This Article is From Nov 13, 2017

Amazon's Alexa Starts Blaring Music In Empty Flat, Triggers Police Raid

A man says Amazon's digital assistant Alexa started playing deafening music in his empty flat in the middle of the night, forcing police officers to break in after complaints from neighbours.

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Offbeat

A German man says Amazon's Alexa started blaring music in his empty flat (Representational Image)

A man in Germany claims Amazon's digital assistant Alexa threw a "party" in his empty flat in the middle of the night, forcing police officers to break in and investigate after complaints from his neighbours.

In a viral Facebook post, Hamburg-resident Oliver Haberstroh writes that his voice-controlled smart speaker started blaring music around 2 AM. Strangely, nobody was at home at the time to control it.

Alexa is an "intelligent personal assistant" installed on Amazon Echo smart speakers, which enables owners to access a host of services by voice command.

German police were forced to break into his sixth-floor flat in order to investigate the disturbance, after Mr Haberstroh's neighbours complained. They managed to shut Alexa up after pulling the plug on her. 

"While I was... enjoying a beer, Alexa managed on her own, without command and without me using my mobile phone, to switch on at full volume and have her own party in my apartment," Mr Haberstroh writes in a post on Amazon's official Facebook page. 

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Mr Haberstroh says after returning home after a night out, he was stunned to see a new lock on his door. When he visited his local police station, he was handed a new set of keys and a hefty locksmith bill as well.

According to the Inquirer, Amazon has offered to cover Mr Haberstroh's bill but claims Alexa didn't malfunction. Instead, the company says Alexa was "remotely activated."

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"Echo was remotely activated and the volume increased through the customer's third party mobile music-streaming app," the company told the Inquirer. "Although the Alexa cloud service worked flawlessly, Amazon has offered the customer to cover the cost for the incident."

This isn't the first time Alexa has gone rogue. Just last month, a pet parrot managed to order a $13.50 set of gift boxes via Amazon's Alexa by mimicking its owner.
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