As a layman, can someone explain what the ramifications of smart devices sharing your data is. I know it’s bad, but I don’t understand why it’s bad and how it’s used against you.
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One aspect to consider is exactly what data these devices are exfiltrating from your network. You usually can't see the contents of the telemetry sent, but given that a LOT of smart devices have cameras and/or microphones, do you really trust that your IoT devices are not sending back audio and or video recordings of the inside of your house?
I'm sure theres more than a few programmers here that secretly work on crap like this at work.
A detailed room-mapping scan is basically a wealth report disguised as vacuum telemetry: square footage, room count, layout complexity, “bonus” spaces like offices or nurserie; all of it feeds straight into socioeconomic profiling. And once companies have that floor plan, they’re not just storing it; they’re monetizing it, feeding it into ad networks, data brokers, and pricing algorithms that adjust what you see (=and what you pay) based on the shape of your living space.
And a mapped floor plan also quietly exposes who lives in the home, how they move, and what can be inferred from that.
Same story with this guy (in french)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGMRUiBOFj0
Highly recommend watching his stuff, might be very technical but also super methodical
what...? how much money did that Roomba cost for him to spend that much time and effort on recoding it?!
https://codetiger.github.io/blog/the-day-my-smart-vacuum-turned-against-me
And just like that, my $300 smart vacuum transformed into a mere paperweight.
First, it isn't a roomba, second it says in the article how much it cost, third some people have hobbies and sometimes those hobbies are tinkering, dismantling and hacking things they supposedly own and that sometimes leads to revelations like this. Hope that helps.
This shit is two months old. How many times is it going to recirculate?
That's like a month old news article
No one should be outraged. That is how all robovacs are working - use LIDAR to map area -> send back to server -> server calculates optimal cleaning route -> sends back info to vac -> vac cleans. Vac cant ping back to server - server thinks vac is dead. No killswitch is needed.
Also, app is not a necessity except we are forced to use it. But many would not like to lose an ability to track progress or start and stop cleaning from their phone outside of the home network. For these features, app and external server is a must.
The only real issue with robo vacs is that it is an IoT device. We should make manufacturers and brands to let us choose if we want to selfhost their software. But that would never happen.
This article IMO is full of bs and ragebait.