Ermintruder
The greatest risk is to risk nothing at all...
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2013
- Messages
- 6,206
I was sure I'd previously-posted here on The Forum about my first (fairly-recent) experiences with my 'Google Home Assistant Mini' (for clarity, I mean by this the badged-and-inhabited-by-Google physical smart speaker, independantly-connected to the internet, interacted with primarily via spoken commands/queries (between me/family, and the pseudopersonifed Google Search Engine).
For those unfamiliar with these little smart speakers, a Google Home Mini looks and feels like a squashed tennis ball wrapped in pastel-coloured felt, crossed with an 1980s Apple mouse, topped-off with four soft illustrative winking colourable LEDs.
Other smart speakers are available (eg Amazon Alexa, Echodot &c et cet)
But I need to speak here, on our forum, specifically, to some relatively-experienced and knowledgeable users of the Google Home Assistant service.
I've discovered (or THINK I've uncovered) a worrying aspect relating to how the system can operate. There are complex aspects of the system setup & permutations in each users' configuration that stop me from crying "foul!" too loudly. So I need some more experiential information, informed opinion and savvy perspectives (rabid speculation and false corollary can come in later, downthread)
But: I'm fairly-convinced that I've discovered my overall Google Assistant service doing something intrinsically-naughty. Very naughty, in fact. And I've accidently proven to myself (already) to a very-high standard of proof that I'm right in my suspicions.
Therefore; please: I'd ask for forum members who fit the following criteria to contribute to this thread (initially at least)
More explanatory exposition will follow, and, before I reveal my key evidential production in this inquiry....but I do need first a small circle of forum correspondants, because I need to be properly-challenged in all of my assumptions and (mis?)understandings. Or I need at least a couple of other contributors...
(Apologies, Forteana Forum: this may get a bit semi-technically detailed, for which I apologise. But it needs to be done: hmm....I think?)
For those unfamiliar with these little smart speakers, a Google Home Mini looks and feels like a squashed tennis ball wrapped in pastel-coloured felt, crossed with an 1980s Apple mouse, topped-off with four soft illustrative winking colourable LEDs.
Other smart speakers are available (eg Amazon Alexa, Echodot &c et cet)
But I need to speak here, on our forum, specifically, to some relatively-experienced and knowledgeable users of the Google Home Assistant service.
I've discovered (or THINK I've uncovered) a worrying aspect relating to how the system can operate. There are complex aspects of the system setup & permutations in each users' configuration that stop me from crying "foul!" too loudly. So I need some more experiential information, informed opinion and savvy perspectives (rabid speculation and false corollary can come in later, downthread)
But: I'm fairly-convinced that I've discovered my overall Google Assistant service doing something intrinsically-naughty. Very naughty, in fact. And I've accidently proven to myself (already) to a very-high standard of proof that I'm right in my suspicions.
Therefore; please: I'd ask for forum members who fit the following criteria to contribute to this thread (initially at least)
- Users of physical Google Home Assistant or Google Home Assistant Mini, or Google Assistant smart speakers (hardware-embedded instances)
- Users with a reasonable amount of experience in using the overall system (although the testimony of newbies is also going to be useful)
- Users who are administering their home (or indeed perhaps even work) instances of Google Home Assistant via their Android phones or tablet computers. Users who are doing this via Apple devices (or maybe even via Windows-based personal computers) are less of a priority at present, for valid discriminatory reasons.
More explanatory exposition will follow, and, before I reveal my key evidential production in this inquiry....but I do need first a small circle of forum correspondants, because I need to be properly-challenged in all of my assumptions and (mis?)understandings. Or I need at least a couple of other contributors...
(Apologies, Forteana Forum: this may get a bit semi-technically detailed, for which I apologise. But it needs to be done: hmm....I think?)
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