Alexa, cough up those always-on Echo audio recordings, says double-murder trial judge

of course amazon will refuse. There is no wake word, everything is transmitted back to the server & used for future ad revenue. Anyone dumb enough to believe otherwise... I've a range of great bridges to sell you! Mind you, we'll never know the truth here - how hard is it to just filter recordings where the word WAS used prior?

I've said this before - people are more willing to believe the evil corporate nightmarish vision, than the idea that these companies - while indeed using data WE VOLUNTARILY­² GIVE to these companies - are just listening to everything we do and say, and that these listening devices are exactly the same as eavesdropping bugs favoured in spy movies - despite the overwhelming proof this just isn't the case.

I'm not suggesting these companies then get a free ride. But the amount of hyperbole and hysteria I read about these things are only based upon more hyperbole and hysteria which itself is based on nothing substantive.

²-Except Facebook. Because they don't always get our permission...

Privacy Policy

I don't own any of these assistants, but I know that if you ask Alexa about Amazon's Privacy Policy it won't answer you.

I told this to someone on a true crime group on Facebook, and they said they just asked Google's thingymebob what Amazon's Privacy Policy was, and apparently it responded "They don't have any".

These devices and I mean all of them are unreliable witnesses. The information they record is taken out of context and cannot identify the defendant visually. As an example I went to the coast for a day and started getting message from my Android phone saying "How was your visit to...". More and more came through about stores I did not enter. Having been hacked off the final message "How was your visit to the pier " I did not go to the pier but I did walk underneath one. Android has no concept of elevation Amazon and the rest are acutely aware not for privacy but that this technology is only good for marketing and does it badly to boot. A good lawyer will blow this evidence out of the court room

@ OP andAC

"Amazon hasn't promised to hand over any recordings yet just, despite this latest New Hampshire court order." Yet just??

"I finaly find out that it was the sound from the TV set or from a you tube video."

I remember complaints about a rogue app that kept the mic open and listening out for tv, radio and youtube adds in order to correlate listener/viewer data with handset owner info. I guess if they can add all the data collected on a smartphone with your computer browsing history and cookie data plus cable/satellite subscription / viewing habits you would make a pretty valuable advert target.

I can see why they really want this evidence, a lot of what they have on the guy can be explained away.

"he thought the other victim, Jenna Pellegrini, was a police informant."

He believed the police were onto his drug trafficking and was trying to figure out how they found out, the police also haven't denied that she was an informant, so his suspicion might not have been unreasonable.

"surveillance cameras caught Verrill arriving at the house and trying to cover up the lenses of three surveillance cameras at the property before shutting the system down."

He believed the police were onto his drug trafficking and realized the CCTV cameras could see the entrance to the property.

"Police also have evidence that he bought clean-up products from a Walmart"

He believed the police were onto his drug trafficking and bought some cleaning products to try and destroy evidence.

"went to see a priest"

He was afraid of being sent to a federal pound-me-in-the-arse prison and went to talk to somebody.

"and twice visited a local hospital"

He tried to score some opioids of a doctor.

Went to see a priest ?

Presumably the authorities have asked for a transcript of that session.

How's that going ?

Latest advice

If you think that you're about to be murdered - is to shout (loudly) Ok Google, Alexa, Cortana - record this?