An Alexa device recorded private conversations and sent them over the net to an acquaintance in their contact list.

Amazon said this was due to a bug, and I suppose that is true.

However, if the device has a universal back door, Amazon could alter anyone's machine at any time so that it will listen and snoop. Maybe various government agencies could, too.

Meanwhile, I wonder what is in the logs that the Amazon engineer was able to access. Can they access such logs in every Alexa device? At any time?