Police want to interrogate Alex from the Amazon Echo column on the murder case

Smart speaker Amazon Echo - 24-centimeter cylindrical column with a microphone grille. The device is installed in the apartment, controlled by voice and responds to the female name of Alex ( your site Alex opens with a personal password). A very useful thing: activated by the voice command, Alex records the user's speech, recognizes it (in the cloud), stores call recordings (they can be deleted via the application), executes commands — reads books, plays music, sets an alarm clock. Or just talking to the owner. In the second season of the hacker series Mr. Robot such a column was the only girlfriend of the special agent of the FBI cyber division Dominic DiPiero, so you know what it was about.

About the unique abilities of Alex learned and the American police, which now requires from the corporation Amazon recording conversations in the apartment, where the murder occurred.

According to the local TV channel, dramatic events took place in Bentonville, Arkansas, on November 22, 2015.
')
Victim of crime 47-year-old Victor Collins (Victor Collins) was found dead in a Jacuzzi in the backyard of the house, which belongs to 31-year-old James Bates (James Bates), as it turned out, a great lover of computer equipment. James Bates himself is detained on suspicion of first-degree murder, while police are trying to gather evidence against him.


Over the next few days, investigators gathered a large array of digital data that clarified the picture. They found out to whom and what text messages the accused sent, to whom he called and at what time. Attempts to call registered after 1:00, which casts doubt on the veracity of his testimony. Scratches were found on Bates' hands: he explained that the domestic cat had scratched him. This is another clue. There were other circumstantial evidence. For example, the readings of smart water and electricity meters showed consumption peaks between 1 and 3 o'clock when Bates allegedly slept. Counters showed that so much water has not been used in the jacuzzi since October 2013.

Their third mate has an alibi thanks to his wife and neighbor, who saw a drunk man return home at 12:30.

In addition to circumstantial evidence, direct evidence is necessary for the prosecution of Bates, that is, testimony. And the police did find where to look for this testimony. It turned out that a “bug” was installed in Bates' house - a Amazon Echo column named Alex, equipped with a high-quality microphone and speech recognition function.


Alex interrogated

As it became known to the publication of The Information , the police presented to Amazon a warrant for the removal of information collected by a clever column in the killer’s apartment. The order concerns audio recordings and other information that Alex sent to the company's server.

However, Amazon did not allow the police to "interrogate" Alex. The company issued an official statement : “Amazon does not disclose user information without a correct and binding legal requirement sent to us. Of course, Amazon objects to requests that are too broad or otherwise inappropriate. ”

This legal answer can be interpreted as: “We will not give Alex the question, but we can give her some questions and she can answer them if the questions seem appropriate to us.” Actually, Amazon did just that. She actually gave the police some private information about Bates, including his account information and shopping list. At the same time, they refused to report the fact of whether Alex was accessing the Amazon server on the evening of the murder, and which records were made.

The police commented that they have the opportunity to disassemble the device itself, but it is not clear what information can be stored there. The Echo column sends the information to the server, so the police contacted the company with an order to get any possible information. It is unlikely that the killer asked Alex for advice on the murder, but the police decided to check this version (by the way, if you actually ask Alex how to get rid of the corpse, she answers “Call the police,” but she doesn’t tell the police anything).

In this investigation, data were collected from smart meters of water and electricity, as well as the study of the Amazon Echo smart column - all this shows how the future digital detectives will work. As in the Bates case, the police will know exactly when you opened the water and how many liters of water were used, what the temperature was in each room. And this is only the basic features of smart meters and thermostat.

The proliferation of intelligent computer technology opens up new opportunities for investigators. Perhaps, in the future, evidence from digital devices of the “smart home” and the Internet of things will make it possible in the smallest detail to reconstruct the events that took place in any home. Attorney Bates expressed concern that “the police are using technologies that should improve our quality of life against us,” but human rights activists are unlikely to have a voice here.