INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Researchers have demonstrated how crooks could use the idiosyncrasies of voice recognition to carry out unwanted commands on a smart
Results varied depending on the speaker's accent and gender, but the team found that 'coal' was easily misinterpreted as 'call', 'dime' as
'time' and 'wet' as 'what'.There are already some examples of this happening on the Alexa Skill Store
For example, both 'cat facts' and 'cat fax' give information about cats, but from different providers.Sounds suspiciousThe principle is much
like domain squatting (also called cybersquatting)
Domain squatters register domain names that are identical or similar to names used by real companies
The squatters use these domains to trick people into viewing their own content, or offer to sell them to the business whose name they're
using at an inflated price.The university's researchers used Amazon Alexa, but the same principle could apply to other voice-activated
virtual assistants, including Google Home, Siri and Cortana
It's a thorny problem, and as voice recognition is integrated into ever more products, it will be increasingly important to solve.Via Ars
