this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
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Hackers take control of robot vacuums in multiple US cities and abuse owners (www.abc.net.au)
submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Robot vacuums in multiple US cities were hacked in the space of a few days, with the attacker physically controlling them and yelling obscenities through their onboard speakers.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

I’m a huge fan of IoT, but requiring all this stuff to access internet is just so wild to me. It’s 2024, we all have a LAN* at this point (even though non-tech people think WiFi == internet).

I stupidly bought iRobot products and the app is such a glitchfest, it wants to talk to AWS’ shithole us-east-1 to do anything and of course the app is always telling me about “great deals” on newer products.

* Careful when using an ISP-supplied router though, now your ISP wants access to your LAN for “totally innocent” reasons

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

My plan is to buy something Valetudo compatible, and have it all run in network.

I try really hard to stick to the policy of "if it needs internet access to operate, I won't install it on the house"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

Me too once these die off.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

At this point I use Home Assistant for everything IoT and won't buy any product I can't use LAN-only through HA.

The unfortunate exception to this rule is TVs. You can't even buy a "dumb" TV anymore. I put up with LGs after disabling every setting and data agreement I can for privacy's sake, but none of them are good.