What/Who is Amazon Alexa?
Amazon Alexa is a voice-assistant program similar to iPhone’s Siri. She is in the form of a small speaker that is always ready to respond when you call out “Alexa” followed by a command. The program records conversations onto Amazon computers and transcribes them. This occurs in order for her to process and give a proper reply to the given command.
The creepy part is, Alexa may have access to your internet-connected devices. This includes door locks, heating, lights, and other upgraded utilities. She may also find out through hearing all of the dialogue she picks up around your home. Like we said, she is always listening in order to be prepared to give you assistance.
Mishaps from Alexa
Alexa has mistaken background dialogue for a command to record the conversation and send it to a specific person in the contact list. Fortunately, the person who received it just heard random dialogue.
Researchers have created hidden commands that humans cannot hear, but Alexa can. They can implant these commands into the music that you ask Alexa to play. During the song, the embedded commands (the ones inaudible to humans) may be asking Alexa to disable your home security, record a conversation and send it somewhere, or other invasive orders (based on what devices are connected to your home network).
The Future for Alexa
Alexa is still a great tool to have in your home for when you are cooking and need help converting measurements or for when you just want to pop on some Bob Dylan. She is only a few years old that can do an endless amount of things for you. We only want you to be aware of the negative actions she is capable of doing. Your home should be a private space and we want to keep it that way.
