A few hotels already have tablets pointing cameras at the room (including a recent Marriott I stayed at). This just adds more crap I have to unplug or disable. Lovely.
I can't wait until we all find out these things have all been systematically rooted and collecting blackmail on folks.
It's one thing to trust Amazon or Google, but now you also have to trust the hotel and its staff, the physical security of the device, and all the previous guests of the room.
> It's one thing to trust Amazon or Google, but now you also have to trust the hotel and its staff, the physical security of the device, and all the previous guests of the room.
You already had to do the physical trust thing. These devices are a new challenge because they could be remotely compromised.
> It's one thing to trust Amazon or Google, but now you also have to trust the hotel and its staff, the physical security of the device, and all the previous guests of the room.
With miniature cameras being widely available for years now what exactly is new?
What could possibly ever go wrong putting a third party corporate spying machine in each room? It's unbelievable how much blind and naive trust there is.
I assume the answer is no, but sweeping for listening devices is different than ignoring a listening device which is clearly sitting right in front of you.
Personally, I have no problem with it, but I can see why others would be concerned.
Yea, I can’t believe all these people walking around with these spying machines in their pockets. Subjecting the rest of us to their second hand spying. Oh wait, were we talking about Alexa or cellphones/smartphones?
> Yea, I can’t believe all these people walking around with these spying machines in their pockets
Me either. Your comment sounds sarcastic, but there are people (me included) that find this concerning (not unbelievable though; the incentives are clear).
What I find most frustrating is that we've reached the point where even privacy advocates, speaking to privacy advocates at privacy advocacy events (e.g. Open Rights Group) just assume that everyone's carrying a phone, posting to social media, etc. :(
Other's have said you could unplug it, but you may also find it to be the easiest way to do certain things, so you could also mute it so it's available in case you want it.
Of course you'd have to trust the mute function, but Amazon is actually pretty strict about honoring their explicit privacy guarantees (like when you push the mute button it's actually muted).
On the minus side, when muted the entire LED ring glows bright red, which is not ideal in a room you're trying to sleep in... so you need to cover it up too.
You can call ahead or tell them during check in that you don't want it in your room or just unplug it. There is no charge for any of these options. They're very sensitive to customer perceptions and don't want to force anything on anybody.
Ultrasonics exist to overload microphones but I always thought of then as acoustical coupling of interference which I would think the FCC would frown upon but maybe that's a stretch.
BTW the last few times I've checked in to a Marriott, the TV has been on, playing some kind of ad trying to sell me a temporary Netflix subscription or something. I find this incredibly annoying. I never use the TV in a hotel room, and I'd like to find a hotel chain that has no TVs in the rooms period.
> ... Jones, who worked on social media accounts for the company, had “liked” the tweet, on behalf of Marriott International... The problem? It had been posted by a Tibetan separatist group...
This reads to me like the employee went rogue and took politically sensitive stance on behalf of the company. I'd label that brand damaging negligence and it seems like fair grounds for dismissal. Maybe there's more to it.
One like doesn't sound rogue. If the dude'd gone out of his way to like every claim of Tibet being its own country, sure.
In this case though I'd imagine he saw a "Thanks Marriott" and liked it because that's the thing companies do. I've had companies miss my oozing-in-sarcasm messages and like them in the past even.
The thing to think about is how much time does he really have per action? If it was you on personal twitter, minutes per action. As a customer support person answering hundreds of messages a day, probably closer to a second or two per action
China would probably object if the guy "liked" a tweet by the Dalai Lama in which he said how much he liked his stay at a Marriott.
I'm not sure it would be readily apparent if a Tibet-oriented Twitter account was that of a "separatist" group, let alone how radical or violent that group might be. (Assuming that the group was in any way problematic in an objective sense rather than just hurting China's imperialistic feels.)
Is there a reason for why major tech companies are heavily pushing their smart speakers? Their seems to be a lot more marketing push going on than when they were pushing out new phones/tablets/hardware etc in the past (Amazon fire, Google Pixelbook, Google Chromecast, Amazon Roku etc.)
- landgrab. You're very unlikely to have more than one smart speaker system in your phone, so once you've got an Alexa, you'll probably pick up some Alexa Dots rather than get a Google Home. This applies to an entire household in the way that even cellphone choices don't.
- lock-in. The web is all pesky and open, whereas these voice interface platforms are perfectly locked in for ultimate profit. And you can't get the web on them! Ideal.
I think it's because it helps the big tech companies sell more stuff later on.
If you have a smart speaker, you are probably more likely to be a Prime member, Spotify subscriber, and make purchases with Amazon or Google Express via the speaker.
Probably for a similar reason that they push their own app stores. You get used to using something, depend on it. After the lock-in period, they are in a much better position to offer you new services that you simply can't refuse.
Voice interfaces have huge potential. I think the potential for a truly amazing voice interface / AI (think JARVIS from Iron Man) outweighs the potential of hardware.
On the one hand, I could see this being incredibly useful. Program it to answer all sorts of typical guest questions including those specific to the property/location. On the other hand, I can't really argue with those who don't feel comfortable with the idea--which is probably why this has taken so long.
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I can't wait until we all find out these things have all been systematically rooted and collecting blackmail on folks.
It's one thing to trust Amazon or Google, but now you also have to trust the hotel and its staff, the physical security of the device, and all the previous guests of the room.
You already had to do the physical trust thing. These devices are a new challenge because they could be remotely compromised.
Back in the day you had to be important to get that kind of treatment and usually only the FBI would do it.
This what's known as the Democratization of technology. Now days everyone is important and receives equal treatment!
With miniature cameras being widely available for years now what exactly is new?
"It's ok to do this. Look! Everybody does it. Why are you always so paranoid? If you have nothing to hide why are you fighting it?!"
Do you sweep every hotel room you use for listening devices?
Personally, I have no problem with it, but I can see why others would be concerned.
That said, I think that if someone complains about X, and you reply "But what about Y?!" you're not really addressing their concern.
Me either. Your comment sounds sarcastic, but there are people (me included) that find this concerning (not unbelievable though; the incentives are clear).
What I find most frustrating is that we've reached the point where even privacy advocates, speaking to privacy advocates at privacy advocacy events (e.g. Open Rights Group) just assume that everyone's carrying a phone, posting to social media, etc. :(
I'm not comfortable sleeping in a room with one of these devices.
Of course you'd have to trust the mute function, but Amazon is actually pretty strict about honoring their explicit privacy guarantees (like when you push the mute button it's actually muted).
The ideal way, if it is an option for you, is to opt-out of that hotel altogether. Telling them why may be even better.
If all they're doing is adding a physical Echo device, I can do that.
It's unfortunate that it'll be another thing to remember to take care of, but it sounds mitigate-able.
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https://work.qz.com/1220881/marriott-hotels-fired-an-hourly-...
This reads to me like the employee went rogue and took politically sensitive stance on behalf of the company. I'd label that brand damaging negligence and it seems like fair grounds for dismissal. Maybe there's more to it.
In this case though I'd imagine he saw a "Thanks Marriott" and liked it because that's the thing companies do. I've had companies miss my oozing-in-sarcasm messages and like them in the past even.
The thing to think about is how much time does he really have per action? If it was you on personal twitter, minutes per action. As a customer support person answering hundreds of messages a day, probably closer to a second or two per action
I'm not sure it would be readily apparent if a Tibet-oriented Twitter account was that of a "separatist" group, let alone how radical or violent that group might be. (Assuming that the group was in any way problematic in an objective sense rather than just hurting China's imperialistic feels.)
- landgrab. You're very unlikely to have more than one smart speaker system in your phone, so once you've got an Alexa, you'll probably pick up some Alexa Dots rather than get a Google Home. This applies to an entire household in the way that even cellphone choices don't.
- lock-in. The web is all pesky and open, whereas these voice interface platforms are perfectly locked in for ultimate profit. And you can't get the web on them! Ideal.
If you have a smart speaker, you are probably more likely to be a Prime member, Spotify subscriber, and make purchases with Amazon or Google Express via the speaker.
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More data = more learning. Even bad data is valuable.
It's how Google keeps Google Voice and Gmail free.
Now, in the West, people actually pay for devices that surveil them.