solo cute to cute him what he calls himself...what a great nickname 'Alizada'!! I would seriously change ITs name from Alexa. Its not good teaching children to order a 'she' about... Call it Zit or something equally banal. I do think is should have come with a sex neutral object name, but they are all about making this a real woman.

Gimp, or crackers, blimp, .....

Should come with a health warning, always prioritise real people, and change the name to depersonify it

*That is so cute to call him what he calls himself (that was supposed to say). Maybe I need a gimp to do my writing for me!

Not working very well in that case. I hear on radio a while back people saying it to trigger listeners device!

Apparently there are cases of it just laughing, self activated.

I do think is should have come with a sex neutral object name, but they are all about making this a real woman

You can call if echo, dot or computer, if you want a sex neutral name, and the name of Alexa came from the derivative of Alexander, Hence its name it was from the library of Alexander the keeper of all knowledge, as such, it's more complimentary they made it a female and not Male.

However if you have issues with even that, you can change it to a sex neutral name (hmm]

Just ordered one. Got to see what all this is about!

bluntness ordering a woman to do everything you want....is all, nothing gnwrong with having reservations about that, and yes I think I said about changing the name...certainly not about all that stuff you said

And secondly yes they would have to hook up with amazon, or are you suggesting they will hack their databases?
It is not necessary to hack their databases, hackers could theoretically gain access to one specific Alexa, just like they can hack one specific computer. All they need is an internet connection. If that happens, they could listen into your home via your Alexa device 24/7, even when it is not activated.