Quote:
Originally Posted by tubemonkey
I wanna drop in on the NSA's Echos and listen 
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Yes, but if you hear them listening in on you...even more creepy!
But back to the serious side. When laptops started coming equipped with front facing cameras for videoconferencing, those cameras were quickly hacked. OS makers are a bit more conscious of that threat now and better guard against it, but there are still a lot of stories about crooks and jerks of all kinds hacking baby monitors, security cameras, and other devices. I can only imagine that the Echo Show, and now the other Echos as well, will be prime hacking targets due to the drop in feature. I suspect Amazon will take a huge amount of flack over drop in, and they already are in every review I've seen or read, and thus will likely tighten up the security for it. But until they rewrite some of the drop in code, I would use caution with that feature.
ETA: But even without the hacker element, people who use the drop in feature might have other folks drop in on them, people they were unaware had that ability. It reminds me of the Facebook set up. A lot of people are unaware of who all can read their posts. If you select Public, you should assume anyone can. But if you select Friends, you might think ONLY friends can read them, but that is incorrect. Friends of friends can read them in some circumstances. So Amazon really needs to think this drop in through very carefully, and I seriously doubt they have done that so far. They need some clear and easy to set settings to control who can drop in. Basically, they need to idiot-proof drop in.