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These Toys Send What They Hear to a Defense Contractor
- wheaties 10y agoThe scary thing is not that this happened. The scary thing is how easily this could be going on with any microphone equipped IoT device. How will we continue to monitor for malware and other things that any type of company wants to put on a device? There's just too much IoT right now and most manufacturers lack the infrastructure to cope with this problem.
- M_Grey 10y agoMy rule of thumb? Don't buy a ton of microphones and stick them in your home. Don't overthink it, just don't do it; there's no really compelling argument in favor of it after all. If you have something like a webcam or a mic, unplug it. Avoid the IoT. Be aware of your cell phone.
- throwaway2016a 10y agoI took a different approach. I have an outbound firewall hardware device that alerts me of suspicious activity like a device sending a lot more data than it should. I just stay very conscious of it. Plus I love my Amazon Echo and the rest of my smart home.
- synicalx 10y agoIf you really want to get your tinfoil hat on though, what's to say the firewall isn't all part of it?
- throwaway2016a 10y agoI use an open source pfSense firewall. I have not audited their code but I can SSH into it and see what is going on. But mostly I just don't worry about it that much.
- bdavisx 10y agoThinking about it, I'm sure there are already hackers that have targeted all kinds of IOT devices with microphones trying to get all kinds of information. Blackmail, trade secrets, etc. You could probably make a bundle in the stock market with the right hacks -- although your trade patterns might eventually get you caught.