Technology and snooping

科技與窺探

詞匯

Snoop/窺探

How creepy is your smart speaker?

你的智能音箱有多恐怖?

Worries about privacy are overstated, but not entirely without merit. Your move, Alexa

對(duì)隱私的擔(dān)憂被夸大了，但并非完全沒有道理。你的一舉一動(dòng),Alexa（在看著）

“Alexa, are you recording everything you hear?” It is a question more people are asking, though Amazon’s voice assistant denies the charges. “I only record and send audio back to the Amazon cloud when you say the wake word,” she insists, before referring questioners to Amazon’s privacy policy. Apple’s voice assistant, Siri, gives a similar answer. But as smart speakers from Amazon, Apple, Google and other technology giants proliferate (global sales more than doubled last year, to 86.2m) concerns that they might be digitally snooping have become more widespread. And now that these devices are acquiring other senses beyond hearing—the latest models have cameras, and future ones may use “l(fā)idar” sensors to see shapes and detect human gestures (see Science & technology section)—the scope for infringing privacy is increasing. So how worried should you be that your speaker is spying on you?

“Alexa，你把你聽到的都錄下來了嗎?”越來越多的人在問這個(gè)問題，不過亞馬遜的語音助手否認(rèn)了這些指控。她堅(jiān)持說:“我只在你說‘喚醒’這個(gè)詞的時(shí)候錄音，然后把音頻發(fā)送回亞馬遜的云端?！碧O果的語音助手Siri給出了類似的答案。但是，隨著來自亞馬遜、蘋果、谷歌和其他科技巨頭的智能音箱激增(去年全球銷量翻了一番多，達(dá)到8620萬)，人們對(duì)智能音箱可能被數(shù)字竊聽的擔(dān)憂變得更加普遍?，F(xiàn)在這些設(shè)備正在獲得聽覺之外的其他感官——最新的型號(hào)有攝像頭，未來的型號(hào)可能使用“激光雷達(dá)”傳感器來觀察形狀和檢測人類的手勢(見科學(xué)與技術(shù)部分)——侵犯隱私的范圍正在擴(kuò)大。那么，你應(yīng)該擔(dān)心你的智能音箱在監(jiān)視你嗎?

詞匯

Proliferate/增殖；擴(kuò)散；激增

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For years the tech industry has dreamed of computing appliances that are considered unremarkable items of household machinery, like washing machines or fridges. The smart speaker has ?nally realised this promise. It can sit on a kitchen counter and summon the wonders of the internet without the need for swiping or typing. Using it is like casting a spell. Say the magic words and you can conjure up dodgy Eighties rock while up to your elbows in washing-up, or prove to your mum that Ronaldo has scored more goals than Messi. This hands-free convenience has a cost: the speakers are constantly listening out for commands. As with any advanced and apparently magical technology, however, myths quickly grow up about how they work.

多年來，科技行業(yè)一直夢想著在洗衣機(jī)或冰箱等家用機(jī)械中使用一些被認(rèn)為不起眼的計(jì)算設(shè)備。智能音箱終于實(shí)現(xiàn)了這一承諾。它可以放在廚房的柜臺(tái)上，無需刷卡或打字輸入，就能召喚互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的奇跡。使用它就像使用咒語一樣。說出一些神奇的話（設(shè)備配套口令），你就能在洗碗時(shí)想起80年代的搖滾那般，舞動(dòng)你的雙臂（擺脫手工洗碗），或者向你媽媽證明羅納爾多進(jìn)的球比梅西還多。這種免提的便利是有代價(jià)的:音箱一直在監(jiān)聽命令。然而，就像任何先進(jìn)的、明顯具有魔力的技術(shù)一樣，關(guān)于它們?nèi)绾喂ぷ鞯纳裨捄芸炀彤a(chǎn)生了。

詞匯

conjure up/想起，使在腦海中顯現(xiàn)

dodgy/狡猾的，逃避的；

So start with some myth-busting. As Alexa herself contends, smart speakers are not sending every utterance into the tech giants’ digital vaults. Despite their name, the devices are simpleminded. They listen out for wake words, and then send what follows to the cloud as an audio clip; when an answer arrives, in the form of another audio clip, they play it back. Putting all the smarts in the cloud means these speakers can be very cheap and acquire new skills as their cloud-based brains are continually upgraded. As part of this improvement, manufacturers (such as Amazon) store sound clips of queries, so they can be assessed by humans if necessary. But Amazon notes that users can delete these clips at any time. There’s always the mute button if you are worried about accidentally triggering your speaker and sending a clip into the cloud during a sensitive conversation. Users, the ?rm insists, are in control.

所以從打破神話開始吧。正如Alexa自己所主張的那樣，智能音箱不會(huì)把每一句話都發(fā)送到科技巨頭的數(shù)字金庫。盡管這些設(shè)備從名稱上看似普通。它們會(huì)監(jiān)聽喚醒信息，然后將隨后的內(nèi)容以音頻剪輯的形式發(fā)送到云端;隨后設(shè)備應(yīng)得的響應(yīng)將以另一個(gè)音頻剪輯形式出現(xiàn)，設(shè)備將其再度播放。把所有的花言巧語存放在云端意味著這些話筒可以以非常廉價(jià)的成本，并且隨著他們基于云的大腦不斷升級(jí)，他們可以獲得新的技能。作為改進(jìn)的一部分，制造商(如Amazon)存儲(chǔ)查詢的聲音片段，以便在必要時(shí)由人類進(jìn)行評(píng)估。但亞馬遜指出，用戶可以隨時(shí)刪除這些音頻片段。如果你擔(dān)心在一場敏感的談話中不小心觸發(fā)音箱并將語音發(fā)送到云端，設(shè)備的靜音案件能夠避免這種尷尬。該公司堅(jiān)稱，用戶的隱私在管控之中。

詞匯

Utterance/表達(dá)；說話；說話方式

Simpleminded/純樸的；率直的；頭腦簡單的

Query/問題；懷疑；問號(hào)

Not everyone is convinced by such assurances, however. What if hackers in?ltrate the devices? Could governments require manufacturers to provide back doors? Are their makers using them to snoop on people and then exploiting that information to target online ads or o?er them particular products? Some people refuse to let Alexa and Siri into the house.

然而，并非所有人都相信這種保證。如果黑客侵入設(shè)備怎么辦?如果政府想讓開發(fā)商門開個(gè)后門（獲取數(shù)據(jù)，音頻）?它們的制造商是否利用它們窺探用戶，然后利用這些信息針對(duì)在線廣告或向用戶提供特定產(chǎn)品?有些人拒絕讓Alexa和Siri進(jìn)屋。

詞匯

in?ltrate/滲入

If eavesdropping is your problem, eschewing smart speakers does not solve it. Smartphones, which people blithely carry around with them, are even worse. Spy agencies are said to be able to activate the microphone in such devices, which have even more sensors than smart speakers, including location-tracking gps chips and accelerometers than can reveal when and how the phone is moving. And smartphones are, if anything, even more intimate than smart speakers. Few of Alexa’s users, after all, take her into bed with them.

如果竊聽是你的問題，避開智能音箱并不能解決問題。而人們隨身攜帶的智能手機(jī)還會(huì)讓情況更糟糕。據(jù)稱，間諜機(jī)構(gòu)能夠激活這些設(shè)備中的麥克風(fēng)，這些設(shè)備的傳感器甚至比智能音箱還多，包括位置跟蹤gps芯片和加速度計(jì)，它們可以揭露出在某一時(shí)刻手機(jī)在以怎樣的狀態(tài)移動(dòng)。智能手機(jī)甚至比智能音箱更親密。畢竟，Alexa的用戶很少帶她上床睡覺。

詞匯

Eavesdropping/竊聽；偷聽

Blithely/快活地；無憂無慮地

At the same time as devices are getting cleverer (Amazon makes a microwave oven with built-in voice assistant), the big tech ?rms are expanding into adjacent areas such as shopping services, ?nance and entertainment. Over time this may mean their incentives to snoop and misuse data rise. But there will also be a countervailing incentive for manufacturers to di?erentiate themselves by making more privacy-friendly devices that promise not to store voice commands, or process more on the device rather than in the cloud (though this will be more expensive). The chief thing is that consumers should be able to choose how to balance convenience and privacy. If this magical technology is to reach its full potential, the tech giants need to do more to convince users that Alexa and her friends can be trusted.

與此同時(shí)，隨著設(shè)備變得越來越智能(亞馬遜生產(chǎn)了一款內(nèi)置語音助手的微波爐)，大型科技公司正在向鄰近領(lǐng)域擴(kuò)張，比如購物服務(wù)、金融和娛樂。隨著時(shí)間的推移，這可能意味著他們窺探和濫用數(shù)據(jù)的誘因會(huì)上升。但是，制造商也會(huì)有一種與之相抗衡的動(dòng)機(jī)，通過制造更加隱私友好的設(shè)備來實(shí)現(xiàn)差異化，這些設(shè)備承諾不存儲(chǔ)語音命令，或者僅在設(shè)備上而不是在云中進(jìn)行更多的處理(盡管這將更加昂貴)。最重要的是，消費(fèi)者應(yīng)該能夠選擇如何在便捷與隱私之間取得平衡。如果這項(xiàng)神奇的技術(shù)要充分發(fā)揮其潛力，科技巨頭們需要做更多的工作，讓用戶相信Alexa和她的朋友們（類似的智能音箱，像iphone的sir一樣）是可以信任的。

詞匯

Adjacent/鄰近的，毗連的

Incentive/激勵(lì)；獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)；誘因

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