4 ms·

If someone buys one for an NSA building, they get a floor plan. It costs them very little to add this functionality and the wins are potentially very high.

toss1 5y ago
Well, sure, if the company is an intelligence operation, sure, that'd plausibly be worth it. But that makes my point even stronger - the very commonality of these bullsh*t must-(unnecessarily)-call-home-to-run setups gives cover for this threat. Also, they might get some useful floor plans, but I'd be astonished if any of the three-letter-agencies would allow one even near the campus. I knew someone who did some software work for the CIA, and the requirement was you do NOT bring any electronics to the building. You specify what you need for hardware, what software will be installed, the configuration, etc, and bring NOTHING electronic to the door. They search you going in, your machine is at your desk per your specs, you do your work, get searched on the way out, and his understanding was that the machine (or at least all storage components) were to be put through a metal shredder on completion of the project. Letting someone configure an automatic floor-sweeper that needs to get on the network? Right, who is going to authorize that access? And, ya, even if someone did, that network is likely fully airgapped from the outside network. But yeah, in commercial operations, plausibly even defense contractors, I'm sure they'd get plenty of security-dumb people who'd just happily hook it up and unknowingly send the floorplans to the CCP. I wouldn't put it past 'em.
- maxwell86 5y ago
  Many of these also sell you replacements (which you need often), and other homeware. If you think the type of data that ties a user with how big their home is, how it is located, how many rooms it has, etc. is not valuable, you must live in a cave. I'm pretty sure this data is super valuable, and Amazon and similar companies would pay a lot for it.
rosndo 5y ago
It would have to be a really small building, these are not suitable for cleaning larger areas.

toss1 5y ago

Well, sure, if the company is an intelligence operation, sure, that'd plausibly be worth it. But that makes my point even stronger - the very commonality of these bullsh*t must-(unnecessarily)-call-home-to-run setups gives cover for this threat. Also, they might get some useful floor plans, but I'd be astonished if any of the three-letter-agencies would allow one even near the campus. I knew someone who did some software work for the CIA, and the requirement was you do NOT bring any electronics to the building. You specify what you need for hardware, what software will be installed, the configuration, etc, and bring NOTHING electronic to the door. They search you going in, your machine is at your desk per your specs, you do your work, get searched on the way out, and his understanding was that the machine (or at least all storage components) were to be put through a metal shredder on completion of the project. Letting someone configure an automatic floor-sweeper that needs to get on the network? Right, who is going to authorize that access? And, ya, even if someone did, that network is likely fully airgapped from the outside network. But yeah, in commercial operations, plausibly even defense contractors, I'm sure they'd get plenty of security-dumb people who'd just happily hook it up and unknowingly send the floorplans to the CCP. I wouldn't put it past 'em.

maxwell86 5y ago
Many of these also sell you replacements (which you need often), and other homeware. If you think the type of data that ties a user with how big their home is, how it is located, how many rooms it has, etc. is not valuable, you must live in a cave. I'm pretty sure this data is super valuable, and Amazon and similar companies would pay a lot for it.

rosndo 5y ago

It would have to be a really small building, these are not suitable for cleaning larger areas.