2020/07/01 by Richard Mitev, Anna Pazii, Markus Miettinen +2 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Computer Science · Engineering · #IoT-based Smart Home Systems #Music and Audio Processing #User Authentication and Security Systems #cs.CR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1145/3427228.3427277
arxiv published 2020/07/01 · openalex created_date 2020/07/10 · arxiv updated 2020/11/12 · openalex publication_date 2020/12/07 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Manufacturers of smart home Internet of Things (IoT) devices are increasingly adding voice assistant and audio monitoring features to a wide range of devices including smart speakers, televisions, thermostats, security systems, and doorbells. Consequently, many of these devices are equipped with microphones, raising significant privacy concerns: users may not always be aware of when audio recordings are sent to the cloud, or who may gain access to the recordings. In this paper, we present the LeakyPick architecture that enables the detection of the smart home devices that stream recorded audio to the Internet in response to observing a sound. Our proof-of-concept is a LeakyPick device that is placed in a user’s smart home and periodically “probes” other devices in its environment and monitors the subsequent network traffic for statistical patterns that indicate audio transmission. Our prototype is built on a Raspberry Pi for less than USD 40 and has a measurement accuracy of 94% in detecting audio transmissions for a collection of 8 devices with voice assistant capabilities. Furthermore, we used LeakyPick to identify 89 words that an Amazon Echo Dot misinterprets as its wake-word, resulting in unexpected audio transmission. LeakyPick provides a cost effective approach to help regular consumers monitor their homes for sound-triggered devices that unexpectedly transmit audio to the cloud.