Amazon Echo Gets Open Source Brain Transplant
hackaday.com
There’s little debate that Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem makes it easy to add voice control to your smart home, but not everyone is thrilled with how it works. The fact that all of your comm…

There’s little debate that Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem makes it easy to add voice control to your smart home, but not everyone is thrilled with how it works. The fact that all of your commands are bounced off of Amazon’s servers instead of staying internal to the network is an absolute no-go for the more privacy minded among us, and honestly, it’s hard to blame them. The whole thing is pretty creepy when you think about it.

Which is precisely why André Hentschel decided to look into replacing the firmware on his Amazon Echo with an open source alternative. The Linux-powered first generation Echo had been rooted years before thanks to the diagnostic port on the bottom of the device, and there were even a few firmware images floating around out there that he could poke around in. In theory, all he had to do was remove anything that called back to the Amazon servers and replace the proprietary bits with comparable free software libraries and tools.

But he had a few challenges to overcome and that is what makes the article below interesting to read. He’ll be publishing his source code at GitLab in the near future. Another benefit was being able to change the local wake word to something other than Alexa.

See https://hackaday.com/2021/03/22/amazon-echo-gets-open-source-brain-transplant/

#technology #opensource #amazonalexa #hack

  • AgreeableLandscape
    102·
    4 years ago

    Eh, I still wouldn’t trust it. Still too big a risk of hardware/firmware backdoors straight to Lord Amazon.

    • GadgeteerZAOP
      8·
      4 years ago

      But the whole point is you are flashing replacement firmware yourself that has been indepdently produced, and you can check / search the code.

      • Oof@sopuli.xyz
        4·
        4 years ago

        But what if the BIOS has a backdoor? Considering that this is amazon we are talking about, I wouldn’t be surprised.

        • GadgeteerZAOP
          2·
          4 years ago

          Is there a BIOS on an echo? This is firmware flashing. But maybe just with the original author and he took it to pieces for that reason (to prevent calls to home) and better understands it.

  • 1690297
    3·
    4 years ago

    That is really impressive, can’t wait to see what people do with this new power.

  • samuraikid
    21·
    4 years ago

    Ill never use that creepy things inside my house

    • GadgeteerZAOP
      5·
      4 years ago

      Please read the linked article - it is firmware that is flashed which has removed all the “call home” features and you can examine the code. That was the whole point of the post, not having to use Amazon software that listens in etc. The hardware is fine as long as these mods get done. So many already buy Windows computers in a shop and never question the Cortana assistant listening in - the solution to that is format your computer and install a trusted Linux Distro. This is the same, but for Amazon Echo Gen 1.