5 ms·

Why did they choose the irons? Usually irons are not plugged-in more than couple of hours in a week.

Sanddancer 13y ago
First thing that comes to mind is that no one would suspect an iron. People are gonna beat their heads over these intermittent spam issues for quite a while before any correlation pops up. Second, if you add a battery to the chipset, then you can charge while the person's ironing and out spam throughout the week. Irons are pretty high power devices, so no one's really going to notice an extra watt or so.
- discreditable 13y ago
  Wouldn't an SOC + battery in an iron be fairly prone to overheating issues?
  - pyre 13y ago
    It could just charge while the iron is on, and do everything else while the iron is off. As to being affected by heat, there are parts of the iron that can't be hot (i.e. the handle), so you can move the install away from the hot parts.
- dhughes 13y ago
  > First thing that comes to mind is that no one would suspect an iron. ... That's very Monty Python.
Cyranix 13y ago
That may be part of the reason. Common household item with somewhat unpredictable usage sounds like a good way to mask the activity.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
lvs 13y ago
Yup, all you need is a brief window to dump the malware on another box. Finding a malicious device is much harder if it's intermittent.
Swannie 13y ago
Heavy? A lot of room in the handle? Nope... I'm stumped too, because I can't imagine there would already be a transformer in there for easy 5 - 12v power.
- nitrogen 13y ago
  If you won't be physically interfacing to the outside, you can get 5-12V power very easily with some incredibly simple components. Your circuit just might be at 100+V with respect to ground, so it needs to be completely isolated. See http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/appnotes/00954a.pdf http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/appnotes/00954a.pdf
natch 13y ago
Speculation: 1. Heavy, relative weight difference is negligible. 2. Has power 3. Easy to open up and work with 4. Plenty of extra space inside 5. Travels into a diverse selection of households 6. (most important) the person has a day job in an iron factory. I also like the theory this is just a PR stunt for someone like a local iron retailer, or it was a local mod done to the irons after they arrived in Russia.
achy 13y ago
I'm thinking hotel rooms could be a target. Irons that are used frequently and in close proximity to people connected to (or sharing) wireless connections.

First thing that comes to mind is that no one would suspect an iron. People are gonna beat their heads over these intermittent spam issues for quite a while before any correlation pops up. Second, if you add a battery to the chipset, then you can charge while the person's ironing and out spam throughout the week. Irons are pretty high power devices, so no one's really going to notice an extra watt or so.

discreditable 13y ago
Wouldn't an SOC + battery in an iron be fairly prone to overheating issues?
- pyre 13y ago
  It could just charge while the iron is on, and do everything else while the iron is off. As to being affected by heat, there are parts of the iron that can't be hot (i.e. the handle), so you can move the install away from the hot parts.
dhughes 13y ago
> First thing that comes to mind is that no one would suspect an iron. ... That's very Monty Python.

Cyranix 13y ago

That may be part of the reason. Common household item with somewhat unpredictable usage sounds like a good way to mask the activity.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

lvs 13y ago

Yup, all you need is a brief window to dump the malware on another box. Finding a malicious device is much harder if it's intermittent.

Swannie 13y ago

Heavy? A lot of room in the handle? Nope... I'm stumped too, because I can't imagine there would already be a transformer in there for easy 5 - 12v power.

nitrogen 13y ago
If you won't be physically interfacing to the outside, you can get 5-12V power very easily with some incredibly simple components. Your circuit just might be at 100+V with respect to ground, so it needs to be completely isolated. See http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/appnotes/00954a.pdf http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/appnotes/00954a.pdf

natch 13y ago

Speculation: 1. Heavy, relative weight difference is negligible. 2. Has power 3. Easy to open up and work with 4. Plenty of extra space inside 5. Travels into a diverse selection of households 6. (most important) the person has a day job in an iron factory. I also like the theory this is just a PR stunt for someone like a local iron retailer, or it was a local mod done to the irons after they arrived in Russia.

achy 13y ago

I'm thinking hotel rooms could be a target. Irons that are used frequently and in close proximity to people connected to (or sharing) wireless connections.