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I've seen APIs for controlling those toys already a few times and it always surprises me that they're quite open. It's a thing I'd expect each device to come wi

I've seen APIs for controlling those toys already a few times and it always surprises me that they're quite open. It's a thing I'd expect each device to come with a proprietary locked down app and nobody complaining about it publically, because that'd look.bad on them. Anyone can tell me why is that different? Is it because huge corporations are staying away from the market, thus they couldn't have ruined it?

Grayskull 1y ago
My guess is, it has to do with cam streamers and ability for people to develop extensions for streaming platforms for their devices. Lovesense, for example, became shorthand for "toy controlled by chat" on streaming sites.
Kwpolska 1y ago
AFAIK, those APIs aren't publicly described by the vendors, they were reverse engineered by the community. Also, the toys themselves are Bluetooth-based, so pairing and proximity are enough for security.
tecleandor 1y ago
As @Kwpolska says, mostly they have reverse engineered Bluetooth protocols. I'm on my work computer (that's fiercely monitored) so can't give you much links right now, but Buttplug site has information about all the messages and protocols. And some of them are quite a mess. Some of them, like Lovense, have said they had intention to publish APIs, but they just have some empty repositories in Github. (Lovense is a weird company, everything points to just one or two persons in [IIRC] Taiwan. They're very opaque.) And some have been fishy too. There have been class actions against brands like Hytto / Lush [0] or We-Vibe [1] -- 0: https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-forwards-class-action-suit-against-adult-toy-maker/ https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-forwards-class-action-s... 1: https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news/vibrator-maker-pay-3-75m-settle-privacy-class-action/ https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news...
devjab 1y ago
I'm not English and I'm not sure what you would call electronic devices in your house, but very few of the ones you'd find in a typical Danish household which are locked down particularily well. It tends to be fairly easy to "hack" anything which has a computer in it, whether that is your Microwave, your electrical toothbrush, your router, your e-bike or something similar. What sets sex-toys appart is probably the amount of effort people are willing to put into hacking them. I'm guessing here, but I imagine you'd find a lot more people wanting to hack their sex-toys compared to people wanting to hack their Microwave. Until I saw this post, I thought the e-bike community was the largest "hacker" community in regards to tampering with your electronics, but I imagine it too is dwarfed by sextoy hackers. Anyway, here in Europe there are a lot of hacks for e-bike computers. Part of this is because many people want to increase the software restraints on speed limits. Which is illegal, and, at least in larger Danish cities also very likely to get caught. Many people do it for statistics though, my e-bike computer as an example resets my "current" milage every 500km and then store the total in another place (something which gets reset everytime it's in the shop). It also didn't have a clock option for any of it's standard screens. My primary reason for hacking it was getting a clock on the display, but I now also back-up my milage + I have some added statistics for fun. When it needs to go into the store, I re-flash it to the factory settings or whatever you'd call it. I'm by no means a device hacker, but it wasn't hard to search engine my brand and find the tools I needed to do what I wanted. Anyway, I don't think there is a lot of "secuirty" in any of our daily devices. Maybe it's because I'm European and a lot of people wouldn't want the NSA watching in through a Google Camera, and therefor buy non-major-tech-company brand stuff, but even things from large brands like Bosch are very hackable. Again, I'm not a device hacker as such, but isn't everything rather hackable once you have the hardware?
- yard2010 1y ago
  How would you get caught for opening a speed restrictions and what are the consequences?
koolba 1y ago
> I've seen APIs for controlling those toys already a few times and it always surprises me that they're quite open. Not really. People in the space are to used bending over backwards to please their customers.
lofaszvanitt 1y ago
Of course these tools are open, otherwise how would you interface with them?
jijijijij 1y ago
Pretty sure that's because those toy companies are using cheapest off-the-shelf chips and most basic protocols, because, well, it's cheaper. Likely a lot of rebranded, "open" Chinese toys anyway. That and a neglect for reliability and security probably makes reverse engineering rather straight forward. Assumption based on connectivity experience, since the Bluetooth connection is usually rather unreliable and weird, and obviously not as well engineered as even cheap Bluetooth in-ear headphones, or game controlers. Ironically very susceptible to being blocked by body parts (which means vibe no more). Seems, like it's some dead simple serial transmission, which isn't fault tolerant at all. Those controllers are not bothering with any buffering, or much any computation at all really. Seems like they just straight stream signals to the motors.

Grayskull 1y ago

My guess is, it has to do with cam streamers and ability for people to develop extensions for streaming platforms for their devices. Lovesense, for example, became shorthand for "toy controlled by chat" on streaming sites.

Kwpolska 1y ago

AFAIK, those APIs aren't publicly described by the vendors, they were reverse engineered by the community. Also, the toys themselves are Bluetooth-based, so pairing and proximity are enough for security.

tecleandor 1y ago

As @Kwpolska says, mostly they have reverse engineered Bluetooth protocols. I'm on my work computer (that's fiercely monitored) so can't give you much links right now, but Buttplug site has information about all the messages and protocols. And some of them are quite a mess. Some of them, like Lovense, have said they had intention to publish APIs, but they just have some empty repositories in Github. (Lovense is a weird company, everything points to just one or two persons in [IIRC] Taiwan. They're very opaque.) And some have been fishy too. There have been class actions against brands like Hytto / Lush [0] or We-Vibe [1] -- 0: https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-forwards-class-action-suit-against-adult-toy-maker/ https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-forwards-class-action-s... 1: https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news/vibrator-maker-pay-3-75m-settle-privacy-class-action/ https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/lawsuit-news...

devjab 1y ago

I'm not English and I'm not sure what you would call electronic devices in your house, but very few of the ones you'd find in a typical Danish household which are locked down particularily well. It tends to be fairly easy to "hack" anything which has a computer in it, whether that is your Microwave, your electrical toothbrush, your router, your e-bike or something similar. What sets sex-toys appart is probably the amount of effort people are willing to put into hacking them. I'm guessing here, but I imagine you'd find a lot more people wanting to hack their sex-toys compared to people wanting to hack their Microwave. Until I saw this post, I thought the e-bike community was the largest "hacker" community in regards to tampering with your electronics, but I imagine it too is dwarfed by sextoy hackers. Anyway, here in Europe there are a lot of hacks for e-bike computers. Part of this is because many people want to increase the software restraints on speed limits. Which is illegal, and, at least in larger Danish cities also very likely to get caught. Many people do it for statistics though, my e-bike computer as an example resets my "current" milage every 500km and then store the total in another place (something which gets reset everytime it's in the shop). It also didn't have a clock option for any of it's standard screens. My primary reason for hacking it was getting a clock on the display, but I now also back-up my milage + I have some added statistics for fun. When it needs to go into the store, I re-flash it to the factory settings or whatever you'd call it. I'm by no means a device hacker, but it wasn't hard to search engine my brand and find the tools I needed to do what I wanted. Anyway, I don't think there is a lot of "secuirty" in any of our daily devices. Maybe it's because I'm European and a lot of people wouldn't want the NSA watching in through a Google Camera, and therefor buy non-major-tech-company brand stuff, but even things from large brands like Bosch are very hackable. Again, I'm not a device hacker as such, but isn't everything rather hackable once you have the hardware?

yard2010 1y ago
How would you get caught for opening a speed restrictions and what are the consequences?

koolba 1y ago

> I've seen APIs for controlling those toys already a few times and it always surprises me that they're quite open. Not really. People in the space are to used bending over backwards to please their customers.

lofaszvanitt 1y ago

Of course these tools are open, otherwise how would you interface with them?

jijijijij 1y ago

Pretty sure that's because those toy companies are using cheapest off-the-shelf chips and most basic protocols, because, well, it's cheaper. Likely a lot of rebranded, "open" Chinese toys anyway. That and a neglect for reliability and security probably makes reverse engineering rather straight forward. Assumption based on connectivity experience, since the Bluetooth connection is usually rather unreliable and weird, and obviously not as well engineered as even cheap Bluetooth in-ear headphones, or game controlers. Ironically very susceptible to being blocked by body parts (which means vibe no more). Seems, like it's some dead simple serial transmission, which isn't fault tolerant at all. Those controllers are not bothering with any buffering, or much any computation at all really. Seems like they just straight stream signals to the motors.