Alexa and other home technology - pros and cons

and therefore you also don't use a smartphone or online banking etc.? Aha

I'd rather stay out of it, you apparently just want to prove to us that you have to give up everything if you don't love Alexa as much as you do. Have fun...

So far, everything that is technically possible has sooner or later been done. It’s only a matter of time. Unless you are a naive fool... And with Alexa, I am more for earlier (in terms of the past). I don’t have to do the intelligence agencies the favor of smuggling a microphone into my house...

Unbelievable how here is written without any facts... You make yourselves so ridiculous! Madness!

The fact is: alexa CURRENTLY (and that was the only point!) sends NO information secretly anywhere. What alexa sends is transparent and comprehensible! Period, end of story! This is provable. Anyone who claims otherwise and doesn't even have arguments and just "talks nonsense" stands in a corner with 9/11 conspiracy theorists..

PS: My company makes its money with cryptography and controlling network traffic, I have also written skills for alexa. Unlike the babblers here... I have REAL background knowledge about alexa.

I don't have to do the intelligence services' work for them by smuggling a microphone into my house...

That works just fine without me: tapping the phone, etc., they have enough microphones in the house. But you can understand being creeped out by Alexa.

Steffen, you are fixating on an irrelevant detail.
For the function of the box, the transmission of voice commands to the US cloud is necessary. Authorities have access to it. They now know your voice and can do whatever they want with it. They can match it, reproduce it. For what purpose? Who knows.

Even if Alexa now (or during the measurement, for example, of the blogger or yourself) only listens in when you want it to, that’s good. But that doesn’t mean it will stay that way. The microphone is there, the box is online. Under US control, possibly under third-party control in case of security vulnerabilities. See Hue lamps. As open as a barn door, unfortunately unpatchable, and nobody cares. If that’s not a problem for you, fine. For others, it is.

All devices with (permanent) online access must be patchable. Manufacturers must have patching obligations. Moreover, microphone arrays must be made detectable, just like video recordings. Sign on the front door.

Oh Steffen, so you earn your money with this eavesdropping stuff, no wonder you argue like this here.