Project Alias, the Smart Speaker HAT to Protect Your Privacy

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Alias is a teachable “parasite” that is designed to give users more control over their smart assistants, both when it comes to customisation and privacy. This open-source device trains custom wake-up names for smart home devices while disturbing their built-in microphone.

It’s composed of a 3D-printed top layer, a mic array, raspberry pi, and two speakers. It sits atop the smart speaker like amazon alexa or google home, playfully made to look like a living organism that has taken over.

Project Alias has been created as a defence tactic, and modelled it on a fungal species that aptly captures the way the parasitic product behaves.

“This “fungus” is a vital part of the rain forest, since whenever a species gets too dominant or powerful it has higher chances of getting infected, thus keeping the diversity in balance,” says Tore Knudsen, one of the designer behind Alias. “We wanted to take that as an analogy and show how DIY and open source can be used to create ‘viruses’ for big tech companies.”

For full instructions and the complete list of everything you need to create your very own for either the Google Home or Amazon Echo devices jump over to the Instructables website.

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