Ah yes. "Muted".
If you should be aware of anything, it should be that if you have an Internet connected microphone the only way to truly know it's muted is to remove it from power.
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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And now they don’t even give a shit about pretending to hide it
Yep, was gonna post this.
Good luck, this hospital's IT department, good fucking luck.
They don't need it. 802.11x. Problem solved.
... Can you expand on what you mean by that?
Are you saying just... firewall all the Echoes, lock them out of any ability to access the actual internet?
So they never phone home?
I mean... yeah I guess that could work, if you took the time to manually do custom firmware updates on them in some way that only involves your local (hospital) intranet... and overrides the default proprietary firmware and basically flashes it with some custom system that doesn't rely on AWS connections to work... if... that even exists...
Their hospital oriented implementation... was... reliant on a constant AWS connection to actually process voice recordings, transform them into text or some other digital format, then send that back to the hospital, "securely."
https://www.hipaajournal.com/amazon-ends-support-for-third-party-hipaa-eligible-alexa-skills/
Apparently they actually lost HIPAA compliance back in 22.
If they are literally just a being used as an intercomm system... why would you even use Echoes?
There are tons of other, actually HIPAA compliant, hospital oriented, digital intercomm software systems and manufacturers.
Seriously, please explain to me how '802.11x', a term that means 'all wifi standards', somehow solves the problem of Echoes being non HIPAA compliant, requiring constant access to Amazon servers to actually process the raw audio...
Please elaborate.
I had a few Google Home devices, they had a switch to turn off the mic. I assume it was legit switch, because the thing literally yelled at you and had bright red lights any time you muted it. It literally said "The mic is turned off" every time it booted up in a voice that reminds me of a child tattling on their sibling.
Have some too, I would not be surprised if it's a software driven hardware switch lol
Some of them have hardware switches
but that could simply be wired to an LED and nothing else
By that logic these devices can have internal batteries too.
And ones without internet can have secret antennas
These companies don't even have to go to that much trouble, since people seem to be just fine connecting everything to the internet willingly.
This. They don't give a shit about the tiny, infinitesimal percentage of people like me and my fellow privacy-conscious lemmings that understand what's going on, care about it, and refuse to participate.
This is why regulations to reign in corporate bullshit exist, expecting the average person to have even the faintest idea why this is important isn't reasonable.
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The first-gen echo devices at least actually had a board that listened for the activation word only that then powered on the main device. It's why you couldn't name them whatever you wanted, but had to choose between "Echo", "Alexa", "Amazon", or "Computer."
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Preferably, by throwing it out a 6th-floor window
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This sign implies they're fully aware of how unsafe it is to have a device like that. SO WHY THE FUCK DO THEY HAVE ONE?!
Oh they're so cool and convenient!!
/s but sadly not /s
I hate this place
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Ah yes, the"mute" feature, a.k.a. "I'm not listening, pinky promise! 😇."
Alexa, please unmute!
Please remember to unplug and throw the echo out of the building. Preferably into a woodchipper.
"Please do not say 'Down with Big Brother' unless the Telescreen is 'turned off'"
🙄
Not even turned off... Just muted. Because that's the same thing as not listening.
Only acceptable if their mute button is a hammer.
Pull the fuckin plug, holy shit. It’s not that hard.
I'm not even surprised. All your info is being sent around by shady fax-to-email conversion companies using Chinese servers. Ask me how I know--we use them.
The US is so cooked
I worked for a couple years at a residential school where a lot of the kids had significant medical issues (to the point part of our training was on HIPAA). Tons of kids had echo devices, and I spent a significant chunk of my time there trying to get anyone to take seriously the huge privacy risk those things posed.
Is it more of a risk than your cell phone?
So very curious about the Ted Kaczynski photo in the background.
His manifesto was all about technology controlling our lives. That’s my guess as to why that’s in there.
Yeah.. I feel kind of stupid now.
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It's a meme that people will add his photo to images of technology acting in ways that it shouldn't.
Another example:
Why is there a mugshot superimposed on this photo? It's just one of those psychological tests where most people don't see it because they expect the window to be reflecting something and they're just reading the sign?
It's the mugshot of Ted Kaczynski, AKA the Unabomber, who was quite famous for having an extreme aversion to technology and how he perceived its role in the downfall of society.
You know shit's bad when you start to realize Ted had a few good points.
Uncle Ted had a lot of good points, he just went about expressing them uhhhhhh
VERY poorly
Makes sense. Thanks.
This person manifestos
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I want such a voice thingy, but 100% local.
Homeassistant is making porgress with this idea, but it's a slow progress.
That's how I feel about AI stuff too. Like, I'd love to "Ghibli-fi" my family like everyone else, but I'd prefer to run it locally rather than hand over family photos to one of these AI companies.
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Same boat. Tools like this and Gemini make managing my ADHD sooooo much easier. Having a JARVIS-esque "AI personal assistant" would make a lot of my struggles less debilitating. I'd even be willing to pay, as long as the data stayed private.
Tools like this and Gemini make managing my ADHD sooooo much easier.
Can you elaborate on this?
My working memory is terrible. If I don't write something down, it's likely forgotten. I've always tried to keep a pen and paper on me, to varying degrees of success. Now, instead I can "Hey Google, add x to my grocery list" and it'll add it to my shopping list in Keep, or "... Create a reminder/alarm/event for..." for reminders to empty the dishwasher in 45 minutes or remember that I just agreed to plans on Saturday.
I'm not a huge fan of Google anymore, but I still willingly use their services because the tradeoff is that beneficial to me.
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We had this policy at my last job, but not due to HIPAA. Any time "Alexa" came up in conversations, it was very common for peoples' devices to chime in, telling on them.
Granted, we were in tech, so we were very aware that these things aren't recording everything you say and sending the recordings off to motherbrain nor "spying", per se.
I recall them being caught of being in the possession of recordings they shouldn’t have had.
On top of this the option of not sending recordings to the cloud is being removed just now - so they stopped pretending to respect your privacy.
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