Big Brother Bezos and Amazon's Alexa, Blink, Echo, Eero, Fire, Kindle, Ring
By
Duane Thresher, Ph.D. December 7, 2021
1984 was published by George Orwell (pen name of Eric
Arthur Blair) in 1949. It describes a world where society is
run by a totalitarian government; actually three police states
pretending, by mutual agreement, to continually be at war with
one or another so they can deny individual rights by claiming
a protective state of emergency, like has been done
with
Coronavirus.
To further control the populace, privacy has been destroyed by
installing cameras, microphones, screens, and speakers
everywhere, including in every room of everyone's home, so
that, at all times, everyone can be told what to think and
everything everyone says or does can be known by the
government, represented by a man known as Big Brother, to make
it seem protectively familial. Signs everywhere say "Big
Brother Is Watching You". Orwell, in 1949, clearly meant this
as a condemnation of the Soviet Union (now Russia),
represented by mass-murderer Chairman Joseph Stalin, but there
has been much speculation about who this could be these days.
I have myself on Apscitu speculated that Big Brother could be
Google, represented by Russian-born Google founder Sergey
Brin, particularly given Google's collaboration with
the
National
Security Agency (NSA) to invade the privacy of Americans.
Here though, just in time for Christmas, I describe how Big
Brother could be
Amazon,
represented by founder Jeff Bezos, given Amazon's
heavily-advertised privacy invasion system of, from A to Z
(Amazon's logo), Alexa, Blink, Echo, Eero, Fire, Kindle, and
Ring, as well as given its collaboration with the NSA and
other agencies.
Like a frog who will jump out when put into already boiling
water, but will boil to death if slowly brought to a boil, you
probably don't realize it, but Amazon has already committed
the largest invasion of privacy in history. It knows and
remembers forever, from A to Z (Amazon's logo), including the
embarrassing and incriminating stuff, much of what hundreds of
millions of people worldwide have
purchased
over the last 30 years. Items like books and videos,
which tell a lot about you (political persuasion, religion,
sexual orientation, race, etc.), and prescriptions, which
indicate what diseases you have and how much of a risk you are
to health insurance companies. Amazon definitely takes notice
of this information — every time you are on the Amazon
website that's how its recommendations are made. If the
government tried to get this information on its own, it would
be barred by law from doing so. Until recently, you couldn't
even sue Amazon over this; see
Amazon
Covers Up Return of Your Right to Sue Them.
Think Amazon, which gives you all those seemingly great deals,
would never collaborate with the government in spying on you?
In Sep 2020, during the height of the
Coronavirus
Scare, notorious former NSA Director
Keith Alexander
was quietly appointed, probably by
Amazon founder
Jeff Bezos
himself, to Amazon's Board of
Directors. While NSA Director, Alexander was described as the
"most powerful intelligence chief in the nation's history" and
his stated intelligence-gathering strategy was "collect it
all". Keith Alexander was Director of the NSA for nine years,
Aug 2005 – Mar 2014, and was the reason
Edward
Snowden hacked
the NSA in 2013, to reveal to Americans that the NSA was
spying on them. Alexander left the NSA because of this
disclosure. Now Alexander has the perfect place to continue
his "collect it all" strategy.
Consider too that in Aug 2021 the NSA awarded Amazon a $10
billion secret cloud computing contract (code-named
"WildandStormy"), to keep all that was collected. In 2013,
Amazon had been awarded a similar $600 million contract by the
CIA, which was
hacked
by
Edward
Snowden in 2012 to reveal to Americans that the CIA was
spying on them, and in 2020 the CIA awarded a similar
multibillion dollar contract (code-named "C2E") to
Amazon.
And now Amazon has developed a whole system of
1984
devices, including software, some of which you don't even know
are made by Amazon, but all of which Amazon heavily
advertises, on its website and in TV commercials; remember,
this is just in time for Christmas. By "system of
1984
devices, including software",
I, with
a
B.S. from
MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, mean
Amazon-made devices like cameras, microphones, screens, and
speakers, including software, that all work together to invade
your, including your kids', privacy and tell you, and your
kids, what to think, just like in
1984. Amazon even
has its own lab for this, Lab126 (from A, letter 1, to Z,
letter 26; Amazon's logo), which allows Jeff Bezos and Keith
Alexander to direct development of these devices and software,
i.e. to direct development of the whole
1984
system.
Proceeding from A to Z (Amazon's logo), the first, and most
prominent, part of Amazon's
1984 system is Alexa, which
is software running on computers/devices and so doing what
they can do, but also communicating with and controlling other
computers/devices. Alexa is advertised by Amazon as a virtual
assistant, a helpful, even protective, household family
member.
Alexa accepts voice commands and responds with a voice. If
Jeff Bezos
is the face of
Big Brother
, Alexa is Big Brother's voice. If
that sounds gender confused, note that Alexa's voice, via
speaker, does not have to be feminine, it can be set to be
masculine; actor Samuel L. Jackson's voice for
example.
Alexa is all about voice, i.e. speech. Alexa is essentially
just speech synthesizing and speech recognition software.
Speech recognition means that Alexa has to listen, via
microphone, to all speech at all times, supposedly waiting to
hear its trigger word, Alexa (or Amazon), before doing
anything. Let me repeat that, in a scary voice: Alexa listens
to every word you, and your kids, say, every second of every
day, in your home and in your car.
So what, you say, in an unconcerned voice, thinking what you
say stays in your home, or car, even if on computer. But it
doesn't. Without your knowledge or informed consent, anything
and everything you, and your kids, say, at any time, can be
sent and kept forever in the cloud, supposedly just so Amazon
can improve speech recognition, or can be sent to anyone, like
complete strangers (e.g. pedophiles), law enforcement, or the
NSA.
Big Brother Bezos is listening.
Alexa can respond to factual questions, using Wikipedia as a
starting point. If using
Wikipedia
weren't bad enough, Amazon can make Alexa put any slant
(political, etc.) it wants on the answer.
Big Brother Bezos says.
There have been numerous outrageous proven instances of all of
this and they are always dismissed as a "rare occurrence" by
Amazon.
Don't blink. Blink is a home security company that makes
wireless home security cameras, indoor and outdoor, and
systems. Not shown in its TV commercials is the fact that
Amazon owns Blink. What is shown is that you can remotely
view the camera feeds away from your home, like at work, to,
for example, watch your kids at home. But this also means
Amazon, as well as hackers, can view these camera feeds. It
will only be a matter of time before Amazon integrates Alexa
with Blink cameras, if it hasn't already,
covertly.
Big Brother Bezos is watching.
Amazon Echo is a line of wireless smart speakers, with
microphones, heavily advertised on Amazon's website. Smart
means computer and in fact, Echo was the first to run Alexa
software. The Echo Dot is the prototypical computer/device,
and includes Echo Dot Kids, so Amazon can listen in and talk
to your children. Tap is a portable Echo that was
discontinued and is my favorite because the name Tap sounds
like it is from the law enforcement term for covertly
listening in; perhaps why it was discontinued. The Echo Look
came with a camera, but was discontinued, probably because it
obviously came with a camera, which scared consumers away.
The Echo Show comes with a display; it also comes with a
camera, but not obviously so. Echo Frames are smartglasses
like, but more advanced, Google Glass, which got Google,
particularly founder
Sergey Brin
, in trouble; Amazon is not getting
into trouble because they don't hype their smartglasses like
Google did.
Big Brother Bezos is listening and watching.
Echo Plus came with a wireless hub, to connect wireless
computers/devices to each other in the home, but was
discontinued. Eero is a company that makes wireless home mesh
routers and was quietly bought by Amazon, around the time the
Echo Plus was discontinued. Besides connecting wireless
computers/devices to each other in the home, a wireless mesh
router can easily, so often automatically by default, connect
to all other wireless mesh routers around it. Normal home
routers, while connecting computers/devices to each other in
the home, only connect to the router of the
Internet
Service Provider (ISP). If your neighbors —
wireless mesh routers are often touted as wireless range
extenders — have Eero routers, you could be unknowingly
connected to them, and Amazon via their ISP, even if you don't
have an ISP (you still might have a router to connect
computers/devices to each other in your home).
Big Brother Bezos is listening and watching even when you
think you are offline.
Fire is Amazon's line of tablet computers. They were
originally called Kindle Fires (get the pyro references?)
because they started as Amazon's line of e-readers, Kindle.
Of course there is also Fire for Kids (get it, kids playing
with fire?). Alexa now runs on Fire computers, with all that
implies from above. Most people use their computers to access
the
Web,
and as law enforcement has amply demonstrated, what you look
at on the Web can tell a lot about you. Most people also use
their computers to do
email, which obviously can tell
a lot about you, as amply demonstrated by law enforcement and
the NSA. Via Fire, Amazon has access to all of
this.
Big Brother Bezos knows what you are thinking.
Kindle is Amazon's heavily-advertised line of e-readers,
i.e. computers/devices for reading e-books, e-magazines,
e-newspapers, etc. In particular, Amazon pushes its e-books,
Kindle Books, by making sure that all popular books advertised
on Amazon's website come in both paper and, not that much
cheaper, Kindle versions, with the latter often the default.
If you read through the reviews of a book, you will find that
many of the negative reviews are about how badly formatted the
Kindle version is. Unfortunately, if you get the paper book,
it will usually come damaged. Amazon doesn't actually sell
new books anymore, although it charges new book prices. The
only way Amazon can afford to offer free 30-day returns is by
sending out as new, books that have been read, often damaged,
and returned.
As explained, like many other items you get on Amazon, when
you buy a book, Amazon now has a permanent record of a
purchase that can tell a lot about you.
Big Brother Bezos knows what you are thinking.
Conversely, Amazon can tell you what to think, via its
recommendations of books and videos. With Kindle, Amazon can
also steer you to read what news it wants you to read, via
recommended e-magazines and e-newspapers. This could be worse
than
Google
and
Facebook
having this power.
Big Brother Bezos says.
Ring is a home security company, most (in)famous, via its TV
commercials, for its video doorbell, which includes a camera,
microphone, and speaker. Ring also offers other indoor and
outdoor cameras. Not shown in its TV commercials is the fact
that Amazon owns Ring, and that it works with Alexa, with all
that implies from above. In fact, Ring is like Blink but
worse. Ring comes with a mobile app, Neighbors, that allows
sharing the video feeds online, including on social media and
with law enforcement (advertised as a protective Neighborhood
Watch). Hackers could access these video feeds. Amazon
certainly has access.
Big Brother Bezos is watching.
Amazon's logo means from A to Z. "I am the Alpha and the
Omega" — the first and last letters of the Greek
alphabet, meaning the beginning and the end — said God,
omniscient and omnipotent, all-knowing and all-powerful, in
the Book of Revelation. Just in time for
Christmas.