my family is moving into a much bigger house than we used to have. we use amazon echos as an intercom system through the announcement feature. because our house is bigger, i’m being forced to get one myself for my room. i haven’t needed one for years because i use their app on my phone and i can see their announcements as a notification and i can also kill off most of its tracking by DNS. unfortunately my parents don’t understand this and are forcing me to get one. what can i do to limit its tracking?
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Jeff? Is that you, son? I told you that it was nonnegotiable, now get off the internets, I’m expecting an important telephone call and don’t want you tying up the lines.
While there are a lot of good technical suggestions here, I’ve found that a conversation goes a long way. In my experience, when talking with loved ones, explain your emotions. Not “I hate this” or “the governments are listening!”, but those core emotions. “Having a device in my room that is always monitoring me makes me feel anxious and I don’t feel comfortable in a place where I should feel safe.” Make sure that the dialog is calm and remains about your feelings until you know that you’re being heard. If you aren’t, try other phrases or examples.
Once you’ve established your feelings, address their concerns and feelings (active listening). It sounds stupid at first, but it works. “I hear that you are frustrated when I don’t come down for dinner immediately.” Finally, propose some solutions that meet everybody’s needs and that the parties can select one to try out for a week and evaluate it’s effectiveness, trying new things until a mutually beneficial solution is found.
Good luck. Please post the outcome!
i haven’t needed one for years because i use their app on my phone and i can see their announcements as a notification and i can also kill off most of its tracking by DNS. unfortunately my parents don’t understand this
Sounds like you have a reasonable, compatible alternative on your phone already. Will they even notice if you continue using this and never plug the new alexa in?
probably not. i might just not plug it in and see how it goes. if it doesn’t work out, i guess i’ll have to DNS block its tracking from a openwrt pi
Good plan A.
For a plan B, If your parents don’t understand why privacy is important on the internet they probably won’t understand why the echos in your room don’t seem to work. Say it’s wifi can’t reach the router, bend the cable so many times the wires break, “accidentally” become super clumsy with it and knock it over a bunch. This is absolutely a first world problem, it requires a first world solution.
Don’t get one. If your parents want an intercom system, have an actual intercom system installed. No need to violate your privacy.
You can’t have privacy with that setup
Don’t. Break it. Pour water on it.
Or, remind them that you will be the person choosing their nursing home?
Very nice one.
Give em the ol’ Blizzard treatment;
Don’t you guys have phones?
If you are OK opening things up and can use a soldering iron you could put a physical switch on the microphone.
If not using it for Alexa connectivity, why not just get an actual intercom? A pair is like 30 bucks on Amazon, no Internet required.
Or “hey Alexa, order an intercom system on my mom’s account”
Isn’t there an eavesdropping function on Alexa… Maybe it’s actually less communication and more checking in on what you’re doing (not to increase your paranoia)
my parents and siblings enjoy the convenience of alexas and the fact that they can play music. i’ve tried suggesting an actual intercom system and they’re against it
As a parent, if my kid said “I don’t want to be tracked, I’m concerned about my privacy”, I’d get an intercom for everyone in the house and let the Alexa be opt in. Sounds like playing music using Alexa isn’t a game changer for you. What does it matter anyway, what if you like headphones better, the Alexa stuff isn’t mandatory for playing/listening to music.
I hate the drop in feature that alexa devices have. You can drop into any device in your home and no one had to accept. Essentially you can listen in without the other person knowing. If it had some sort of announcement that smoothie device was dropping in and it was possible to accept our decline that would be different.
Turn it off.
buddy i would if i could. unfortunately they are forcing me to have it on at all times. which is why im asking for suggestions
Put together a privacy and security presentation.
Does your family use password managers? (And dear god not Lastpass, with their breech a couple years ago).
What do your parents do if one is incapacitated? The self-hosting community has discussions on managing this.
This is a great opportunity for you to learn a lot of stuff and show your parents how to approach security and privacy.
Start with understanding their needs… Truly understanding, take your time. Solutions can always be found later, once the requirements are well understood.
As an aside, as someone likely old enough to be your grandparent, I can’t imagine needing an intercom in a house. Some of my family had them growing up, and found it to be not nearly as useful as they thought it would be.
Does your family use password managers? (And dear god not Lastpass, with their breech a couple years ago).
What is the recomended password manager right now? Currently I still have google storing all my passwords but I’m working on degoogling so that will have to go at some point.
I personally use bitwarden. I like it because it has a flow of cash from corporate users paying for hosting that funds development meaning I know how they get their money. You can use Bitwarden’s server if you don’t need all the features or you are willing to pay or you can selfhost (which is what I do).
You can also pay to and store you 2FA codes in Bitwarden. Easy to logon to sites as it copies the code for you. But probably a bad practice.
I use that feature when a site requires 2fa bit I don’t really care about the account.
KeePass or something similar. Self-hosting your passwords is the only way, anything that uses servers that are not controlled by you is a no-go, in my opinion, no matter how secure your client is.
I would agree somewhat, except I think Bitwarden verifiably doesn’t store unencrypted password data. Of course, I think that a self-hosted solution is pretty much always more secure than one that isn’t, but the convenience Bitwarden provides is real.
“Convenience” as in there is no need to host anything? May be, but, yet again, I would like to know the exact physical location of my passwords, otherwise I’m not saving them there. Apart from that, I don’t think there are any more “benefits”.
Use a hammer to turn it off. Or spray it full of expanding foam
Divorce
“Sorry mom and dad, half the house and your wealth is mine now.”
I’m pretty sure it would be a spouse
OP lives with their parents.
Alexa order 1000 dildos on my moms account
Unplug it
Amazon doesn’t want you to know this one trick
sorry for asking a question about privacy in a privacy community. i can’t just not use it because my parents are forcing me to use it. if i was allowed to unplug it, i would.
Do it anyways. Everyone has a right of privacy no matter the age.
Ya there’s no such thing as “being forced to use it”. What are they going to do, lock you in your room with no food if you refuse? Just stand up for yourself and say you are not comfortable having it in your room and don’t compromise on it.
You know, in an ideal world, that makes sense.
But this isn’t an ideal world. That’s the kind of advice that can get a kid literally beaten in a bad scenario. Parents usually hold all the power in a household, and it isn’t the kind of power you can just shrug off.
Well some parents can lock you in a room with no food especially in developing countries
My neighbor tied her children because she went out and “they fight a lot” she claimed to be outside for 20 or 30 mins but neighbors said it was like half day.
That’s like 5 years in jail right there
Developing countries probably don’t have like 4 amazon echos in the house as an intercom system though, tbf.
You’d be surprised what stuff has a higher priority for purchase.
IMHO the only reason they don’t is because they don’t know how to use it or do not care…
Honestly, just muting the microphone is mostly fine. I really don’t believe they transmit shit to the cloud when they’re muted. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about how they answer when they’re muted so they’re still listening, but they process the “Alexa” (or whatever wake word you use) locally and then send a short buffer of recording along with everything you say following it to the cloud to process. It’s likely they just hear that you said the wake word locally and then say “Hey I’m muted” without sending it to the cloud.
I know this answer isn’t the most privacy oriented on a privacy community, but I think this option is more reasonable than you’d think.
You mentioned blocking with DNS. You could try setting up Wireshark or something and see if there are any packets from it when you say the wake word while it is muted and how it compares to when you say the wake word when it’s unmuted.
Unfortunately the red LED would always be on because it’s muted, but you could cover it with opaque tape. Like electric tape.
An overarching question
You should probably discuss boundary setting with someone you trust. This situation might be only one part of a broader issue with your relationship with your parents, and you can probably make that relationship more beneficial and less detrimental.
Moving out
Once you are legally and financially able to, you could move out (or take action to improve your financial situation to make it more likely you’ll be able to do so in the future). Distance can allow a relationship to change to your benefit. It seems that the majority of adults in the wealthiest countries don’t live with their parents: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5908feb9fcd8eb1e008b4681-1200/young-adults-living-at-home.png https://64.media.tumblr.com/42facc68776260a335473a2553bb7f59/410ac9df6d9c28a0-9f/s1280x1920/8be58d13087dc686c9edcab713f63fc4c538e99a.jpg
The law
Note that, unless you have another reason to not want to be around your parents, I doubt that involving a state institution (like child protective services, a police department, a prosecutor’s office) in your relationship with your parents will be helpful. Knowing relevant laws is more useful to better understand what is socially accepted behavior, and to be able to know what public institutions are available to help you if you find yourself in a situation where they’re likely to be helpful.
Also, consider whether it’s appropriate to tell other people you know about this situation. If you do choose to discuss this with other people, I would follow an escalation procedure so that information doesn’t need to spread farther than necessary (for example, tell friends first, then if you don’t see improvement tell adults that live near you, then if you don’t see improvement tell adults in positions of responsibility (like teachers), and so on).
Privacy
You could inform your parents that state institutions might become involved if they cause you to be recorded while in your bedroom without your consent:
These quotes are discussing cameras, but I expect the same laws and principles apply to audio recordings.
If you receive mail to an address and are an adult, I expect you have rights similar to that of a tenant.
Money
You may want to ensure you have deposited any money you have acquired into a bank account you own (so there is a record of how long you had it, so it would be more questionable if they tried to claim it isn’t yours). It might also be useful to use a separate bank account to receive and account for wages (since it seems there are special exceptions for wages, so keeping clear records of what money is wages and what is not might be useful), and it might be useful to have a UTMA custodial account (like one described at https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/personal-finance/custodial-account-for-kids) (to enable making it even more clear what property has been transferred to you) (note that this does allow a custodian to use the property, but only for your benefit) (note you probably can’t “transfer” money to yourself, so any money you already acquired should probably be managed without using a UTMA or UGMA account).
