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

A US judge has ordered Amazon to hand over any recordings made by its Echo digital assistant at a house where two women were murdered last year. Prosecutors believe that Alexa running on the Echo may be a key witness in the case against Timothy Verrill, 34, who stands accused of the second-degree murder of Christine Sullivan, …

  1. Youngone Silver badge

    Sounds about right

    If the rozzers get a court order I have no problem with any recordings being handed over.

    That's due process I think.

    I wouldn't have one of those things in my house irregardless.

    1. Eddy Ito
      Coat

      Re: Sounds about right

      I wouldn't have one of those things in my house irregardless.

      I think you mean "disirregardlessly".

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I think you mean "disirregardlessly".

        Since that might wake "Siri" up, my guess is that maybe not :-)

      2. 's water music
        Headmaster

        Re: Sounds about right

        I wouldn't have one of those things in my house irregardless.

        I think you mean "disirregardlessly".

        Well acsherly, it's another one of those linguistic oddities like flammable/inflammable. Irregardless and disirregardless both have the exact same meaning

        1. David 132 Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Sounds about right

          Well acsherly, it's another one of those linguistic oddities like flammable/inflammable. Irregardless and disirregardless both have the exact same meaning

          I know, right? Which is why I always use “unregardless”, to avoid ambiguity & confusion. The ‘T’ in it is silent, by the way.

          1. hplasm
            Headmaster

            Re: Sounds about right

            "The ‘T’ in it is silent, by the way."

            Well. You learn somethink every day!

        2. Matthew Taylor

          Re: Sounds about right

          What about "undisirregardlessly"? 'Tis a common word, down our way.

          1. hplasm
            Headmaster

            Re: Sounds about right

            "What about "undisirregardlessly"? 'Tis a common word, down our way."

            But what is its Cromulency Index?

      3. JohnFen

        Re: Sounds about right

        "disirregardlessly"? That's an awesome word. I'm going to start working it into my conversations at every opportunity now. Thanks!

      4. Youngone Silver badge

        Re: Sounds about right

        Oh Eddie, I was quoting that friend of the common man, George Bush II.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Commswonk

      Re: Sounds about right

      If the rozzers get a court order I have no problem with any recordings being handed over.

      You and I might think that, but of course as one of the "tech giants" Amazon has to preserve and protect its status of being above the reach of the law.

    3. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: Sounds about right

      You do not.

      Amazon does - because it is refusing to say exactly how much is being recorded (the same goes for the other "AI assistant" players by the way).

      Once the recordings are presented we will know.

      1. tfewster
        Facepalm

        Re: Sounds about right

        > Once the recordings are presented we will know.

        I predict that what Amazon releases will be consistent with their official line.

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Sounds about right

        "Once the recordings are presented we will know."

        That's my biggest problem with Alexa and it's ilk. Why are these companies keeping those recordings for so long and why is it still linked to the account? I know they say it's for improving the quality of the speech recognition and the responses, but why keep the actual recording and the link to the device/owner, not to mention the device IDs of connected devices. This strikes me as keeping data "because they can" rather than an actual need.

        1. Jtom

          Re: Sounds about right

          Hopefully, Apple are smart enough to realize if they keep any recording not ‘Alexa-related’ it will eventually destroy the company.

          Companies and governments should have learned by now that if records are kept, there is a high probability that those records will be hacked or leaked. IMO, we have all said something in the privacy of our homes that would destroy us if made public. If Apple is recording more than it should, the day will come that the last question many Echoes will record is, “Alexa, when’s the next trash pick-up?”

        2. PastyFace

          Re: Sounds about right

          Suspect it goes into the algorithm AI training dataset. Question is, why would the original user metadata still be attached at this point?

      3. eldakka

        Re: Sounds about right

        Amazon does - because it is refusing to say exactly how much is being recorded

        No, Amazon has repeatedly said what is being recorded, it's outlined in various documents on using the device (Ts&Cs etc.).

        What you are saying that you don't believe what Amazon has said. There is a difference.

        Amazon has stated multiple times, and in their documentation that (paraphrased), a correctly working device sends nothing to Amazon until the device is activated with its activation word or by pressing the button on the device itself. The Echo has enough processing power to identify the specific keywords, this is why the allowed list is so short, so it doesn't require much local processing to recognise it. Once it has been activated by the keyword/button press, it transmits a certain amount of following audio (10 seconds I think it is? I forget) to Amazon to then be parsed for the request, and this recording is saved for a certain period of time.

        I personally believe that is how the device works and is intended to function. But I will not have one, because while that might be how Amazon operates now, it's quite possible for them to change how they operate, or to unintentionally introduce a bug that records more than it's supposed to (I think this has happened before? It might not have been Echo, but could have been a competing product), or it could be susceptible to being hacked - whether from criminals or the government. Therefore whether you trust the vendor or not, I think it is ridiculous for anyone to have an always-on mic (or video) sitting in a private place that could be a vector for an un-related, un-trusted body to exploit.

        1. jmch Silver badge

          Re: Sounds about right

          "Amazon has stated multiple times, and in their documentation that (paraphrased), a correctly working device sends nothing to Amazon until the device is activated with its activation word or by pressing the button on the device itself."

          until the device is activated with its activation word or by any random sounds that the device THINKS is its activation word

          Given the imperfect nature of speech recognition, there's going to be either a lot of false positives or a lot of false negatives depending on which way Amazon tunes it. And given that they don't want the device to seem unresponsive it's far more likely that it's tuned towards more false positives. So even if it works exactly as advertised, I bet it's sending much more to Amazon than a user might suspect.

      4. jmch Silver badge

        Re: Sounds about right

        "Amazon does - because it is refusing to say exactly how much is being recorded"

        which is insane. The local device should have enough local memory and processing power to be able to buffer and process a few seconds of audio LOCALLY. If it "hears" an activation codeword, then it can record the command and forward it to Amazon or whoever for processing. Having a device that streams the audio direct to Amazon, Google, etc would be meantal.

        However given that these things connect over your own wifi, I am sure that some people have already taken the packets apart and worked out what actually gets sent. Even if (as it should be) the audio stream is encrypted, one should be able to determine if the device is sending / receiving anything without codeword activation.

        Anyone familiar with such a study?

    4. Ian Michael Gumby

      Re: Sounds about right

      The issue that you and many miss...

      When a judge gives a court order, Amazon can't refuse. They can fight a subpoena, but not a court order.

      Failure to respond means contempt of court which Amazon doesn't want to do. (No one wants to do)

      But from the article:

      However, Amazon finally handed over the recordings after Bates gave permission. The recordings didn't provide anything useful however and may even have helped Bates' case that there was several reasonable explanations for what may have happened. The charges against him were dropped in November 2017.

      The common thought is that Alexa doesn't record until the command word <Alexa> is said.

      So its important to know what was in the recordings. Was it a command/question to Alexa, or did it contain background noise?

      Meaning the recordings would indicate just how much information Amazon collects from you, assuming you own an Alexa.

      That's what we need to learn...

      1. eldakka

        Re: Sounds about right

        When a judge gives a court order, Amazon can't refuse. They can fight a subpoena, but not a court order.

        Of course you can fight a court order, it's called lodging an appeal. That's what courts of appeals are for.

        The process is usually something along the lines of:

        1) Amazon will lodge an appeal with the appropriate appeals court (e.g. the federal circuit appeals court for the circuit if it's in a federal district court);

        2) Amazon will notify the court who made the order of the appeal, and request a stay of the court order until the appeal can be heard;

        3) if the Judge denies the stay, then Amazon can lodge an emergency appeal with the appeals court over the denial of the stay.

  2. Marty McFly Silver badge
    Flame

    Abuse of power, as simple as that.

    Law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, etc have NO authority to "ask" Amazon to provide the information. That is a fishing expedition, pure and simple. An arrogant abuse of power by those asking.

    The court, however, can "order" Amazon to provide the information. Amazon can then choose whether to obey or provide a legal challenge to the order. That is how the system is supposed to work.

    Keep this in mind the next time the subject of government back doors in to encryption & communication comes up. These same people who are fishing for evidence would have broad ability to go fishing in to anyone's lives without a legal warrant.

    As for me....the simple solution. No Amazon Echo, Google Home, Smart TV or any other spying device within range of my network.

    1. JohnFen

      Re: Abuse of power, as simple as that.

      "Law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, etc have NO authority to "ask" Amazon to provide the information"

      On the contrary. In the US, law enforcement, prosecutors, etc. have the same basic rights as you and I do. That includes the right to ask almost anything of anyone. You can do it, I can do it, and so can cops. If the asker has no legal authority to compel a specific action, of course, the entity being asked is perfectly within their rights to say "no".

      (That said, this sort of thing is one more reason why I would never have any device like this in my home or on my person)

  3. FozzyBear
    Flame

    "Amazon will not release customer information without a valid and binding legal demand properly served on us," said a spokesperson, adding: "Amazon objects to overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands as a matter of course."

    Fair enough on the proper legal subpoenas being served. But how can they contest the requirements being overbroad, the scope is not unreasonable. The judge is not asking for all recordings across devices, just that one from the date of the murder to the discovery of the bodies To have then argued against the subpoena on the basis of customer privacy. REALLY!

    1. The Nazz

      re Overbroad.

      I agree completely. A very fined tuned and precise order has been made made.

      Without wishing to be too morbid, how much privacy does a dead person buried several feet under a patio require?

      FFS in a civilised society, Amazon should be falling over themselves in their rush to assist the authorities in such circumstances, at their first opportunity.

      1. FuzzyWuzzys

        Re: re Overbroad.

        "FFS in a civilised society, Amazon should be falling over themselves in their rush to assist the authorities in such circumstances, at their first opportunity."

        Law is based heavily on precedence, if Amazon don't appear to fight tooth and nail before they handover information, if they don't make it so damned hard that it takes months to get stuff out of them then every Tom, Dick and Harry will demand their recordings for every trivial little thing that Alexa records.

        Amazon cannot simply do what people ask. Today it's something important, like this, evidence in a murder trial. Tomorrow it's because little Johnny and little Jenny won't stop fighting over Smarties and I want those recordings, "You handed them over for a murder trial! They're my recordings about Johnny and Jenny and I want them! You handed them over for that murder thing, why can't I have mine?".

        Then on top of that is the fact that if something is found then details about it have to be published in court documents and that leave Amazon's secrets laid bare for others to copy. If we know more about how Alex tech works then other companies trying to get in on that game stand a better chance or beating Amazon once they know how Amazon's tech works.

      2. JohnFen

        Re: re Overbroad.

        "in a civilised society, Amazon should be falling over themselves in their rush to assist the authorities in such circumstances"

        This argument assumes that the government is reasonably sane and just. I don't think that's the case in the US right now, and until/unless it becomes so, I think this argument is a nonstarter.

    2. eldakka

      Fair enough on the proper legal subpoenas being served. But how can they contest the requirements being overbroad, the scope is not unreasonable.

      You are taking the quote from Amazon out of context.

      Amazon, at time of writing, has not been formally served the court order, therefore they are making general statements, not statements specific to this court order.

      They are making the general statement "Amazon objects to overbroad or otherwise inappropriate demands as a matter of course." Therefore once they have been formally served with the court order, then they will make a determination of whether they think it is overly broad, and then they will act on that determination (hand over the data or lodge an appeal).

  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "captured audio of the killings, and subsequent removal of the bodies"

    On a one-second buffer ?

    Unless said buffer is sent off to Amazon servers immediately, which effectively transforms the device into an audio streaming device that records everything onto Amazon servers, I really don't see what that thing could possibly have sent to the server that is of any use.

    And if the Echo is effectively recording all sounds 24/7 in your house, then it is by far the most disgusting application of technology ever brought into this world and Big Brother is purple with envy.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: On a one-second buffer ?

      ...I'M GONNA...

      ...NOW I'M G...

    2. MiguelC Silver badge

      Re: "captured audio of the killings, and subsequent removal of the bodies"

      And that is the reason why Amazon has been strenuously fighting off attempts to recover audio sent through Alexa, they really really really don't want you to know how much they know about what you say when you think nobody's listening...

    3. Teiwaz

      Re: "captured audio of the killings, and subsequent removal of the bodies"

      And if tit turns out that one second buffer is counting references to Amazon or certain products while it's waiting on the magic word to summon the demon???

    4. Shooter

      Re: "captured audio of the killings, and subsequent removal of the bodies"

      "On a one-second buffer ?"

      If I understand correctly, the one-second is used as Alexa is listening for the "wake word". Once that is detected, longer term recording commences.

      So it continuously records and deletes sounds in one-second increments, until it hears "Alexa"; then it records until the task is completed.

      If you believe Amazon...

      1. Martin Summers Silver badge

        Re: "captured audio of the killings, and subsequent removal of the bodies"

        So what's the murderer going to have said "Alexa play my bludgeoning playlist"? There's not likely going to be any useful recording on there but it's possible. I have an echo dot and I can replay the recordings on my phone in the history, I can hear exactly what it records. Sometimes it records what it thinks was its wake word when in fact it was random stuff. The recordings don't last for long though. I wonder if they've tried getting at the history in the phone of the victim if they had the app.

        1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge
          Alert

          Re: "captured audio of the killings, and subsequent removal of the bodies"

          Alexa , Help ! help! I'm being abused!

          Alexa, Come and see the violence inherent in the system!

          1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

            Re: "captured audio of the killings, and subsequent removal of the bodies"

            "Alexa, how do I conceal a body?"

        2. 's water music

          Re: "captured audio of the killings, and subsequent removal of the bodies"

          My goog voice search history includes periodic snatches of radio from the car when it obviously thinks it heard 'ok google', also a couple of amusing searches by one of my kids who has now learned the meaning of search history and which account a devices is associated with but mostly it consists of me swearing at it's failure to correctly interpret my speech

  5. Sureo

    What could be better....

    ... than government snoops (and corporations) having a recording device in everyone's home and office and pocket recording 24 hours a day? We're heading that way.... No cooperation from me though.

    1. Teiwaz

      Re: What could be better....

      ... than government snoops (and corporations) having a recording device in everyone's home and office and pocket recording 24 hours a day? We're heading that way.... No cooperation from me though.

      Me neither, but also mainly not all of us have disposable income enough for such mostly useless frivolities.

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge

        Re: What could be better....

        "Me neither, but also mainly not all of us have disposable income enough for such mostly useless frivolities."

        I have , surprisingly ,given the state of my career , but whats the effing point?

        I dont dim the lights or add a jar of coffee to my shopping list nearly enough to enroll the help of a robot with the comprehension ablilities of Manuel from Fawlty Towers.

        1. JohnFen

          Re: What could be better....

          ¿Qué?

    2. FuzzyWuzzys

      Re: What could be better....

      This is the irony.

      Your government says, "Hey everybody, tell us all about your mundane lives for our spies to keep an eye on you and find the bad guys lurking out there." and everyone loses their minds and we have protests in the streets.

      Facebook asks for the exact same info but says it's for fun and offers cat videos and cartoon farming games and people can't hand over the info fast enough. Amazon offers you the weather and cinema times, once again people are buying these "spying devices" like they're going out of fashion!

      Crazy world!

    3. LucreLout

      Re: What could be better....

      What could be better....

      ... than government snoops (and corporations) having a recording device in everyone's home and office and pocket recording 24 hours a day? We're heading that way.... No cooperation from me though.

      I don't have an Alexa for probably the same reason as 99% of other commentards. However, I do have a mobile phone, which is basically a portable, GPS linked microphone that follows me around. Hmmmm.....

      It's not paranoia if the men in the black helicopters kick the door in and shove your tinfoil hat up your arse!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can't see any difference between what the Echo does and whatever smartphone, also with wake word, you wander around with these days. Which raises the question, have they attempted to get the data/records for all those cell phones around as well? Bonus points for GPS records.

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      whatever smartphone, also with wake word, you wander around with these days

      It's easy enough to disable the Android wake-word function. That does appear to prevent any visible reaction to it. Whether it prevents background recording is another question; hard to tell without rooting the phone and hooking some APIs, which is more effort than I'm going to go through right now.

      Devices like the Echo, on the other hand, exist for precisely this purpose. For people who don't want "digital assistants" listening to them all the time, there's no reason to have one of the damned things.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And we're back again

    Back to the argument that any webcache has an unauthorised downloaded copy.

    Because it's IT and we assume that we know fuck we're talking about because we're in charge

  8. Winkypop Silver badge

    People with these web enabled assistants....

    ...clearly have not read Orwell's 1984.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: People with these web enabled assistants....

      Long before Google assistent my phone sometimes waked up for no reason untill i one day looked at the phone and saw the mic on the display.

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

      I still don't know what words that trigger it.

      I take out the battery when i don't want anyone listening.

      I would never buy a phone that i can't remove the battery from

      1. Prst. V.Jeltz Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: People with these web enabled assistants....

        I would never buy a phone that i can't remove the battery from

        just put it under your tinfoil hat , then it cant report back .....

    2. Mark 85
      Big Brother

      Re: People with these web enabled assistants....

      ...clearly have not read Orwell's 1984.

      More likely that most people who have read 1984 believe that what's in the book will never come to pass. After all, it's fiction.... right? right?

  9. Alex Read

    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?

    1. eldakka

      There is no wake word, everything is transmitted back to the server & used for future ad revenue.

      The Echo isn't magical, it can't send data back to Amazon by osmosis or something. It has to send data via network connections, whether wireless or hardline.

      Many people have put network sniffers on the networks with these devices and done packet captures. These have all shown a distinct lack of data transmission from the device while holding conversations next to the device unless it is activated with a keyword/manual activation.

      Some of these tests have run for days - just in case it was batching up several hours/days worth of data and sending it out at a later time. And these have also shown no large data communications that could have transmitted environmental recordings to Amazon.

      Of course, this doesn't mean that couldn't happen, or that there isn't some facility to specifically enable/disable environmental recording on targeted devices to use them like a bug, or that specific devices won't get hacked by third parties who use it as a bug.

      1. Spazturtle Silver badge

        Human voice can be encoded using Codec 2 at 450 bits/s and still be understandable. So an hours conversation would be 200KB of data. Does anyone know how large the Amazon Echo's heartbeats are?

        1. eldakka

          From various articles I've read of people doing these network sniffing tests, over an entire day, an Echo that hasn't had any keyword activations sends approximately 2MB for the heartbeats, checking for updates, etc.

          And that is a consistent 2MB/day, no matter how much background conversation occur around it.

          Since I'll never have one of these, no matter what Amazon or security experts say, I can't test it myself.

          Also note that, since the point of any theoretical recording of the conversations would be to use it to assist voice-recognition training and AI training, such a low quality stream for that general training probably wouldn't be very useful. Sure, some low quality stuff you'd want to test that your training can work with low quality audio as well would be wanted, but this'd be a pretty small subset of the overall training data you'd want to collect.

  10. Kaltern

    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...

    1. JohnFen

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

      And Google. And Microsoft.

  11. wolfetone Silver badge

    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".

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    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

  13. Nursing A Semi

    @ 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.

  14. Spazturtle Silver badge

    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.

  15. This post has been deleted by its author

  16. Adrian 4

    Went to see a priest ?

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

    How's that going ?

  17. MAF

    Latest advice

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

    1. gotes

      Re: Latest advice

      Or "call the police"

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Latest advice

        "Release the man-eating tiger!"

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