{"id":110760,"date":"2020-08-02T13:22:26","date_gmt":"2020-08-02T20:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/alexagate-will-stop-your-amazon-echo-from-eavesdropping-on-you"},"modified":"2020-08-02T13:22:26","modified_gmt":"2020-08-02T20:22:26","slug":"alexagate-will-stop-your-amazon-echo-from-eavesdropping-on-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/alexagate-will-stop-your-amazon-echo-from-eavesdropping-on-you","title":{"rendered":"Alexagate Will Stop Your Amazon Echo From Eavesdropping On You"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Companies like Google and Facebook don\u2019t have to charge you for their product, because you are <\/em> the product they\u2019re selling\u2014or at least your data is. One individual\u2019s internet habits, shopping tendencies, and interests aren\u2019t that valuable, but when Google owns that data for the majority of internet users the value is enormous. Like Google and Facebook, Amazon understands how profitable data can be and their Alexa service on Echo devices is one avenue to gather it. MSCHF\u2019s Alexagate is a device you can attach to your Amazon Echo<\/a> to prevent it from listening to your conversations until you\u2019re ready.<\/p>\n

Amazon, like Google and Apple, denies that they use Alexa to spy on customers\u2019 conversations. But there is quite a lot of evidence to the contrary. Even in the unlikely event that they\u2019re telling the truth, Amazon is absolutely tracking your Alexa usage data. The Alexagate device physically prevents an Echo device from hearing anything you\u2019re saying until you deactivate the audio blocking capability in order to intentionally issue a command. This is very similar to Bj\u00f8rn Karmann\u2019s Project Alias device that we covered a couple of years ago<\/a>. Project Alias was just a concept prototype, but Alexagate is a real product that you can order right now.<\/p>\n

Alexagate is an attractive yellow device that sits on top of your Amazon Echo (first generation through third generation). When you don\u2019t want Amazon listening to you through the Alexa service, the device emits ultrasound pulses through transducers directed towards the Echo\u2019s microphone. Those can\u2019t be heard by the human ear, but they are picked up by the Echo and drown out whatever conversation is happening in the area. When you do <\/em> want Alexa<\/a> to listen to you, you just clap three times or tap Alexagate three times to temporarily deactivate the ultrasound transducers. The limited edition Alexagate device costs $99 \u2014 possibly more than you spent on the Echo itself, but that\u2019s a small price to pay if you value both your privacy<\/a> and the convenience that Alexa offers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Companies like Google and Facebook don\u2019t have to charge you for their product, because you are the product they\u2019re selling\u2014or at least your data is. One individual\u2019s internet habits, shopping tendencies, and interests aren\u2019t that valuable, but when Google owns that data for the majority of internet users the value is enormous. Like Google and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[418],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110760\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}