Amazon's Alexa Snafu Should Be a Turning Point for Tech
Amazon.com Inc. Echo devices sit on display in front of the Seattle Space Needle.
Photographer: Daniel Berman/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Alexa is listening to us after all. A married Oregon couple found out that their Amazon Echo had sent their friend a recording of a private conversation they were having about hardwood floors. "My husband and I would joke and say, ‘I'd bet these devices are listening to what we're saying,’" said the woman who would come to learn that she had been betrayed by her live-in robot assistant.
An acquaintance who received the recording of their conversation called her with a warning: "Unplug your Alexa devices right now. You're being hacked."