How many wiretaps do you have in your home?
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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I would say Alexa is actually much worse because there's already been instances where Amazon gave the info up to law enforcement. PCs and phone manufacturers might've also but I think it would be less than a dedicated microphone in your house.
for my original point, I'd say that an Alexa is a single point of access for giving your info to law enforcement, whereas a phone has multiple (ie each app and website) and pcs have more software and less stringent access policies (ie less likely to have facial recognition or fingerprint recognition as the barrier to access) and you can just open the case and take out the hard drive much easier.
Both Alexa and phones have to be listening to everything to be able to answer when you call them. Considering that data is sent over to Google/Amazon, it isn't much different.
But phones have a dedicated microphone and location tracking service built in. If there is a software vulnerability (there is always a software vulnerability) then it can be remotely turned on and monitored.
There are even instances of this happening to targets of governments: journalists and activists, especially. That Israeli company specializes in it and sells access to anyone who is willing to pay.
so do laptops, and most pcs will have a webcam and mic attached.
Yep, thanks to Edward Snowden, we've know NSA has been able to turn these on without us knowing (without the red light) for a long time now.
Idk why you're downvoting the guy WetBeardHairs is right. Pegasus spyware has been a serious threat and was created by a nation state hacking group in Israel called NSO group.
This is why I do the best I can and use GrapheneOS, but there could always be some security vulnerability deep in Android itself. If you're looking for true privacy and security, a burner or something with removable components would be best.