<story><title>Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-20/locked-down-lawyers-warned-alexa-is-hearing-confidential-calls</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lima</author><text>How so?&lt;p&gt;The ruling is about agents using thermal imaging technology to bust a marijuana plantation, performed from a car on a public street. The court stated that this does not constitute a search, since any random citizen could&amp;#x27;ve done the same thing using commodity equipment.&lt;p&gt;Always on microphones that transmit via the internet (i.e. bugs) have been a commodity for... a few decades? But you still cannot legally bug your neighbor&amp;#x27;s apartment.</text></item><item><author>pdkl95</author><text>Alexa &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt; are also normalizing &amp;quot;always on microphone that sends audio to a remote business over the internet&amp;quot; &lt;i&gt;technology&lt;/i&gt;. According to the bright-line rule from &lt;i&gt;Kyllo v United States&lt;/i&gt;[1], when a technology is &amp;quot;in general public use&amp;quot;[2], police no longer need a warrant when they use their own devices based on that technology to see the &amp;quot;details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion&amp;quot;[3].&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;caselaw.findlaw.com&amp;#x2F;us-supreme-court&amp;#x2F;533&amp;#x2F;27.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;caselaw.findlaw.com&amp;#x2F;us-supreme-court&amp;#x2F;533&amp;#x2F;27.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] Used throughout the ruling[1], but especially section II of Justice Stevens&amp;#x27; dissent.&lt;p&gt;[3] The ruling[1], 2nd paragraph</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SilasX</author><text>&amp;gt;Always on microphones that transmit via the internet (i.e. bugs) have been a commodity for... a few decades? But you still cannot legally bug your neighbor&amp;#x27;s apartment.&lt;p&gt;It has not been normal until the last few years for people to &lt;i&gt;typically&lt;/i&gt; have an Alexa-like device that is always listening for the &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m about to make a request&amp;quot; signal, which frequently gets turned on by accident.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not ridiculous that someone might conclude in the future, &amp;quot;if you&amp;#x27;re in someone&amp;#x27;s house with such a device, you should reasonably expect that some part of your conversation might get sent to the third party&amp;quot;, which would mean a diminishing of the right to such privacy in 4th amendment jurisprudence.&lt;p&gt;And frankly, the whole concept of using voice to activate it is reckless. It is unavoidable to have significant false positives. It should be done with a non-audio signal that can&amp;#x27;t be faked (up to the limits of modern crypto), like an authenticated EM signal to turn on the listening.</text></comment>
<story><title>Locked-down lawyers warned Alexa is hearing confidential calls</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-20/locked-down-lawyers-warned-alexa-is-hearing-confidential-calls</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lima</author><text>How so?&lt;p&gt;The ruling is about agents using thermal imaging technology to bust a marijuana plantation, performed from a car on a public street. The court stated that this does not constitute a search, since any random citizen could&amp;#x27;ve done the same thing using commodity equipment.&lt;p&gt;Always on microphones that transmit via the internet (i.e. bugs) have been a commodity for... a few decades? But you still cannot legally bug your neighbor&amp;#x27;s apartment.</text></item><item><author>pdkl95</author><text>Alexa &lt;i&gt;et al&lt;/i&gt; are also normalizing &amp;quot;always on microphone that sends audio to a remote business over the internet&amp;quot; &lt;i&gt;technology&lt;/i&gt;. According to the bright-line rule from &lt;i&gt;Kyllo v United States&lt;/i&gt;[1], when a technology is &amp;quot;in general public use&amp;quot;[2], police no longer need a warrant when they use their own devices based on that technology to see the &amp;quot;details of a private home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion&amp;quot;[3].&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;caselaw.findlaw.com&amp;#x2F;us-supreme-court&amp;#x2F;533&amp;#x2F;27.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;caselaw.findlaw.com&amp;#x2F;us-supreme-court&amp;#x2F;533&amp;#x2F;27.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] Used throughout the ruling[1], but especially section II of Justice Stevens&amp;#x27; dissent.&lt;p&gt;[3] The ruling[1], 2nd paragraph</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pdkl95</author><text>&amp;gt; The court stated that this does not constitute a search&lt;p&gt;From the court&amp;#x27;s opinion (the above [1]):&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; ... obtaining by sense-enhancing technology any information regarding the home&amp;#x27;s interior that could not otherwise have been obtained without physical &amp;quot;intrusion into a constitutionally protected area,&amp;quot; constitutes a search--at least where (as here) the technology in question is not in general public use.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; Based on this criterion, the information obtained by the thermal imager in this case was the product of a search.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; the imaging in this case was an unlawful search</text></comment>