A video of a woman asking her Amazon home assistant device if it worked for the CIA went viral following the Wikileaks data dump on the CIA, so we decided to test it for ourselves.
A video was posted to Twitter this week showing a woman speaking to her Echo Dot, the smaller version of Amazon’s larger Echo home assistant device powered by the company’s Alexa intelligent assistant. The woman asked the device if it was connected to the CIA following recent information found in the WikiLeaks Vault 7 data dump which shows that the CIA can turn phones and smart devices into a microphone.
Breitbart decided to test it for ourselves after the video was released. We asked the same questions that the woman in the original video asked. using a similar Echo Dot device to test the original video’s validity. We found that the Echo Dot gave an entirely different answer.
Upon being asked, “Alexa, are you connected to the CIA?” the device did not shut down as seen in the original video. Instead, it responded, “No, I work for Amazon.”
Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com