My wife is an introvert, a very private person. She thinks the government and business is spying on us. And she's right. At least I'm fairly sure they are.But the difference between her and I, is that I think there's nothing we can do about it. That war was lost a long time ago.
She covers the camera on her Chromebook with a band-aid. That's actually pretty smart. Even Mark Zuckerberg covers his camera. But he doesn't use a band-aid.Because they're spying on us, she doesn't want any smart speakers in our house. She doesn't want Google or Amazon listening to us. They do. As yahoo.com stated:Google Homeshave been caught eavesdroppingand Amazon Alexas have sent recordings to strangers, and while neither was a malicious invasion of privacy, that's a cold comfort if it happens to you.
But nothing interesting or criminal happens in our house. So I'd rather have one to tell me the weather, a joke, or play the Woody and Jim Show podcast (shameless plug). So I bought one at Christmas and put it on top of the fridge.But when I hooked it up, she unplugged it. I plugged it back in.That's when she decided to cover it up with a little dish rag.
So I kept taking the rag off the top. That's when she pulled out her secret weapon. She was going to shut it down by muffling it with... a giant oven mitt someone gave us from Texas.
That's right. The government spy machine in our kitchen was "too hot to handle". I took it off because it just looked too nice. Our kitchen looked too fancy with oven glove!I'll have to tell her about this new (and creepy looking) device that actually does keep Google, Amazon, the government, and aliens from hearing our riveting conversations. It's a product from the Alias Project. While odd looking (and strangely phallic), it works with your smart phone to only let your voice assistant hear what you want it to hear.When it hears your wake word, it let's Google or Amazon get your message. The rest of the time, it emits a voice canceling static to keep things private.
But I'm not buying it. Literally. Sometimes Alexa is the only one listening to me.