Goodbye privacy, hello Alexa: Amazon Echo, the home robot who hears it all
In threads like this, Hacker News is usually in favour of the privacy invasion, and it&#x27;s happening here right now. I wish everyone would understand that the question isn&#x27;t about your own personal privacy (&quot;I&#x27;m willing to give that up&quot; says everybody).<p>The question is about our society, and government+corporate control. In a society where everyone accepts 5-10 different listening devices into their homes, a system is being built to listen to every thing we say and watch everything we do. How many different manufacturers built all the microphones and cameras that are in the same room as you and also connected to the internet? How many countries had their hands on those devices before they got to you?<p>The problem is with a big trend in society that we <i>want</i> to be listened to and watched, because it makes life more convenient on a personal level. Even HN users will happily let in multiple surveillance robots into their homes because they are comfortable with the personal decision.<p>But it&#x27;s NOT a personal decision. When we have a society that so willingly accepts and even <i>desires</i> to live in a surveillance state, well, that&#x27;s a problem. This is a direct path to a totalitarian surveillance state that would be much much more invasive than anything written about in 1984. We should be working to avoid that world, not invite it in as fast as we can open the door.