This prompted me to ask my partner to do just that. Then he added “sudo.” Even better.
Last year’s hindsight is this year’s foresight. Alexa is not the first voice-operated device, nor the first which has had this weakness.
Yup. First time I saw a commercial for this thing, I thought “Oh hell no, that thing’s not coming in my house.” The FBI is already trying to use Echo recordings in a criminal investigation; you can bet dollars to doughnuts some bright spark at the NSA is thinking about what else you can do with it.
Give it time - it will eventually require the insertion of a special card and the entry of something called, let’s see now, maybe we could call it a “pass word” or something…
Nobody has an answer for this? C’mon, give it a try and tell us what happens.
I really do not understand this brave, new world.
What happens if someone named Alexa is in the house, or there’s a news report about her?
I find it hard to have too much sympathy. This is exactly the type of problem this stuff has, and the type of stuff that should have been fixed before going live with the product or buying it.
These things should be set up to voice print or something. At most, it should set it off silently to send it off and see if it’s the owner or an approved user.
The trigger word always needs to be something that is unlikely to be said in any other context, and needs to have an escape mechanism so that you can tell people what the trigger is without actually activating it.
This is why I stick with stuff that requires me to press a button. Just get everyone a watch-like device so it’s got easy access. You only turn on vocal only mode when your hands aren’t free.
I agree, “Alexa” is an incredibly stupid wake word to use.
That being said, the only time I’ve ever had my Echo go off unintentionally has been during Echo commercials on the TV or listening to news reports about Echo on my TV.
That’s some grade A irony right there.
Eventually that won’t be a problem. Amazon bought all rights to and trademarked the name Alexa in 2011. After a two year grace period ended in 2013, no future children can be named Alexa.
That’s not how trademarks work. Future children can be named Alexa, for a small annual licence subscription fee. 
You can already have a password, it’s just not set as a default.
“Alexa” is not the only wake word option, you can also have “Echo” or “Amazon”. Using one of the alternate wake words would solve most problems specific to a family. Ideally Amazon will upgrade it to accept any desired wake word.
“Voice recognition software buggy. Misinterpreted ‘contract assassin’ as ‘FBI’. 0/10 Would not buy again.”
Follow the money. Now, do you understand?
Things happen when, and only when, there is a profit to be made by someone who already owns the means of producing capital. A product or service to be sold to a gullible consumer.
In the good old days, if you told Siri you needed to hide a dead body it would suggest mines, swamps, dumps, etc. I think those days are mostly over.
If you tell it you want cocaine, it will suggest addiction centers, but if you ask for marijuana it will direct you to a local dispensary. Asking for prostitutes brings up escort services. Telling it you feel like you want to kill someone brings back mental health service options.
Stupid Echo.
I was listening to Billy Joel and the next thing I know it Alexa is trying to buy a fishing boat. 
(no, not really. but the joke needed to be told.)
‘Bitch get me some beer’
It would be better if these functions were turned OFF by default, and had to be turned on the first time you tried to use them. Better for the customer, that is – for Amazon, it’s better for it to be ON by default.
I laughed!
Doesn’t matter what the wake word is. There’s going to be a default, and most people are going to use the default. And the news story was repeating the phrase that the girl had used on the first model, which is most likely going to include the default wake word. You can’t fix this at the source by changing the wake word unless you give each one a unique wake word. Which might get out of hand: “Zorblaxchtneeen-2388, order more sponges!”
Amazon shareholders?