9 ms·

The House That Spied on Me

154 points by surlyadopter 9y ago

pc2g4d 9y ago
This was brilliant and disturbing. The legal implications are crazy---even if the owner of the house has agreed to the EULAs of all the devices, their visitors have not. Is their a legal obligation to notify visitors that data about them is being generated, collected, snooped through, and potentially sold? If people could be made more informed of what their devices are saying (and to whom) perhaps they'd be more reluctant to "smartify" their homes. Transparency would enable more informed decisions.
- drdaeman 9y ago
  > If people could be made more informed I'd really really really like to see some AR glasses that would somehow visualize all sorts of invisible things: radio traffic (incl. special indication of weak encryption and non-encrypted communications), ultrasound and infrared tags, location of detectable microphones and cameras - all sorts of things like this, whatever can be detected. Like, look at the smart TV and be aware that it sends out data (if you're on the same network and can observe the packet headers, maybe also somehow see some details where it talks to). Or see that this store front screams something on an inaudible frequency and worse - that your phone had just replied something as you walked by. Which is probably not going to happen, not only because it's extremely complicated from the technical side, but because people would freak out over such tech even more than over Google Glass ;)
  - germinalphrase 9y ago
    It could make for a compelling video project - a la Keiichi Matsuda's "HYPER-REALITY"
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    Hmm, triangulation is what happened to give Strava user's home location away with privacy zones. I also read the other day how multiple mics ("smart speakers" etc) can help locate someone's movement throughout a house. There's also smartphones who have infrared cameras on them like the CAT S60. And there's research where Bluetooth and WiFi can be used to assess if someone's home, and where their WiFi devices are located. Finally, I saw this picture with regards to 5G [1]. None of this is about AR glasses but I still thought it was interesting. Because the AR glasses part -even though AR isn't widespread- builds upon all of the above examples as input data. [1] http://ictvietnam.vn/files/tccntt/source_files/2017/01/27/06272517_IoT_17-01-27.jpg http://ictvietnam.vn/files/tccntt/source_files/2017/01/27/06...
    - kakarot 9y ago
      We are FUBAR'd, why deal with mics and smart speakers when you can sell privacy-invading Wi-Fi routers? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LTr02cJkiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LTr02cJkiA
  - Gargoyle 9y ago
    An average smartphone contains sensors that can detect any emissions of in wifi and infrared, as well as inaudible audio. While only a portion of what you describe, it's not difficult to imagine an app that could recognize and warn of those things, perhaps even recognize specific devices in the room by their protocols.
creep 9y ago
As annoying as the "smart homes are annoying" posts are becoming, I really enjoyed the format and the depth of this article. And I didn't know one could buy internet-connected vibrators. That's... odd. I also don't know why these folks were surprised their devices were constantly communicating to their home servers. My stance on the smart home and privacy phenomenon is optimistic. I think apple will eventually have a fully integrated smart home ecosystem similar to their standard ecosystem now, which will make the process easier in general. Perhaps we can one day have a single device to control every other device, or a few devices which perform multiple functions (such as a bundled music player, television, light controller, air monitor etc) and that such a device or devices will be bundled such that the meta data will contain only information that the device is being used but not which function is employed. Surveillance is unstoppable at this point, and this means that everyone has the ability to watch everyone else, and I think this is a good thing. We already have a good sense when those in our social group are lying, or hiding things, or even when they need help. If governments and citizens alike understand what each party is up to, we can have a fully accountable society, and of course eventually we must negotiate the relevant social rules that keeps this accountability relevant and practical. This is something I believe we have to work with. We have to take responsibility and understand what is going on, and to also take the power into our own hands and create balance. We can figure this out, and I don't believe that necessarily involves destroying the structure of how our governments and corporations do business. It's simply more efficient to restructure, not to totally resist but also not to be completely complacent. and that's all I have to say.
- fg8qfg8fg8 9y ago
  "everyone has the ability to watch everyone else" is it entirely symmetrical ?
  - germinalphrase 9y ago
    It's also explicitly untrue. Very few people have regular access to my house; even fewer have access to the "private" domestic areas of my house. Losing this perception of privacyand safety can/does/will have real psychological impacts. It's also the cornerstone of psychological attacks - zersetzung - to lose control over your private life.
goblins 9y ago
This simple horrifies me. Why would you do this to yourself and your family? I don't see myself ever getting anything smart, and if I can't avoid it there is no way it touches my internet connection!
- bigiain 9y ago
  Do you have a modern phone in your pocket?
  - goblins 9y ago
    Fairly modern. Galaxy S2 lineageOS, fdroid. I know where you're going with this, some things are unfortunately unavoidable. Still I do what I can.
saagarjha 9y ago
> Almost every TV on the market now is connected—because otherwise how do you Netflix and chill? If you buy a "smart" TV, refuse to connect it to the internet and just get an Apple TV/Chromecast/whatever.
- drdaeman 9y ago
  The problem with "smart" TVs is that infrequently there is no choice but to get those and try to minimize the damage. Despite all their advantages "dumb" TVs are getting less and less popular.
  - Thriptic 9y ago
    The TV still works if it's not connected to the internet. Just buy a smart TV, never connect it to the internet, and get third party streaming sticks instead.
    - mortenjorck 9y ago
      I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point, the first time you turn on your new TV, you’re prompted with an unskippable “Create your Vizio account” screen or some such nastiness.
      - bittermang 9y ago
        And that is the point when my entire foot will go through the screen. I don't shop for TVs anymore. I buy really large monitors.
      - JoshMnem 9y ago
        Like Android.
        saagarjha 9y ago
        Can you not do this on Android now? IIRC it offers you the option to skip.
Asdfbla 9y ago
It's all extraordinarily creepy because you expect your home to be the safe haven of privacy, but considering how ubiquitous smartphones are and how much of our lives already happens digitally, you could somewhat cynically argue that the privacy loss is comparatively small (because you have very little to begin with nowadays). But if smart utilities take off, maybe some privacy label for consumers would be nice. Maybe in the future it's a selling point if when device is dumb as opposed to smart and connected. I also somewhat dislike the conclusion of the article that smart homes for everybody are inevitable or necessary. The utility, at least right now, of smart devices seems to be limited, so you don't have even to be a crazy hermit to boycott a smart home.
- jaclaz 9y ago
  Off-topic, but not much, I always loved the results of the Biarritz experiments with video-phones (actually visio - phones). How the device looked: http://www.rxcontrol.org/Visiophone/index.html http://www.rxcontrol.org/Visiophone/index.html A good summing up of the results of the paper by Francis Jaur (1990) is here: http://archive.li/Qe1Kl http://archive.li/Qe1Kl Basically people soon understood that the thing has its use, but limited it to "public" areas of their home and to selected communications.
acomjean 9y ago
these smart homes bring up ethical dilemas. I worked for a company and someone got a home automation kit. It monitored comings and goings. They looked at the logs and realized the dog walker one day did a really short walk. How do you broach this? Do you bother for an otherwise responsible walker. I worked for a power monitoring company that put a box in your house, monitored power use for each circuit breaker. The CEO noticed that his house cleaners turned on lights in all the rooms and turned them off as they finished cleaning them. You can learn a lot from watching a homes power, especialy if its split up circuit by circuit.
- autokad 9y ago
  When obama said we need a more 21st century efficient power grid, i thought that sounds great. i thought that meant better equipment and lines that doesnt waste as much electricity, nope. it meant 'smart meters' that can tell all sorts of things about us. they didnt want to save electricity, they wanted our data. The city wanted to install one of those smart meters in my home, i refused. but I was told that unless i have them installed, they would shut off my electricity. Being that they were in a position of power over me, I complied.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    Question: what does the smart meter tell them that monitoring your usage otherwise wouldn't?
    - whatshisface 9y ago
      Dumb meters integrate (sum) power over the entire time between manual readings. Smart readers can report far more granular data.
    - kageneko 9y ago
      I seem to recall a paper about using the noise in the electrical system of a home to determine what appliances were plugged in and turned on at any point in time. Sidhant Gupta, Matthew S. Reynolds, and Shwetak N. Patel. 2010. ElectriSense: single-point sensing using EMI for electrical event detection and classification in the home. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM international conference on Ubiquitous computing (UbiComp '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 139-148. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/1864349.1864375 https://doi.org/10.1145/1864349.1864375 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1864375 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1864375 That said: I used to work for a smart meter manufacturer and (AFAIK) we didn't do anything like that. Granular readings were the most important part. Our meters could report in 15 minute buckets, which was useful for tiered billing. Most of the push back against these meters were because they use radios to report readings back and there was concern about radiation. There were people who were building faraday cages around the meters.
bittermang 9y ago
Somewhat off topic, but anyone else think it's kinda weird that an article about data privacy has so many third party tracking scripts? I know it's sitewide on every article from the mothership, Gizmodo, but still...
- username223 9y ago
  Not really. Online publishers think that surveillance is free money, so they're always happy to add more. Savvy users block it all. Some day there will be a reckoning.
  - bittermang 9y ago
    I think we need to force the reckoning to the forefront, for the sake of the unsavvy. This affects us all, and we need to get out in front of it, before it bulldozes everything. If it hasn't already.
- gowld 9y ago
  The article is about the tradeoff. the website makes tradeoffs
username223 9y ago
> Roomba requires your attention: Your Roomba is stuck. Why?! When I bought a Roomba a decade ago, it was a decent vacuum that picked up dirt, could not connect to the internet, and never nagged me. Why would I want it to be worse?
astronautjones 9y ago
Wow, a lot of this (especially when she gets to dropping many brand names at once) reads almost uncannily like a George Saunders story
tremendulo 9y ago
I'd rather live with the Amish or with John Plant than potentially be arrested by my own house or car. The house would merely lock me in but the car would no doubt drive me to the police station also. I'd also rather get up to switch the lights on. Moving about periodically is healthy, right?
aplorbust 9y ago
Where is the code/setup configuration for "iotea"? Ever since "IoT" started gaining momentum as a marketing buzzword I have been thinking this type of router could be an interesting product for non-nerd users. Idea: The one device that only the user controls. User veto over all traffic to and from "smart" devices. In theory. I recall seeing a comment from a Googler on HN once that basically admitted the users only hope for privacy is to control a router. Not a laptop, phone, browser, smart thermostat, smart speaker, etc. A router. Boring. But not insignificant. Something as inexpensive and accessible as an RPi was good enough for this user.
gregmac 9y ago
Once again, one of the biggest underlying problems is "why" - or more technically, what is the use case behind <technology>? This was always a problem back when it was merely "home automation" but as we started this "IoT" craze things only got worse. I laugh at the ancedote in the article about voice control just behind frustrating and resorting to using the physical buttons. No one has ever explained why I'd want to remotely control my lights. Or why I would remotely turn on my coffee maker, after I have to physically touch it to prepare it before-hand anyway. Some amount of this tech is useful when it goes unnoticed and solves real problems. For example, my outside lights turn on dimly at sunset and turn off at midnight, unless there's motion or my garage door is open, then they go to 100%. If no inside lights are already on, the front hall and a couple other lights turn on as it gets dark. This means we never come home to a dark house, but also if we're already home, we aren't having lights automatically changing on us. I can control many things from my phone, but it's pointless. There's a button in the entrance to the kitchen that turns on several lights (that otherwise require using switches in four separate locations), another that makes them all dim, and another for off. If we leave them on, they turn off automatically by 3am. So much of these IoT products do not solve useful problems, do not blend seamlessly into your life, and do not even work well in the first place.
smb111 9y ago
I was wondering about visitors to the home too, will they all have to sign some sort of Release form before entering?

154 points by surlyadopter 9y ago

This was brilliant and disturbing. The legal implications are crazy---even if the owner of the house has agreed to the EULAs of all the devices, their visitors have not. Is their a legal obligation to notify visitors that data about them is being generated, collected, snooped through, and potentially sold? If people could be made more informed of what their devices are saying (and to whom) perhaps they'd be more reluctant to "smartify" their homes. Transparency would enable more informed decisions.

drdaeman 9y ago
> If people could be made more informed I'd really really really like to see some AR glasses that would somehow visualize all sorts of invisible things: radio traffic (incl. special indication of weak encryption and non-encrypted communications), ultrasound and infrared tags, location of detectable microphones and cameras - all sorts of things like this, whatever can be detected. Like, look at the smart TV and be aware that it sends out data (if you're on the same network and can observe the packet headers, maybe also somehow see some details where it talks to). Or see that this store front screams something on an inaudible frequency and worse - that your phone had just replied something as you walked by. Which is probably not going to happen, not only because it's extremely complicated from the technical side, but because people would freak out over such tech even more than over Google Glass ;)
- germinalphrase 9y ago
  It could make for a compelling video project - a la Keiichi Matsuda's "HYPER-REALITY"
- Fnoord 9y ago
  Hmm, triangulation is what happened to give Strava user's home location away with privacy zones. I also read the other day how multiple mics ("smart speakers" etc) can help locate someone's movement throughout a house. There's also smartphones who have infrared cameras on them like the CAT S60. And there's research where Bluetooth and WiFi can be used to assess if someone's home, and where their WiFi devices are located. Finally, I saw this picture with regards to 5G [1]. None of this is about AR glasses but I still thought it was interesting. Because the AR glasses part -even though AR isn't widespread- builds upon all of the above examples as input data. [1] http://ictvietnam.vn/files/tccntt/source_files/2017/01/27/06272517_IoT_17-01-27.jpg http://ictvietnam.vn/files/tccntt/source_files/2017/01/27/06...
  - kakarot 9y ago
    We are FUBAR'd, why deal with mics and smart speakers when you can sell privacy-invading Wi-Fi routers? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LTr02cJkiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LTr02cJkiA
- Gargoyle 9y ago
  An average smartphone contains sensors that can detect any emissions of in wifi and infrared, as well as inaudible audio. While only a portion of what you describe, it's not difficult to imagine an app that could recognize and warn of those things, perhaps even recognize specific devices in the room by their protocols.

creep 9y ago

As annoying as the "smart homes are annoying" posts are becoming, I really enjoyed the format and the depth of this article. And I didn't know one could buy internet-connected vibrators. That's... odd. I also don't know why these folks were surprised their devices were constantly communicating to their home servers. My stance on the smart home and privacy phenomenon is optimistic. I think apple will eventually have a fully integrated smart home ecosystem similar to their standard ecosystem now, which will make the process easier in general. Perhaps we can one day have a single device to control every other device, or a few devices which perform multiple functions (such as a bundled music player, television, light controller, air monitor etc) and that such a device or devices will be bundled such that the meta data will contain only information that the device is being used but not which function is employed. Surveillance is unstoppable at this point, and this means that everyone has the ability to watch everyone else, and I think this is a good thing. We already have a good sense when those in our social group are lying, or hiding things, or even when they need help. If governments and citizens alike understand what each party is up to, we can have a fully accountable society, and of course eventually we must negotiate the relevant social rules that keeps this accountability relevant and practical. This is something I believe we have to work with. We have to take responsibility and understand what is going on, and to also take the power into our own hands and create balance. We can figure this out, and I don't believe that necessarily involves destroying the structure of how our governments and corporations do business. It's simply more efficient to restructure, not to totally resist but also not to be completely complacent. and that's all I have to say.

fg8qfg8fg8 9y ago
"everyone has the ability to watch everyone else" is it entirely symmetrical ?
- germinalphrase 9y ago
  It's also explicitly untrue. Very few people have regular access to my house; even fewer have access to the "private" domestic areas of my house. Losing this perception of privacyand safety can/does/will have real psychological impacts. It's also the cornerstone of psychological attacks - zersetzung - to lose control over your private life.

goblins 9y ago

This simple horrifies me. Why would you do this to yourself and your family? I don't see myself ever getting anything smart, and if I can't avoid it there is no way it touches my internet connection!

bigiain 9y ago
Do you have a modern phone in your pocket?
- goblins 9y ago
  Fairly modern. Galaxy S2 lineageOS, fdroid. I know where you're going with this, some things are unfortunately unavoidable. Still I do what I can.

saagarjha 9y ago

> Almost every TV on the market now is connected—because otherwise how do you Netflix and chill? If you buy a "smart" TV, refuse to connect it to the internet and just get an Apple TV/Chromecast/whatever.

drdaeman 9y ago
The problem with "smart" TVs is that infrequently there is no choice but to get those and try to minimize the damage. Despite all their advantages "dumb" TVs are getting less and less popular.
- Thriptic 9y ago
  The TV still works if it's not connected to the internet. Just buy a smart TV, never connect it to the internet, and get third party streaming sticks instead.
  - mortenjorck 9y ago
    I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point, the first time you turn on your new TV, you’re prompted with an unskippable “Create your Vizio account” screen or some such nastiness.
    - bittermang 9y ago
      And that is the point when my entire foot will go through the screen. I don't shop for TVs anymore. I buy really large monitors.
    - JoshMnem 9y ago
      Like Android.
      - saagarjha 9y ago
        Can you not do this on Android now? IIRC it offers you the option to skip.

Asdfbla 9y ago

It's all extraordinarily creepy because you expect your home to be the safe haven of privacy, but considering how ubiquitous smartphones are and how much of our lives already happens digitally, you could somewhat cynically argue that the privacy loss is comparatively small (because you have very little to begin with nowadays). But if smart utilities take off, maybe some privacy label for consumers would be nice. Maybe in the future it's a selling point if when device is dumb as opposed to smart and connected. I also somewhat dislike the conclusion of the article that smart homes for everybody are inevitable or necessary. The utility, at least right now, of smart devices seems to be limited, so you don't have even to be a crazy hermit to boycott a smart home.

jaclaz 9y ago
Off-topic, but not much, I always loved the results of the Biarritz experiments with video-phones (actually visio - phones). How the device looked: http://www.rxcontrol.org/Visiophone/index.html http://www.rxcontrol.org/Visiophone/index.html A good summing up of the results of the paper by Francis Jaur (1990) is here: http://archive.li/Qe1Kl http://archive.li/Qe1Kl Basically people soon understood that the thing has its use, but limited it to "public" areas of their home and to selected communications.

acomjean 9y ago

these smart homes bring up ethical dilemas. I worked for a company and someone got a home automation kit. It monitored comings and goings. They looked at the logs and realized the dog walker one day did a really short walk. How do you broach this? Do you bother for an otherwise responsible walker. I worked for a power monitoring company that put a box in your house, monitored power use for each circuit breaker. The CEO noticed that his house cleaners turned on lights in all the rooms and turned them off as they finished cleaning them. You can learn a lot from watching a homes power, especialy if its split up circuit by circuit.

autokad 9y ago
When obama said we need a more 21st century efficient power grid, i thought that sounds great. i thought that meant better equipment and lines that doesnt waste as much electricity, nope. it meant 'smart meters' that can tell all sorts of things about us. they didnt want to save electricity, they wanted our data. The city wanted to install one of those smart meters in my home, i refused. but I was told that unless i have them installed, they would shut off my electricity. Being that they were in a position of power over me, I complied.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  Question: what does the smart meter tell them that monitoring your usage otherwise wouldn't?
  - whatshisface 9y ago
    Dumb meters integrate (sum) power over the entire time between manual readings. Smart readers can report far more granular data.
  - kageneko 9y ago
    I seem to recall a paper about using the noise in the electrical system of a home to determine what appliances were plugged in and turned on at any point in time. Sidhant Gupta, Matthew S. Reynolds, and Shwetak N. Patel. 2010. ElectriSense: single-point sensing using EMI for electrical event detection and classification in the home. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM international conference on Ubiquitous computing (UbiComp '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 139-148. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/1864349.1864375 https://doi.org/10.1145/1864349.1864375 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1864375 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1864375 That said: I used to work for a smart meter manufacturer and (AFAIK) we didn't do anything like that. Granular readings were the most important part. Our meters could report in 15 minute buckets, which was useful for tiered billing. Most of the push back against these meters were because they use radios to report readings back and there was concern about radiation. There were people who were building faraday cages around the meters.

bittermang 9y ago

Somewhat off topic, but anyone else think it's kinda weird that an article about data privacy has so many third party tracking scripts? I know it's sitewide on every article from the mothership, Gizmodo, but still...

username223 9y ago
Not really. Online publishers think that surveillance is free money, so they're always happy to add more. Savvy users block it all. Some day there will be a reckoning.
- bittermang 9y ago
  I think we need to force the reckoning to the forefront, for the sake of the unsavvy. This affects us all, and we need to get out in front of it, before it bulldozes everything. If it hasn't already.
gowld 9y ago
The article is about the tradeoff. the website makes tradeoffs

username223 9y ago

> Roomba requires your attention: Your Roomba is stuck. Why?! When I bought a Roomba a decade ago, it was a decent vacuum that picked up dirt, could not connect to the internet, and never nagged me. Why would I want it to be worse?

astronautjones 9y ago

Wow, a lot of this (especially when she gets to dropping many brand names at once) reads almost uncannily like a George Saunders story

tremendulo 9y ago

I'd rather live with the Amish or with John Plant than potentially be arrested by my own house or car. The house would merely lock me in but the car would no doubt drive me to the police station also. I'd also rather get up to switch the lights on. Moving about periodically is healthy, right?

aplorbust 9y ago

Where is the code/setup configuration for "iotea"? Ever since "IoT" started gaining momentum as a marketing buzzword I have been thinking this type of router could be an interesting product for non-nerd users. Idea: The one device that only the user controls. User veto over all traffic to and from "smart" devices. In theory. I recall seeing a comment from a Googler on HN once that basically admitted the users only hope for privacy is to control a router. Not a laptop, phone, browser, smart thermostat, smart speaker, etc. A router. Boring. But not insignificant. Something as inexpensive and accessible as an RPi was good enough for this user.

gregmac 9y ago

Once again, one of the biggest underlying problems is "why" - or more technically, what is the use case behind <technology>? This was always a problem back when it was merely "home automation" but as we started this "IoT" craze things only got worse. I laugh at the ancedote in the article about voice control just behind frustrating and resorting to using the physical buttons. No one has ever explained why I'd want to remotely control my lights. Or why I would remotely turn on my coffee maker, after I have to physically touch it to prepare it before-hand anyway. Some amount of this tech is useful when it goes unnoticed and solves real problems. For example, my outside lights turn on dimly at sunset and turn off at midnight, unless there's motion or my garage door is open, then they go to 100%. If no inside lights are already on, the front hall and a couple other lights turn on as it gets dark. This means we never come home to a dark house, but also if we're already home, we aren't having lights automatically changing on us. I can control many things from my phone, but it's pointless. There's a button in the entrance to the kitchen that turns on several lights (that otherwise require using switches in four separate locations), another that makes them all dim, and another for off. If we leave them on, they turn off automatically by 3am. So much of these IoT products do not solve useful problems, do not blend seamlessly into your life, and do not even work well in the first place.

smb111 9y ago

I was wondering about visitors to the home too, will they all have to sign some sort of Release form before entering?