my family is moving into a much bigger house than we used to have. we use amazon echos as an intercom system through the announcement feature. because our house is bigger, i’m being forced to get one myself for my room. i haven’t needed one for years because i use their app on my phone and i can see their announcements as a notification and i can also kill off most of its tracking by DNS. unfortunately my parents don’t understand this and are forcing me to get one. what can i do to limit its tracking?
Jeff? Is that you, son? I told you that it was nonnegotiable, now get off the internets, I’m expecting an important telephone call and don’t want you tying up the lines.
While there are a lot of good technical suggestions here, I’ve found that a conversation goes a long way. In my experience, when talking with loved ones, explain your emotions. Not “I hate this” or “the governments are listening!”, but those core emotions. “Having a device in my room that is always monitoring me makes me feel anxious and I don’t feel comfortable in a place where I should feel safe.” Make sure that the dialog is calm and remains about your feelings until you know that you’re being heard. If you aren’t, try other phrases or examples.
Once you’ve established your feelings, address their concerns and feelings (active listening). It sounds stupid at first, but it works. “I hear that you are frustrated when I don’t come down for dinner immediately.” Finally, propose some solutions that meet everybody’s needs and that the parties can select one to try out for a week and evaluate it’s effectiveness, trying new things until a mutually beneficial solution is found.
Good luck. Please post the outcome!
Alexa order 1000 dildos on my moms account
You should hire a nicely-dressed and polite person to simply relay your messages in person. And while not needed, they could be tending to other tasks, like your laundry or maybe tending the garden…
#ProblemsOfTheUpper-Lowers
Because I want to helpful: if you are moving to a home large enough for you to feel that an intercom is needed, then the cost associated with having a simple system installed would be the best way to maintain your privacy, well, your privacy to those without physical access to your home at least.
I can’t think of any intercom-related reason that outweighs the needless additional network load, nightmarish privacy policies, and instant gratification through retail buttons, that a network of echo’s could provide.
If not using it for Alexa connectivity, why not just get an actual intercom? A pair is like 30 bucks on Amazon, no Internet required.
Or “hey Alexa, order an intercom system on my mom’s account”
Isn’t there an eavesdropping function on Alexa… Maybe it’s actually less communication and more checking in on what you’re doing (not to increase your paranoia)
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my parents and siblings enjoy the convenience of alexas and the fact that they can play music. i’ve tried suggesting an actual intercom system and they’re against it
As a parent, if my kid said “I don’t want to be tracked, I’m concerned about my privacy”, I’d get an intercom for everyone in the house and let the Alexa be opt in. Sounds like playing music using Alexa isn’t a game changer for you. What does it matter anyway, what if you like headphones better, the Alexa stuff isn’t mandatory for playing/listening to music.
Don’t get one. If your parents want an intercom system, have an actual intercom system installed. No need to violate your privacy.
If you are OK opening things up and can use a soldering iron you could put a physical switch on the microphone.
sorry for asking a question about privacy in a privacy community. i can’t just not use it because my parents are forcing me to use it. if i was allowed to unplug it, i would.
Do it anyways. Everyone has a right of privacy no matter the age.
Honestly, just muting the microphone is mostly fine. I really don’t believe they transmit shit to the cloud when they’re muted. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about how they answer when they’re muted so they’re still listening, but they process the “Alexa” (or whatever wake word you use) locally and then send a short buffer of recording along with everything you say following it to the cloud to process. It’s likely they just hear that you said the wake word locally and then say “Hey I’m muted” without sending it to the cloud.
I know this answer isn’t the most privacy oriented on a privacy community, but I think this option is more reasonable than you’d think.
You mentioned blocking with DNS. You could try setting up Wireshark or something and see if there are any packets from it when you say the wake word while it is muted and how it compares to when you say the wake word when it’s unmuted.
Unfortunately the red LED would always be on because it’s muted, but you could cover it with opaque tape. Like electric tape.
Take a look at the suggestions in this article: https://www.lifewire.com/stop-alexa-from-listening-5121012
If you disable the microphone, except when you want to use it, that should severely limit what it can do. If you also set the option that tells Amazon not to keep any of your recordings that should keep you fairly safe.
The caveat is that Amazon can decide to cheat at any time. They have repeatedly lied about what information that acquire, how long they retain it, and what they do with it. At the moment, they don’t seem to be cheating on the Echo functions, but that could change at any time with an invisible firmware update. There isn’t anything you can do about this except to be aware of the possibility.
It is definitely worth using the privacy options they offer, even if they aren’t enforced through hardware.
Give em the ol’ Blizzard treatment;
Don’t you guys have phones?
MSCHF made a device called an Alexagate, which jams the microphones using ultrasound and is turned on and off by clapping.
It’s a bit expensive, though ($100).
Otherwise, as you mentioned, you can use DNS to block the tracking. NextDNS has a built-in blocklist specifically for Alexa.
thanks for the suggestion! as for nextDNS, i was already thinking of using this however you cannot change the DNS servers used on alexa devices. i was thinking of setting up openWRT on a pi and using that as a router specifically for our alexa devices with a nextDNS profile installed, but im not sure if alexa’s default to the router’s DNS or amazon’s. even if it does use the router’s DNS, does it backup to Google’s DNS (8.8.8.8) like Roku does?
With opnwrt you can do DNS hijacking, where you force redirect DNS requests for other servers to your own DNS server. This works as long as they aren’t encrypted (DNS over HTTPS or TLS), which most devices don’t use.
that’s sounds great! thanks for telling me
I specify my LAN DNS servers (2 pihole instances, main + a backup for redundancy) in my routers DHCP settings, so they are the DNS servers handed out to all LAN clients; then I have an iptables rule on the router blocking all port 53 traffic from leaving the network unless it came from those LAN DNS servers. This means only the piholes can reach external dns; everything else is required to use the LAN DNS servers or receive no response. Then the piholes have full control over what can and cannot resolve to an IP.
I haven’t found a device that doesn’t work with this setup. I used to have a couple google homes before I wised up, they worked fine behind this setup.
Don’t. Break it. Pour water on it.
Or, remind them that you will be the person choosing their nursing home?
An overarching question
You should probably discuss boundary setting with someone you trust. This situation might be only one part of a broader issue with your relationship with your parents, and you can probably make that relationship more beneficial and less detrimental.
Moving out
Once you are legally and financially able to, you could move out (or take action to improve your financial situation to make it more likely you’ll be able to do so in the future). Distance can allow a relationship to change to your benefit. It seems that the majority of adults in the wealthiest countries don’t live with their parents: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5908feb9fcd8eb1e008b4681-1200/young-adults-living-at-home.png https://64.media.tumblr.com/42facc68776260a335473a2553bb7f59/410ac9df6d9c28a0-9f/s1280x1920/8be58d13087dc686c9edcab713f63fc4c538e99a.jpg
The law
Note that, unless you have another reason to not want to be around your parents, I doubt that involving a state institution (like child protective services, a police department, a prosecutor’s office) in your relationship with your parents will be helpful. Knowing relevant laws is more useful to better understand what is socially accepted behavior, and to be able to know what public institutions are available to help you if you find yourself in a situation where they’re likely to be helpful.
Also, consider whether it’s appropriate to tell other people you know about this situation. If you do choose to discuss this with other people, I would follow an escalation procedure so that information doesn’t need to spread farther than necessary (for example, tell friends first, then if you don’t see improvement tell adults that live near you, then if you don’t see improvement tell adults in positions of responsibility (like teachers), and so on).
Privacy
You could inform your parents that state institutions might become involved if they cause you to be recorded while in your bedroom without your consent:
These quotes are discussing cameras, but I expect the same laws and principles apply to audio recordings.
If you receive mail to an address and are an adult, I expect you have rights similar to that of a tenant.
Money
You may want to ensure you have deposited any money you have acquired into a bank account you own (so there is a record of how long you had it, so it would be more questionable if they tried to claim it isn’t yours). It might also be useful to use a separate bank account to receive and account for wages (since it seems there are special exceptions for wages, so keeping clear records of what money is wages and what is not might be useful), and it might be useful to have a UTMA custodial account (like one described at https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/custodial-account-for-kids) (to enable making it even more clear what property has been transferred to you) (note that this does allow a custodian to use the property, but only for your benefit) (note you probably can’t “transfer” money to yourself, so any money you already acquired should probably be managed without using a UTMA or UGMA account).
If you just need one for that, the cheapest Echo Dot model. If you care about a nice Bluetooth speaker aspect then get an Echo. If you wanted a screen for whatever reason then an Echo Show. But Echo Dot is the cheapest model. Oldest version you can get is fine.
Leaving the microphone muted should prevent packets from going to the cloud but I can’t find definitive information either way. They process the wake word locally so answering to say “the device is muted” (if they do, mine don’t, but I’ve heard some do) doesn’t necessarily imply it’s sending anything to the cloud.
I mean I desoldered the microphones from my fire tv cube. It had 8 separate mics throughout but it works fine without them, kind of a pain in the ass to do though.
