• ByteOnBikes@discuss.online
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    71
    ·
    2 days ago

    In addition, Narayanan says he uncovered a suspicious line of code broadcasted from the company to the vacuum, timestamped to the exact moment it stopped working. “Someone — or something — had remotely issued a kill command,” he wrote.

    “I reversed the script change and rebooted the device,” he wrote. “It came back to life instantly. They hadn’t merely incorporated a remote control feature. They had used it to permanently disable my device.”

    In short, he said, the company that made the device had “the power to remotely disable devices, and used it against me for blocking their data collection… Whether it was intentional punishment or automated enforcement of ‘compliance,’ the result was the same: a consumer device had turned on its owner.”

    They kill switched it remotely. Yikes.

    • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      2 days ago

      All IoT devices do this to keep you from blocking their data collection. They won’t work reliably without a regular ping home. They lock up if they can’t phone home frequently enough.

      • Auli@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        22 hours ago

        Haven’t had one yet. Block all IOT devices from internet all work fine.

    • Evotech@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 days ago

      More likely it killed itself after not being in contact with home base. Since it worked fine elsewhere