Go to sleep, Alexa… you’re eavesdropping again.
A Portland, Oregon couple says their Amazon Echo recorded a private conversation and emailed the audio to one of their random contacts.
A woman, who only identified herself as Danielle, told KIRO7 that she and her husband synced their home with Amazon devices until about two weeks ago when the couple received an unsettling phone call.
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The caller, an employee of Danielle’s husband, reportedly told them:
“Unplug your Alexa devices right now. You’re being hacked.”
The couple were hesitant to believe the man when he said he heard their conversation, but then grew alarmed when the employee said he heard them talking about hardwood floors.
They immediately unplugged the devices — and Danielle doesn’t ever plan on plugging Alexa back in. She told the station:
“We said, ‘Oh gosh, you really did hear us.’ I felt invaded. A total privacy invasion. Immediately I said, ‘I’m never plugging that device in again, because I can’t trust it.”
Danielle said an Amazon engineer apologized for the incident and offered to fix the device when she called the company.
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In a statement to USA Today, company reps suggested that the Echo probably woke up after hearing what sounded like “Alexa,” and likely misinterpreted the couple’s conversation as a series of commands, like “send a message.”
But would the device really do all this silently without issuing any response? Sounds sketchy to us.
[Image via Amazon.]
Source: perez hilton