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Why is my LG Washing Machine using 3.6GB of data/day?
- tonetegeatinst 3y agoI mean I'm kinda curious in smart machines that I can hookup to my own dashboard or self hosted smart assistant to automate something like make coffee every day at 9am. Or to see how long till the laundry is done. But I would never let a smart device connect to the cloud aka internet. I'd isolate it on a clan and I'd probably be sniffing the network traffic and autosave the last month of traffic. I trust my network....I don't trust devices that run who knows what firmware/software. I know it seems paranoid and to some it probably is but iv read to many storied of smart devices being insecure or the company going under and then you being left with something that dosnt work because it can't talk to their cloud server. I like the smart tech when I'm in control of the data and not reliant on some company.
- metaltyphoon 3y agoIt needs more bytes to wash faster.
- CamperBob2 3y agoIt's laundering bitcoins
- cf100clunk 3y agoMaybe it set itself up to route all packets for cleaning and sanitizing?
- publicarray 3y agoMaybe it’s part of a botnet?
- weare138 3y agoThat was my first thought. Or maybe it's stuck in a loop downloading an update that's failing for some reason.
- LorenPechtel 3y agoMy first thought was something failing and repeating, but note the upload is far greater than the download.
- heresie-dabord 3y ago... It will be.
- LorenPechtel 3y agoGiven the ratio of upload to download I think you probably nailed it.
- pengaru 3y agoSomeone missed the "exfiltration" product features bullet point
- Johnie 3y agoI am the owner of this rogue washing machine. If anyone has any ideas on how to investigate this, I'm open to ideas. As of now, I've just blocked the internet access.
- coupdejarnac 3y agoDoes it stop functioning intermittently? I've seen cases of devices in the middle of a failed OTA, and the device keeps requesting the OTA again. If it's going on and offline often, this might the case.
- squarefoot 3y agoIt may be worth sandboxing it into a dedicated network then analyze the traffic and see what it does in detail, for example if it accesses the local network then relays something outside, or if it opens ports waiting for connections, etc. I wonder if merely downloading so much data and storing it into its internal flash could wear it in a short time forcing the user to call for repair.
- dilyevsky 3y agoHave you tried tcpdump’ing its payload on your router? If it’s plain text it should be obvious what it’s doing. If it isn’t you can still sniff which domains it’s connecting to from SNI ClietnHello message but payload will be encrypted. You can still get to it but that would require some decent soldering and hw debugging skills…
- pjsg 3y agoI'd pcap a bunch of the traffic -- in particular the DNS requests -- that will tell you where it is connecting. Hopefully it is using TLS, and then the SNI headers can give you more information. I run a local DNS resolver and so I capture all the lookup responses so that I can turn IP addresses back into names. Depending on what firewall/router you have, you may be able to log connections. I use a locally hosted free Gravwell process to grab these logs and correlate with the DNS queries to find which systems are talking to where. If your home network is like mine, then there are probably a bunch of systems that you want to block from talking outside.
- beretguy 3y agoWhy is washing machine connected to internet?
- driscoll42 3y agoIt would be mildly useful to get alerts when a load is done. I know I've forgotten about laundry in the washer for a while that I wouldn't have minded a notification on my phone that it was done. Or if some maintenance needed to be done, a reminder. Or one could schedule usage during certain hours to minimize energy usage. But these are not super important use cases.
- tremon 3y agoWhat would you do with such an alert if you received it while not at home?
- LeafItAlone 3y agoYou don’t have to be away from home for that to be useful. Even just in another room where you can’t hear it and are otherwise preoccupied. Or you can call your children and ask them to switch it over.
- JohnFen 3y agoIf you don't need the notifications when you aren't home, then there's no reason why it needs to talk to the internet. You could still get the notifications just using a local LAN connection.
- LeafItAlone 3y agoIt could, but for wider use and more capability, Internet would be the default choice. Also, I live on a small property compared to those in my area (a few acres), and my WiFi doesn’t cover most of it. So a LAN notification wouldn’t work when I am out gardening.
- netsharc 3y agoI bought a Bluetooth-connectible blood pressure measuring device. The first app was decent, the second app? Several screens were behind "Upgrade to premium to unlock this feature". And then it started gamifying, "measure your blood pressure every day to earn points", redeemable for... fucking what? Fuck youuuuu, Omron!
- ttyprintk 3y agoBluetooth medical devices are recalled often. The FDA publishes a list, but for proactive alerting, I use a third party: https://maude.innolitics.com/ https://maude.innolitics.com/
- loloquwowndueo 3y agoI got a non-connected Omron precisely because of this. I keep track of readings manually in a spreadsheet. Takes less time than the actual measurement taking. Also makes me super aware of my blood pressure values and ranges.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y agoI should give a plug to my favourite fitness app, FitNotes. It's free, and not crippled, with a paid tier that has extra desirable features. It's usable entirely offline, although it does have cloud integration and backup features. The cool part I use on FitNotes is its Body Tracker, which lets me track and graph all my vitals across time. I can set goals and observe trends. I can export all data at any time. It's really flexible and full-featured.
- LeafItAlone 3y agoI manually add mine to Apple Health. That way I can immediately record readings from doctor visits or such and I am a fan of their trend tracking and notifications. Weight too.
- LeafItAlone 3y agoI am with you on the necessity of it, but some people are indeed motivated by gamifying things (just look at Smart watches and fitness trackers). If that works for people to be healthier, that’s great.
- mkl 3y agohttps://nitter.net/Johnie/status/1744556503183585471 https://nitter.net/Johnie/status/1744556503183585471
- paradox242 3y agoThe idea of a washing machine, coffee maker, refrigerator, etc. including a network card strikes me as a solution in search of a problem. Unless you are the company marketing these devices and the problem is "how can start getting in on the user data collection game".
- MostlyStable 3y agoIf the machine had an open API that I could control and utilize entirely locally, I can see (minor) advantages to most of these. Really anything that is a somewhat highish power load and only needs to run very intermittently, having a way to control it with home automation (which requires some kind of wireless connection), could be of some use. THe problem is that they are including this network connectivity in a completely closed down way where you, the user, do not actually have any control over what is sent to or from the device. that kind of connection I agree is worse than useless: actively malicious and bad, and I would pay extra to not have it.
- wt__ 3y agoI don't particularly want any appliances that connect to the internet, but it would be quite fun to have a washing machine API that reported sensor data like water temperature, weight of load, drum rotation speed during the spin cycle, door lock/unlock status etc.
- snapplebobapple 3y agoMy plan to solve this is buy an all in one like the new ge prestige unit when my washer or dryer breaks. That runs on a regular outlet so there are many, many cheap esphome based outlets that monitor power draw that will work. At that point its a trivial rule in home assisant to notify me when the thibg is done.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y agoDo those even work with the type of power load a washing machine needs? I'm thinking of how you shouldn't connect the washing machine to a power bar
- wlesieutre 3y agoMy washer has the option of connecting to the internet for its "Download Cycle" mode but I'm surprised that anyone actually uses that I just assumed it came about from some manager saying "You know what washing machines need? An app."
- samsk 3y agoI put all these 'smart' devices on separate network (wifi) that has adguard home as resolver. It makes ir relatively easy to identify what is which device talking to and even block it.
- at_a_remove 3y agoI can see some data collection (after it is announced and agreed upon) being useful. How hot was the water coming in? How much water did this cycle use? Was the cycle stopped? Was it stopped and restarted, and if so, when? (So as to tell between "I missed that sock" and "I wanted to add some liquid a quarter of the way through") What time of day am I being used? Perhaps even a "you did a load two days ago and now it is getting mildewy" alarm. Some data could actually be valuable for product design and iteration. That sounds like a few kilobytes per month.
- tavavex 3y agoThe next post in that thread is even weirder. Apparently, you can use the Wi-Fi functionality to.. "download cycles"? Like, the machine itself includes some presets for certain washing procedures/cycles, and the app provides additional ones. But the question is *why?* Why didn't they just include them on the washing machine's hardware? It's not like you'd need updates for these cycles - imagine needing to download Denim Wash 1.4 or something.
- blevinstein 3y agoI think that was a joke. DLC normally means downloadable content.
- tavavex 3y agoThe downloadable cycles thing is very much real. There's a screenshot and I checked LG's documentation to make sure, it's a real thing in their ThinQ app (https://www.lg.com/us/support/help-library/lg-thinq-how-to-use-download-cycles-CT10000012-20152746918577 https://www.lg.com/us/support/help-library/lg-thinq-how-to-u...)
- em-bee 3y agonow that would be something. imagine future washing instructions on your clothes label stating which version of a wash cycle is required. on the other hand, some way to tell the washing machine what clothes are inside by letting it scan the labels so that it can automatically pick the right cycle, now that would be useful.
- neurostimulant 3y agoIIRC you can create your own custom washing cycle. Not sure how useful it is though.
- runjake 3y agoHere's an old pcap from an LG dryer to the same remote host(s). https://gist.github.com/Jonathan727/9ef58e7a64806d1e01112b202cdc14bc https://gist.github.com/Jonathan727/9ef58e7a64806d1e01112b20...
- tremon 3y agoSend them a bill for violating your home's fair use policy? Bandwidth isn't free, you know.
- wrs 3y agoI have a Bosch induction cooktop with wifi, and a Bosch oven without wifi. The cooktop has updated its firmware automatically a few times, and I have no idea why. The oven's timer always froze when it attempted to count down past 1:01. It was fixed by a service person who drove over and replaced the entire controller board. So much wrong with this situation: Why does an oven need a computer in the first place? How can you release software for an oven where the timer doesn't work? How is it economical to make an unflashable controller board? Etc. BTW, I got a look at the board, and turns out Bosch doesn't even make its own oven controllers.
- LeafItAlone 3y ago> Why does an oven need a computer in the first place? What do you mean? What else is going to control the temperature, display, timer, etc.? I’m pretty sure my oven from 25 years ago had what I would call a “computer”.
- hnbear 3y agoMy oven has a knob that I manually twist. To timer. No display at all. Not much electronic at all.
- wrs 3y agoThat’s how my old gas oven was, and now I miss it!
- rthomas6 3y agoYou could do it all with discrete chips on a board. No need for a computer really. Temperature -> PID controller, display -> 7 segment decoder, timer -> timer chip. Something like a circuit board with a bunch of discretes would be how I would expect an oven from 25 years ago to look. Maybe there's a microcontroller to coordinate things, but I think you could get by without it
- ben_w 3y ago> What else is going to control the temperature An op-amp and a thermistor and variable resistor (for selecting the desired temperature), perhaps? I dunno though, I don't even have a GCSE in electronics. > display, timer Why does it have these? My oven doesn't have these, just an LED that lights up when the oven is on but yet hot enough.
- JohnFen 3y agoThe real question is: why are you allowing your appliances access to the internet at all?
- Balgair 3y agoThe really real question is: why is OP not using the washing machine to mine bitcoins for themselves? / make their own DDOS botnet?
- mleo 3y agoI have LG Washer connected to my network. The network stack on my model is terrible and would constantly fail after period of time receiving multicast packets from other devices. I had to segment it on to it's own SSID/VLAN/IP Address and ensure no other traffic reached it. It has been stable since then. Mine has only used 3MB over the last month, which seems low. As to why. It is connected to home automation system and will announce on Sonos when the wash (or dry) is complete. I also had it connected to LEDs on light switch that would blink when clothes were in the machines waiting to get moved.
- morkalork 3y agoThat's nice! If random network traffic can cause a crash, what are the odds of something exploitable is lurking there?
- 0x00_NULL 3y agoThere is no legitimate reason for that. Your washing machine is infected and part of a bot net. Contact LG and get them to help you reset and secure it. You might also want to take a look at all of your devices on your home internet. It seems attackers have gotten into your internal network.
- dkuntz2 3y agothe more important question is why did you let your washing machine have access to your wifi network to begin with?
- ben_w 3y agoThat's 41.7 kilobytes per second, easily enough for a permanent phone call. So, who wants to bet it turns out the NSA really is spying on us with microphones in our washing machines?
- jacknews 3y agoI could never 'get' twitter/X, how do I see the 'conversation'? Why is his machine using so much, are there any comments? A thread? Or is this just thrown out there for likes?
- asystole 3y agoYes, there's a thread. Yes, X sucks now and doesn't let you view threads without an account. You can use nitter (https://nitter.net https://nitter.net) to view it: https://nitter.net/Johnie/status/1744556503183585471#m https://nitter.net/Johnie/status/1744556503183585471#m
- jaybeavers 3y agoProbably a much simpler answer. The programmers who work on a washing machine are probably inexperienced low wage disempowered help. And there’s an innocent rx/tx loop for a home grown notification system and noone on the team knows better or knows how to use a packet sniffer or perf analyzer. Never attribute to malfeasance what incompetence can explain. Put a packet sniffer on it. Bet it doesn’t use https, that costs extra for microcontrollers. Dollars to doughnuts it’s a teenager on a road trip. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
- mike503 3y agoI was looking forward to being able to remotely control aspects of the dryer, but disappointed that my LG only allows control if the button is physically pushed to enable remote (and it only lets you do one remote instruction before it requires being pressed again) I had imagined I could trigger a dryer cycle while I was away, or just wanted to run a couple cycles before I had a chance to actually empty it. Sadly that requires physical coordination of remembering to set it beforehand and then only getting one spin with it. The only beneficial thing I get is the notification that a cycle is done, or perhaps an error (haven't got one yet)