People keep posting about destroying or getting rid of Alexa devices because of the blatant creepiness, but I wonder if it would be better to leave them in a box or something away from people with an AM radio playing different stations 24 / 7. I don't know enough about how the Alexa devices work but the idea of creating noise for their creepiness to parse through entertains me.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

@cR0w markov generator + voice synth to make the input more colorful

@cR0w You could also ask one alexa thing to read the bible and make another alexa thing listen to it.

@OutOfSpace Can you ask an Alexa to make up a never ending story?

@cR0w My hobby is to confuse Google. It’s now completely wrong about where I live and work and travel and that amuses me a lot. 😀

@mkoek Nice. Not to take anything away from it, but confusing Google has gotten a lot easier in the age of AI. 😆

@buherator I actually thought about that but I don't imagine most people with these devices would be up for that project. This seemed simple and accessible.

@cR0w I'm actually thinking about firing up a website if there is a client-side synthesis app so the costs would be distributed

@buherator Ooh, that would be cool.

@buherator @cR0w

algernon looks at the tts crate, looks at iocaine

Maybe I'll have another weekend project. Neighbour has an Alexa device, so we can even take it for a test drive, and see what happens!

I did not need another weekend project. But thank you for the idea nevertheless! :P

@algernon @buherator Nice! Good luck and update us if it works.

@algernon @cR0w hey, it seems browsers have a text2speech api built-in these days:

https://codepen.io/matt-west/pen/DpmMgE

this actually seems easier than I thought!

@buherator @cR0w Amazing. Then I can do it with... a template, and a bit of JavaScript, and headphones over Alexa.

Point the browser to a maze, let it talk, JS visits a random link on the same page, repeat forever! Damn, this sounds funny.

Too funny. Will deploy tomorrow! :D

@algernon @buherator

@cR0w Next to a Raspberry Pi running a minimal LLM trained on the works of Shakespeare and Allan Poe plugged to a speaker whispering to Alexa could have potential.

@albertcardona Definitely. I think it's probably more of a project than most Alexa owners would take on but it seems like a cool project to me.

@cR0w Eventually it will become standard, as an OS image to install on a Raspberry Pi: BBGOS – the background babble generator OS, designed to cast a cloak of anonymity on your conversations.

@albertcardona I wonder what the input range of the mics are. It could be neat to play the noise at infrasound or ultrasound frequencies.

@cR0w @buherator Proof of concept deployed at https://poison.madhouse-project.org/

Click the "Read me this garbage!" link, and it will read it with a random voice (preferring an English voice, if available), and will advance to a random link when done. It does not continue reading after advancing, though, but I will make that work in a bit, too. (Update: now it continues reading after advancing to the next page)

This is hilarious.

@cR0w TTS the Library of Babel! Which, thinking of that story now in this interesting period of time, seems quite appropriate.

@algernon @buherator OMG

@cR0w nah, a Python script and AI that automatically generates gibberish commands. Gotta make it use up some processing power on Amazon's side trying to untangle the commands

@tylxr https://come-from.mad-scientist.club/@algernon/statuses/01JPGC8DRV8T9ZE14MMD0BFYTF

@meatzie Ooh, I like that idea. Here's one already in the works though: https://come-from.mad-scientist.club/@algernon/statuses/01JPGC8DRV8T9ZE14MMD0BFYTF

@cR0w I got a free nest mini I still use as a voice announcer box for my home assistant instance. The condition of using it is neutering the microphone MEMS on the board. There were 3 microphones on the board that I cut the traces to.

The placebo switch for disabling the microphone traces directly to the CPU, so call me skeptical that it actually did anything in regards to muting the microphones

@cR0w I have some microscope closeups of the MEMS somewhere around here...

@cR0w a box feeding the central AIs with fake voice streams of old days public figures recordings generating only "garbage sentences" with no meanings for AIs to train/process ?

@cR0w https://infosec.exchange/@kajer/109394519236561454

@kajer You activated the "LOL, Privacy?" mode. 😆

@nomad2035 I would love to see it.

@kajer Wait, did it actually talk after cutting it?

@cR0w Not until I sent it TTS commands. Still works great, but can't hear shit.

@cR0w I mean if someone were to leave their Alexa device in a box with a specific singular song playing on repeat - well - I hope they'd Never Give That Up

@kajer @cR0w
Sounds like my one cat.