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Hackers take control of robot vacuums in multiple US cities and abuse owners (www.abc.net.au)

submitted 1 month ago by zero_gravitas@aussie.zone to c/andfinally@feddit.uk

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Robot vacuums in multiple US cities were hacked in the space of a few days, with the attacker physically controlling them and yelling obscenities through their onboard speakers.

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[–] Zier@fedia.io 13 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Having a vacuum, or microwave, refrigerator, toaster, washing machine, blah blah blah connected to the internet is the dumbest thing you can do, Why are you giving corporate America access to your personal space? "Big Brother" is not who we should be worried about, it's corporations selling you in-home surveillance devices that pretend to do other tasks. This is literally how Humanity loses it's freedom and autonomy. Not to mention how easy it will be / is for psychopaths to stalk you.

[–] undefined@links.hackliberty.org 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

I’m a huge fan of IoT, but requiring all this stuff to access internet is just so wild to me. It’s 2024, we all have a LAN* at this point (even though non-tech people think WiFi == internet).

I stupidly bought iRobot products and the app is such a glitchfest, it wants to talk to AWS’ shithole us-east-1 to do anything and of course the app is always telling me about “great deals” on newer products.

* Careful when using an ISP-supplied router though, now your ISP wants access to your LAN for “totally innocent” reasons

[–] KickMeElmo@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

At this point I use Home Assistant for everything IoT and won't buy any product I can't use LAN-only through HA.

The unfortunate exception to this rule is TVs. You can't even buy a "dumb" TV anymore. I put up with LGs after disabling every setting and data agreement I can for privacy's sake, but none of them are good.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

My plan is to buy something Valetudo compatible, and have it all run in network.

I try really hard to stick to the policy of "if it needs internet access to operate, I won't install it on the house"

[–] undefined@links.hackliberty.org 1 points 1 month ago

Me too once these die off.