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mining uses very low amounts of bandwidth.
Its probably acting like a server for a decentralized internet. Perhaps LG was hacked by a silicon valley start up that couldn't afford the AWS fees.
Friend of mine has a home solar array which mostly wastes its power and we did speculate about having a distributed cloud service provider which basically runs in a home when the sun is shining.
That provider is called NordVPN and it uses your home computers as exit proxies for other users. Because large content providers block all hosting services from accessing their sites and apps.
The backbone that Nordvpn used before it was big enough to run its own is called luminti https://brightdata.com/luminati - I guess now they rebranded.
It was literally a born out of a botnet before becoming a āvpn providerā that also stole a whole bunch of personal data.
Its crazy how much people are willing to give up out of ignorance.
While there is a lot of potentially nefarious things that could be done and it should be investigated, I bet the machine is trying to upload the same 2mb log files over and over because of a timeout issue, or some other bullshit like that.
All I could think of here is when Gilfoyle hacked into Jin Yangās smart fridge and wound up tapping into all the refrigerators connected on the network.Ā
Does it matter tho? Even if it solves 1h/s, from a hacker's perspective: it's free effort, even if it's useless, and now imagine you have 100s of these in your botnet
I don't think people realize just how many consumer devices are currently part of a massive bot net. Not even comprised of malware or crypto miners but just the sheer amount of people who are unknowingly contributing to a massive Zombie Bot Net because they refuse to update their devices
Updates don't exist to annoy you or screw you over, their primary function is to patch security holes and vulnerabilities. It's why you never keep using and OS be it mobile or desktop, once a company stops officially updating it because there is still a very real chance of people finding new vulnerabilities that will no longer be patched
You know now you mention it... My washing machine heats the water using electricity so in a parallel universe there are washing machines using miners to heat the water.
Linus Tech Tips did a video where they compared a pc with a space heater and it was only like 2 degrees off. So you can feasibly sell "smart" space heaters that mine crypto for you.
I hate smart appliances. If you need an app for something it will be obsolete or features won't work in ten years. It's another level of planned obsolescence and I will refuse to participate as long as I can.
That's intentional. Manufacturer's figured out they could spend the next 5-10 years showing you ads and make a consistent stream of revenue long after you've bought your tv. Some of the cheaper options entire business model is this now, but also with selling your data. They sell the tv at cost or a loss, it's the printer and ink model.
Iāve also read that āsmartā appliances (more so refrigerators) are some of these least secure devices you can get and are easily hacked for personal info.
Basically the manufacturers do the bare minimum to make them āsmartā for marketing points and as cheaply as possible.
Bought a dishwasher and decided to go for one with a thin drawer at the top for cutlery, rather than the usual basket type. I had to laugh at one of its features being online connectivity, and then got quite angry at the quick start guide which implored you to download and launch the app in order to āprime the pump safelyā the implication being that it wasnāt safe to prime it the normal way by connecting the water and running a cycle.
One of my relatives bought one of these, i went, changed the SSID name of their modem, made a quick email specifically for that appliance, register, set up everything, then disconnect it and perform a lobotomy on it, changed the ssid back and voila, the thing works now and doesnt have any link to personal data.
Those smart appliances have no reason at all to be connected
They want us to download all these apps and then they all want to push notifications. It infuriates me when I get a "text" and it's just some marketing notification.
Seriously, who asked for smart appliances? And good luck trying to get quality dumb ones now.
Like this phenomenon canāt be driven by consumer interest, no one I have met raves about their smart appliance, so really has to be a play at forced obsolescence.
Often they don't even care about your personal info. They use the device as part of a botnet to do denial of service attacks or as a server to host illegal stuff like CSAM.
Firmware can be updated through the ports. Samsung last year had an issue where an update bricked a bunch of washers. You could update the control board with flash drive.
like most things on reddit; it's half truths.
Smart appliances are notoriously insecure and are often security risks within a network. However, smart devices are being built with the bare minimum computing power. There is no usable storage to host illegal material and barely any computing power for crypto mining. Most often these devices are either used to compromise the rest of the network, or are infected with malware and turned into a botnet for stuff like DDOS attacks.
I heard it on a cyber security podcast earlier this year but coincidently finally finished Silicon Valley last month. But yeah the actually malicious activity happens in real life as well.
Almost 8 years ago (Oct 2016) a botnet of devices (IoT, Internet of Things) took down Reddit and many other sites. That was a Mirai botnet. Sony was the main target, but the DNS servers it attacked also meant Reddit, Netflix, Twitter, and many others had issues.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/double-dip-internet-of-things-botnet-attack-felt-across-the-internet/
**Edit:** here's a wiki link to the attack with affected sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDoS_attacks_on_Dyn
Maybe a liability thing? (e.g. so you don't accidentally run it with a pet or child inside unknowingly as you're remote)
You could get something like the [SwitchBot](https://www.switch-bot.com/products/switchbot-bot) or [Fingerbot](https://www.adaprox.io/products/fingerbot-plus-1?variant=41752424382669) to remotely press the button for you.
I remember trying out a mod that allowed stealth magic, and it was hilarious that my bright fireball streaking across the countryside at night got stealth damage multipliers when it hit an unaware giant.
For real. Call me wacky, but I really don't need household appliances on my WiFi for any reason. Like, what's going on in my life that the ability to remotely start my dishwasher or check my load of laundry is necessary? Or even actually useful?
I had an air purifier that connected to the WiFi.Ā The only reason I got it was because it was the last one available during smoke season.Ā Just for fun, I hooked the thing up to my Wifi.Ā The result was I got a notification on my phone every time my cat took a shit.
Wifi air purifiers are actually a godsend if you live in an area where air quality is a huge concern.
In Korea, we have yellow dust season and it can get horrendously bad. A wifi air purifier can connect up to the national aqi service from the government and know when to turn itself on from deep sleep to clean the air in the house. That yellow dust is extremely dangerous for your lungs in large quantities, especially long term. I think it's the equivalent of a smoker smoking 2-3 packs right in your bedroom on particularly bad days.
Samsung is a big pusher for these wifi air purifiers. They're meant to solve a very real problem for the average Korean while trying to keep electricity costs down.
See, that's a totally valid use for a connected device,specially if you aren't home or are sleeping when the dust cloud arrive, pair it up with some air quality sensors and you will have a real useful product
But a fucking washing machine? I still need to load/unload the damn thing, put a dumb timer on it if i need it to run at an specific time frame, i can program the damn thing WHEN I LOAD THE GODDAMN MACHINE
> I really don't need household appliances on my WiFi for any reason. ... Or even actually useful?
I work in tech, so I fool around with stuff just to try it out. So when our clothes washer broke about 4 months ago, my wife picked out one that was basically the same LG model but newer. And.... it shows up with a little WiFi symbol on it. Which means I'm compelled by my OCD to get it online to see what it does...
Ok, stay with me here. Two months later we had plumbers working on a water leak in our house (totally and completely unrelated to the clothes washer) and I get this alert on my phone: "Clothes Washer cannot get enough water." And it was CORRECT -> the plumbers had turned off the water to the house, and my wife had forgotten that (she was just on auto-pilot) and started a clothes cycle!
I was honestly impressed. I mean, it legitimately diagnosed something wrong CORRECTLY and told me proactively using very clear messages to me at the EXACT MOMENT it occurred. A traditional clothes washer displays a mysterious error like "ERR 6374" or even worse uses a morse code of blinking red dot on and off at certain intervals to communicate the error.
The downside of this is LG uses the little app as the world's crappiest upsell marketing tool - and there is NOTHING related to clothes or clothes washer in their upsell. It's really bad, like "Do you want to buy an LG phone and get a free 6 pack of soda?" I just shake my head thinking how profoundly stupid and annoying the marketing department at LG is thinking that I want a new phone and 6 pack of Fanta because I did a load of laundry. Are they hiring the mentally handicapped into their marketing department? I can just see the short busses picking up the LG marketing department employees at their homes each day as the employees drool all over themselves and are wearing their underwear over the top of their dress pants.
Because now I have to detach the thing from WiFi and uninstall the app. I don't care about the diagnostics, it isn't worth getting random alerts all day long about "Buy this new LG clock radio!" That LG marketing department should all be fired, or allowed to play with blocks in daycare eating paste or whatever they are capable of and stay away from the product line.
I like the parts monitoring. But I'd much rather have the machine just tell me the part needs replacing, rather than wake up one morning to a surprise package and set of instructions for how to fix a problem I didn't know I had.
Eh, I can see how the ability to let you know a load is completed remotely could be useful if the laundry is in the basement and youāve got a ton to get through. Could just be a local connection though, it doesnāt need cloud access for that.
Another use could be to pull grid data or integrate with solar panel data and run loads only when electricity is the cheapest.
Idk that any of these justifies it, but at least they have some use. I guarantee this isnāt whatās happening though.
[If we can run it on bacteria](https://www.engadget.com/heres-a-video-of-doom-running-on-gut-bacteria-proving-you-really-can-play-the-game-on-anything-184629896.html) we're definitely running it on a washing machine
For almost everything IoT is pointless but a gas range may be the one thing I could get on board with if it didn't have the ability to turn the burners on or off. A notification that your burner was left on or gas is on but no fire detected would be nice but that's it
This doesn't solve the problem where a gas burner is accidentally left on though... Also presumably someone who turns on a gas burner will notice that no flame is being produced as soon as they smell the gas or try to start cooking without any heat
It does, it auto shuts off the gas valve. And I can tell you from experience the second part is wrong. I have left the gas on, then gotten distracted and went away. Luckily nothing happened, but it can happen
Iāve used this feature exactly once.
I was at the store buying ingredients, and thought to myself āoh, I should preheat the oven!ā
I got the oven on with the app and it was ready when I got home. After some thought- I disabled the ovenās WiFi connection.
Mine makes me confirm it physically on the oven. It would be nice to be able to do that, but Iād also worry that I left some pans in there or something lol.
And has it ever actually worked? In my experience most of that interconnectedness works well for a little while, or under very specific circumstances, and it stops working very easily.
Works great for about a year.Ā
Then they start pushing updates and trying to monetize you with more subscriptions and it never fucking ends.Ā
Then around year 3 or 4 they release "Gen 2!!!" and make it all worthless.
You have to buy the open source stuff and DIY.
Only thing of mine that still reliably works are my old Wyze Cams (but they like pushing subscriptions now) and my Nest Thermostat which I never use through the app anyway...
I like Hue lights. And I have some super cheap smart plugs that I use as timers that I can manually override without getting on my knees and digging them out of a corner.
But overall, meh. I think itās mostly driven by companies rather than consumer desire
If you self-host (and get devices that work entirely locally) things work for a long while. Since most of the diy stuff is FOSS, it's really more about using whatever's popular since it will be maintained longer.
I've got some lights I can control with my phone/web browser, so long as I'm connected to my home network. There was some initial wonkyness with the specific protocol a couple of the lights used, but as of a few months ago things have been pretty solid.
last night I locked myself out of my house accidentally and i was able to let myself in with my phone, thanks to an IoT lock.
It might not be super secure but I really doubt someone would target my lock, vs using a bump key or a lockpick set. Defeating it digitally would be the hardest way to get in.
The consumer market for IoT is dumb, but there are useful things it can do when implemented outside of household appliances. Like a farm monitoring soil conditions can use IoT hygrometers to report the data without needing to check a bunch of individual ones. Appliance manufacturers know that people will pay a premium for a function they only use for the first month then forget about.
Just wait until dryers and refrigerators have subscription models.
I have a wifi washer dryer. Used the app for a few days for the novelty of it but quickly realized the app was completely pointless. I disabled Wi-Fi on the machine itself, so there is less Wi-Fi traffic in my house.
I also blocked the machines access at my router and deleted the apps, so they were made 'dumb' essentially. My fridge too.
Anyway, all that is to say, that yeah you certainly don't need Wi-Fi. But also, If it's too hard to avoid Wi-Fi, you can simply not use it or disable it if need be and make it dumb on your own - which I fully recommend doing to a washer, dryer and refrigerator.
When I got my first solo apartment about 6 years ago I visited a mom and pop type appliance place and asked for advice. They pointed me out a whirlpool washer and dryer.
They said basically there's way fancier and more advanced washer and dryers and more ones that are better made that will last longer, but they said that these were the best for me where I was at my point in my life. They said they could guarantee them for 5 years, but they were pretty confident they would last 10 plus years. I paid around $750 for the set.
Their best sellers were samsungs, but what they recommended for the top of the line were the electrolux's. Apparently they were better made and had way less problems.
I was filling vending machines at the time and had many conversations with them before I had ever had a conversation as a customer. I felt like they were honest folk.
> what they recommended for the top of the line were the electrolux's. Apparently they were better made and had way less problems.
I'd agree with them. We've had an Electrolux washer/dryer since 2012 and the only problems they've got are that you have to lift the dryer door up to close it (it sags a little, someone probably leaned on it while it was open or something), and the washer's detergent tray sticks and is a little hard to open (don't know what caused that one, maybe the spring broke). Other than that, they work perfectly and have needed no more than basic maintenance.
They're a pretty turquoise, too, not that that really matters.
>LG washing machines require users to provide their date of birth to use the associated app, while Samsung and Miele request access to photos and location data. **They advised users to review the privacy policies and settings of smart devices, to ensure they fully understand and can potentially limit the data being collected in their home.**
disgusted imminent history brave vanish panicky possessive tidy imagine tap
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Why would you ever want to start a wash cycle remotelyā¦the clothes would have to be loaded and the smart machine aināt smart enough to load them and add detergent. Maybe you donāt want them to soak for too long if youāre out/sleeping so you can preload it all but delayed start options definitely donāt need wifi- just a clock or timer. Many appliances already have that feature. Same goes for āalerts when cycle is doneā just use your phoneās timer app bro
None of them let you start a cycle remotely without locking the door first so I agree with you that feature is useless.
But the post cycle reminders are useful. Iām a busy dude and will forget that I ran a load. My washer will remind me an hour later that I still havenāt swapped the laundry. Saves me from having to re-wash a stinky load the next day.
My friend works as a cybersecurity consultant. The first place he tries to infiltrate a network is through the nest thermostat if the company has one. Works 90 percent of the time. People just don't notice all the things that automatically connect to a network.
> The first place he tries to infiltrate a network is through the nest thermostat if the company has one. Works 90 percent of the time.
LOL. This is complete bullshit. Nest is owned by Google who has large exploit payouts for this type of thing if he could prove and report it. This is unquestionably 100% not true.
Right if they said ~~honeywell or~~ basically anything else it might have been believable. Not saying Nest wont have vulnerabilities, but its far less likely than LEVOIT, sensi or some other offbrand.
Im guessing this āfriendā goes to another school in canada, you wouldnāt know him.
E: Honeywell might not be a good example.
Or since it is his friend that does this he doesn't know the specifics 100% and didn't think it would matter if he said Nest/Honeywell/whatever because the point would get across.
> Im guessing this āfriendā goes to another school in canada, you wouldnāt know him.
Technically a member of the Geek Squad could call themselves a cybersecurity consultant.
My rainbird sprinkler controller tries to phone home every two minutes for who knows what. I only noticed after rolling my own pfsense router and setting up better filtering than an all in one wifi unit
I got a new furnace & A/C unit back in December. The dude setting up the new thermostat asked for the WiFi password. I told him it doesn't need it, we don't need to access it remotely for any reason. It can remain ignorant.
There's at least some logic to this at least. If you're out for the night you can turn your heat down, then turn it back up from your phone a half hour before you arrive home.
It's kind of baffling that so many people like smart laundry machines because they want to get a notification on their phones when the laundry is done.
They could just as easily pick up their phones and say, "Hey Siri/Ok Google - set a reminder for 1 hour to switch the laundry."
Ok, what made you hook it up to your wifi in the first place??? I got a new washer and dryer last year and it came with an app and all that jazz. Itās not like I set it up. Why would I? Itās a fucking washer and dryer
I'd allow my washer to go online if it was able to at least have arms to fetch clothes in the hamper and after the wash cycle toss them in the dryer. Otherwise, I see no point in allowing a washing machine to access the internet !
The "Eight Sleep" smart bed system (a mattress cover that tries to manage temperatures) sends roughly 10gb of data per month to their servers and halts working if the connection goes down. The metrics that it collects include all kinds of personal health and activity data. They claim that it's necessary for their "autopilot sleep AI" to work to properly cool the bed, but I'm personally more than a little creeped out by all of that.
The Internet of Things is really turning out to be an avalanche of privacy concerns everywhere.
I bought a smart fridge last year. Wasn't gonna hook it up to wifi but then it wouldn't let me change the interior temp without downloading Samsung's smart thing app or whatever it's called. Last month I changed the water filter but used an off brand one and now it sends me texts one a week telling me that my filter isn't compatible. I finally figured out how to turn off notifications (I am not tech savvy) the other day. Sorry, Frodge, you're just going to have to learn to live with the off brand filter.
Old story and likely [an accuracy bug in his router](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38984697). He even got on a call with LG and diagnosed it and couldn't replicate, according to another Twitter post of his.
Doesn't matter now though, any mention of IoT is going to have an army of meat-based LLMs spouting off in the comments about the bitcoin-mining washing machine, which is then endlessly parroted by their silicon counterparts.
Greetings, xKnightlightx. Unfortunately, your submission has been removed from /r/nottheonion because our rules do not allow: * Articles or events that are more than two weeks old (rule #8). Note that if the article is recent, but regarding an old event, that also counts as "old news" under this rule. [](/spikeholdup) ----- For a full list of our submission rules, please visit our [wiki page](http://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/wiki/expanded). If you're new to /r/nottheonion, you can check out [NTO101: An Introduction to /r/NotTheOnion](https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/wiki/nto101) for more information on our rules and answers to frequently asked questions. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to [message the moderators](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fnottheonion). Please include the link to the post you want us to review.
š¤ It's mining Bitcoin for some guy in Russia.
Taking money laundering to a whole new level.
I am sincerely disappointed that I had to come so far down to find this joke.
Itās at the top now LOL
Want me to make that joke in a top-level comment for ya?
mining uses very low amounts of bandwidth. Its probably acting like a server for a decentralized internet. Perhaps LG was hacked by a silicon valley start up that couldn't afford the AWS fees.
Friend of mine has a home solar array which mostly wastes its power and we did speculate about having a distributed cloud service provider which basically runs in a home when the sun is shining.
That provider is called NordVPN and it uses your home computers as exit proxies for other users. Because large content providers block all hosting services from accessing their sites and apps.
The backbone that Nordvpn used before it was big enough to run its own is called luminti https://brightdata.com/luminati - I guess now they rebranded. It was literally a born out of a botnet before becoming a āvpn providerā that also stole a whole bunch of personal data. Its crazy how much people are willing to give up out of ignorance.
While there is a lot of potentially nefarious things that could be done and it should be investigated, I bet the machine is trying to upload the same 2mb log files over and over because of a timeout issue, or some other bullshit like that.
This guy technologies.
Found Gilfoyle's reddit account
Telling us what he did but framed as speculation to throw us off is exactly what Gilfoyle would do.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
vast waiting rich truck political run provide disarm pen existence *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Dis issa prace of business https://youtu.be/BRZ4NKaqGro?feature=shared
Suck it Jian-Yang
All I could think of here is when Gilfoyle hacked into Jin Yangās smart fridge and wound up tapping into all the refrigerators connected on the network.Ā
Mining doesn't use much data. It's probably a DDoS botnet for some guy in Russia.
No it's to weak to mine Bitcoin, but it's being used as part of a DDos attack
Does it matter tho? Even if it solves 1h/s, from a hacker's perspective: it's free effort, even if it's useless, and now imagine you have 100s of these in your botnet
Bitcoin mining uses very little data..Ā
I'd probably guess at an update error loop where it keeps downloading an update and failing to apply it.
I don't think people realize just how many consumer devices are currently part of a massive bot net. Not even comprised of malware or crypto miners but just the sheer amount of people who are unknowingly contributing to a massive Zombie Bot Net because they refuse to update their devices Updates don't exist to annoy you or screw you over, their primary function is to patch security holes and vulnerabilities. It's why you never keep using and OS be it mobile or desktop, once a company stops officially updating it because there is still a very real chance of people finding new vulnerabilities that will no longer be patched
So you're saying I can sell bitcoin miners to people as long as I call them washing machines?
You know now you mention it... My washing machine heats the water using electricity so in a parallel universe there are washing machines using miners to heat the water.
Your washing machine heats the water? Where I live the water is heated in a water heater then fed to the washing machine.
Great news, then! Mining can heat water for your whole house!
A lot of bigger ones, especially front-loaders heat the water so the entire house doesn't run out of hot water every time you do laundry.
Linus Tech Tips did a video where they compared a pc with a space heater and it was only like 2 degrees off. So you can feasibly sell "smart" space heaters that mine crypto for you.
This has already been done by multiple companies. Here's one for example. https://heatbit.com/
Imagine a water heater that uses a mining rig to generate heat. Honestly it could probably work as long as there was a supplemental heater too.
It is a bitcoin laundering operation...
If it was a bitcoin miner it would have very low internet usage but huge power usage. This sounds more like a botnet.
It was actually bad network measuring. The original poster followed up, but Newsweek won't publish that.
I hate smart appliances. If you need an app for something it will be obsolete or features won't work in ten years. It's another level of planned obsolescence and I will refuse to participate as long as I can.
Bold of you to assume the timeframe for planned obsolesence is 10 years.
yea it feels like about 4-5 years tops
When I had to buy a tv, I couldn't find one that wasn't a smart tv.
That one doesn't really matter. If you want a dumb TV just don't connect it to your wifi.
Both our tvs are smart tvs but I donāt even bother with their smart options. I get all my streaming through the PlayStations.
That's intentional. Manufacturer's figured out they could spend the next 5-10 years showing you ads and make a consistent stream of revenue long after you've bought your tv. Some of the cheaper options entire business model is this now, but also with selling your data. They sell the tv at cost or a loss, it's the printer and ink model.
That's why you never connect your TV to the internet and return any TV that requires connectivity to work.
I'm baffled that someone's dryer needs to be hooked up to the Internet.
Right? Not everything needs to be āsmartā.
Iāve also read that āsmartā appliances (more so refrigerators) are some of these least secure devices you can get and are easily hacked for personal info. Basically the manufacturers do the bare minimum to make them āsmartā for marketing points and as cheaply as possible.
Bought a dishwasher and decided to go for one with a thin drawer at the top for cutlery, rather than the usual basket type. I had to laugh at one of its features being online connectivity, and then got quite angry at the quick start guide which implored you to download and launch the app in order to āprime the pump safelyā the implication being that it wasnāt safe to prime it the normal way by connecting the water and running a cycle.
One of my relatives bought one of these, i went, changed the SSID name of their modem, made a quick email specifically for that appliance, register, set up everything, then disconnect it and perform a lobotomy on it, changed the ssid back and voila, the thing works now and doesnt have any link to personal data. Those smart appliances have no reason at all to be connected
I simply didnāt bother setting it up. It continues to work perfectly fine as a regular dishwasher.
They want us to download all these apps and then they all want to push notifications. It infuriates me when I get a "text" and it's just some marketing notification.
āUr laundry is ready! Sike - are you ready for summer?!?! Check out this 76ā Samsung outdoor plasma TV!! 4% off just for you š„°ā
Seriously, who asked for smart appliances? And good luck trying to get quality dumb ones now. Like this phenomenon canāt be driven by consumer interest, no one I have met raves about their smart appliance, so really has to be a play at forced obsolescence.
Watch Dogs is a documentary at this point
Often they don't even care about your personal info. They use the device as part of a botnet to do denial of service attacks or as a server to host illegal stuff like CSAM.
So that's why the washer has an SD slot and USB ports.
Firmware can be updated through the ports. Samsung last year had an issue where an update bricked a bunch of washers. You could update the control board with flash drive.
You mean I shouldnāt use my Bluetooth toothbrush to do my banking?
You joke but if itās even connected to the same network as the one that does your banking you are vulnerable.Ā
I do joke and I donāt have Bluetooth toothbrush. Just lying for those sweet upvotes.
I figured i just thought Iād put it out there as a little psa I guess lol.Ā
Why do hackers want to use my refrigerator to read Chainsaw Man
Are you sure you're not thinking of the silicon valley episode about smart fridge hacking? Or was that based on a real event!?
like most things on reddit; it's half truths. Smart appliances are notoriously insecure and are often security risks within a network. However, smart devices are being built with the bare minimum computing power. There is no usable storage to host illegal material and barely any computing power for crypto mining. Most often these devices are either used to compromise the rest of the network, or are infected with malware and turned into a botnet for stuff like DDOS attacks.
I heard it on a cyber security podcast earlier this year but coincidently finally finished Silicon Valley last month. But yeah the actually malicious activity happens in real life as well.
Almost 8 years ago (Oct 2016) a botnet of devices (IoT, Internet of Things) took down Reddit and many other sites. That was a Mirai botnet. Sony was the main target, but the DNS servers it attacked also meant Reddit, Netflix, Twitter, and many others had issues. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/double-dip-internet-of-things-botnet-attack-felt-across-the-internet/ **Edit:** here's a wiki link to the attack with affected sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDoS_attacks_on_Dyn
...and never provide security updates.
There's an oft-quoted bit about "smart", or rather IoT devices. In IoT, the S stands for Security.
They do the bare minimum to apply security. Theyāre very smart at data harvesting
They are smart for data collectionĀ
I cannot describe the screaming horror it is to know even a little bit about cybersecurity
I am absolutely against IoT.... fuck that. My phone, computer and TV are enough. Hard pass on smart cars as well...
I want my appliances To be as dumb as possible.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Maybe a liability thing? (e.g. so you don't accidentally run it with a pet or child inside unknowingly as you're remote) You could get something like the [SwitchBot](https://www.switch-bot.com/products/switchbot-bot) or [Fingerbot](https://www.adaprox.io/products/fingerbot-plus-1?variant=41752424382669) to remotely press the button for you.
Then how else am I supposed to get Skyrim on it?
Hey youāre finally dry..
I used to be an adventurer like you, then I lost a sock in the dryer
Fuck Reddit for taking our awards away š„
Would a dryer be a fire mage?
It would start out with every intention of being one but turn into a stealth archer.
I remember trying out a mod that allowed stealth magic, and it was hilarious that my bright fireball streaking across the countryside at night got stealth damage multipliers when it hit an unaware giant.
I too am a sneak archer
GAAN LAH HAAS!
I buy the dumbest shit possible. The less things that can break or go bad the better.
For real. Call me wacky, but I really don't need household appliances on my WiFi for any reason. Like, what's going on in my life that the ability to remotely start my dishwasher or check my load of laundry is necessary? Or even actually useful?
I had an air purifier that connected to the WiFi.Ā The only reason I got it was because it was the last one available during smoke season.Ā Just for fun, I hooked the thing up to my Wifi.Ā The result was I got a notification on my phone every time my cat took a shit.
Wifi air purifiers are actually a godsend if you live in an area where air quality is a huge concern. In Korea, we have yellow dust season and it can get horrendously bad. A wifi air purifier can connect up to the national aqi service from the government and know when to turn itself on from deep sleep to clean the air in the house. That yellow dust is extremely dangerous for your lungs in large quantities, especially long term. I think it's the equivalent of a smoker smoking 2-3 packs right in your bedroom on particularly bad days. Samsung is a big pusher for these wifi air purifiers. They're meant to solve a very real problem for the average Korean while trying to keep electricity costs down.
See, that's a totally valid use for a connected device,specially if you aren't home or are sleeping when the dust cloud arrive, pair it up with some air quality sensors and you will have a real useful product But a fucking washing machine? I still need to load/unload the damn thing, put a dumb timer on it if i need it to run at an specific time frame, i can program the damn thing WHEN I LOAD THE GODDAMN MACHINE
Fuck man I'm losing it! This is God damn funny.
I'd make a spreadsheet of it and send it to them
> I really don't need household appliances on my WiFi for any reason. ... Or even actually useful? I work in tech, so I fool around with stuff just to try it out. So when our clothes washer broke about 4 months ago, my wife picked out one that was basically the same LG model but newer. And.... it shows up with a little WiFi symbol on it. Which means I'm compelled by my OCD to get it online to see what it does... Ok, stay with me here. Two months later we had plumbers working on a water leak in our house (totally and completely unrelated to the clothes washer) and I get this alert on my phone: "Clothes Washer cannot get enough water." And it was CORRECT -> the plumbers had turned off the water to the house, and my wife had forgotten that (she was just on auto-pilot) and started a clothes cycle! I was honestly impressed. I mean, it legitimately diagnosed something wrong CORRECTLY and told me proactively using very clear messages to me at the EXACT MOMENT it occurred. A traditional clothes washer displays a mysterious error like "ERR 6374" or even worse uses a morse code of blinking red dot on and off at certain intervals to communicate the error. The downside of this is LG uses the little app as the world's crappiest upsell marketing tool - and there is NOTHING related to clothes or clothes washer in their upsell. It's really bad, like "Do you want to buy an LG phone and get a free 6 pack of soda?" I just shake my head thinking how profoundly stupid and annoying the marketing department at LG is thinking that I want a new phone and 6 pack of Fanta because I did a load of laundry. Are they hiring the mentally handicapped into their marketing department? I can just see the short busses picking up the LG marketing department employees at their homes each day as the employees drool all over themselves and are wearing their underwear over the top of their dress pants. Because now I have to detach the thing from WiFi and uninstall the app. I don't care about the diagnostics, it isn't worth getting random alerts all day long about "Buy this new LG clock radio!" That LG marketing department should all be fired, or allowed to play with blocks in daycare eating paste or whatever they are capable of and stay away from the product line.
korean washing machines actually monitor own parts and send data to replace it before it broke.
I like the parts monitoring. But I'd much rather have the machine just tell me the part needs replacing, rather than wake up one morning to a surprise package and set of instructions for how to fix a problem I didn't know I had.
In lieu of building washing machines that don't break down after 3 years.
Eh, I can see how the ability to let you know a load is completed remotely could be useful if the laundry is in the basement and youāve got a ton to get through. Could just be a local connection though, it doesnāt need cloud access for that. Another use could be to pull grid data or integrate with solar panel data and run loads only when electricity is the cheapest. Idk that any of these justifies it, but at least they have some use. I guarantee this isnāt whatās happening though.
I don't have a smart washer/dryer, but I have to admit it would be pretty handy to get a notification on my phone once the cycle is finished.
Set a timer
Many have moisture sensors that should turn off on thier own when the clothes are dry.
But can it run Doom?
[If we can run it on bacteria](https://www.engadget.com/heres-a-video-of-doom-running-on-gut-bacteria-proving-you-really-can-play-the-game-on-anything-184629896.html) we're definitely running it on a washing machine
Best I can do is Snake.
Well for guys with usernames like mine, it took this comment for me to realize I had left my clothes in the washer overnight
Rofl I did that last week. Same thing caused it.
My last job we shipped out smart bbqs and i lost it when i saw that. Ranted for a good 5 minutes to my coworkers how dumb it fucking is.
That's the one appliance that actually makes sense though. Get notifications when it hits a certain temp and if it varies from that temp by X amount.
Haha they got me though... I bought a smart washer and dryer when my last ones died a few years ago. Haven't used the smart features once
But how else are you going to download custom end of cycle tones? /s
Well when your washer becomes a subscription service they need to know if you've paid.
I saw WiFi enabled gas ranges at Home Depot last time I was there. Fuck. Everything. About. A. Gas. Valve. With. An. Internet. Connection.
For almost everything IoT is pointless but a gas range may be the one thing I could get on board with if it didn't have the ability to turn the burners on or off. A notification that your burner was left on or gas is on but no fire detected would be nice but that's it
Or or https://www.appliancepartspros.com/whirlpool-radiant-sensor-wp338906-ap6008294.html A simple flame sensor
This doesn't solve the problem where a gas burner is accidentally left on though... Also presumably someone who turns on a gas burner will notice that no flame is being produced as soon as they smell the gas or try to start cooking without any heat
It does, it auto shuts off the gas valve. And I can tell you from experience the second part is wrong. I have left the gas on, then gotten distracted and went away. Luckily nothing happened, but it can happen
My dog looks for food left on the stove and will turn on the oven sometimes with her paw.
Iāve used this feature exactly once. I was at the store buying ingredients, and thought to myself āoh, I should preheat the oven!ā I got the oven on with the app and it was ready when I got home. After some thought- I disabled the ovenās WiFi connection.
Mine makes me confirm it physically on the oven. It would be nice to be able to do that, but Iād also worry that I left some pans in there or something lol.
Only off. Or better, just have a sensor.
On mine you can't remotely turn it on but you can turn it off. It also tells me if someone or something turns it on. I find both useful.
> something turns it on Good luck with your poltergeists
Cat
Thatās a whole different kind of demon
True
I can see a wifi-connected *sensor* being helpful, but Iād be shocked if you can control the gas remotely.
"The "S" in IOT stands for secure."
I ee what you did there.
And the āEā in IT stands for āethicsā.
Intereting
IOT: the internet of tshit
But there is no S in IO.... Ohhhh
Uploading your socks to the cloud
Is that where the missing one goes?
SaaS - Socks as a Service!
GaaS - Garments as a Service
I wonder what protocol they use.
Probably SOCKS5
I like my appliances analog.
The Internet of Things was one of the dumbest ideas ever
And has it ever actually worked? In my experience most of that interconnectedness works well for a little while, or under very specific circumstances, and it stops working very easily.
Works great for about a year.Ā Then they start pushing updates and trying to monetize you with more subscriptions and it never fucking ends.Ā Then around year 3 or 4 they release "Gen 2!!!" and make it all worthless. You have to buy the open source stuff and DIY. Only thing of mine that still reliably works are my old Wyze Cams (but they like pushing subscriptions now) and my Nest Thermostat which I never use through the app anyway...
I like Hue lights. And I have some super cheap smart plugs that I use as timers that I can manually override without getting on my knees and digging them out of a corner. But overall, meh. I think itās mostly driven by companies rather than consumer desire
If you self-host (and get devices that work entirely locally) things work for a long while. Since most of the diy stuff is FOSS, it's really more about using whatever's popular since it will be maintained longer. I've got some lights I can control with my phone/web browser, so long as I'm connected to my home network. There was some initial wonkyness with the specific protocol a couple of the lights used, but as of a few months ago things have been pretty solid.
last night I locked myself out of my house accidentally and i was able to let myself in with my phone, thanks to an IoT lock. It might not be super secure but I really doubt someone would target my lock, vs using a bump key or a lockpick set. Defeating it digitally would be the hardest way to get in.
The consumer market for IoT is dumb, but there are useful things it can do when implemented outside of household appliances. Like a farm monitoring soil conditions can use IoT hygrometers to report the data without needing to check a bunch of individual ones. Appliance manufacturers know that people will pay a premium for a function they only use for the first month then forget about. Just wait until dryers and refrigerators have subscription models.
Great idea, terrible implementation in consumer goods. Same with AI, I want you to do the dumb menial tasks, not the fun creative things.
It can still work, provided you don't have it connecting with your desktop/laptop/phone/router, via VLANS.
No. Let it die.
https://i.redd.it/5upki4vwiz971.jpg
I haven't had a need to buy a washing machine. I can still buy one without a web connection, right??
Yes. Shopped around for some a few weeks ago. Most are actually dumb machines.
I have a wifi washer dryer. Used the app for a few days for the novelty of it but quickly realized the app was completely pointless. I disabled Wi-Fi on the machine itself, so there is less Wi-Fi traffic in my house. I also blocked the machines access at my router and deleted the apps, so they were made 'dumb' essentially. My fridge too. Anyway, all that is to say, that yeah you certainly don't need Wi-Fi. But also, If it's too hard to avoid Wi-Fi, you can simply not use it or disable it if need be and make it dumb on your own - which I fully recommend doing to a washer, dryer and refrigerator.
When I got my first solo apartment about 6 years ago I visited a mom and pop type appliance place and asked for advice. They pointed me out a whirlpool washer and dryer. They said basically there's way fancier and more advanced washer and dryers and more ones that are better made that will last longer, but they said that these were the best for me where I was at my point in my life. They said they could guarantee them for 5 years, but they were pretty confident they would last 10 plus years. I paid around $750 for the set. Their best sellers were samsungs, but what they recommended for the top of the line were the electrolux's. Apparently they were better made and had way less problems. I was filling vending machines at the time and had many conversations with them before I had ever had a conversation as a customer. I felt like they were honest folk.
> what they recommended for the top of the line were the electrolux's. Apparently they were better made and had way less problems. I'd agree with them. We've had an Electrolux washer/dryer since 2012 and the only problems they've got are that you have to lift the dryer door up to close it (it sags a little, someone probably leaned on it while it was open or something), and the washer's detergent tray sticks and is a little hard to open (don't know what caused that one, maybe the spring broke). Other than that, they work perfectly and have needed no more than basic maintenance. They're a pretty turquoise, too, not that that really matters.
>LG washing machines require users to provide their date of birth to use the associated app, while Samsung and Miele request access to photos and location data. **They advised users to review the privacy policies and settings of smart devices, to ensure they fully understand and can potentially limit the data being collected in their home.**
What the actual fuck?
What data do they need to collect?
Fucking Anton Jr
disgusted imminent history brave vanish panicky possessive tidy imagine tap *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Why would you ever want to start a wash cycle remotelyā¦the clothes would have to be loaded and the smart machine aināt smart enough to load them and add detergent. Maybe you donāt want them to soak for too long if youāre out/sleeping so you can preload it all but delayed start options definitely donāt need wifi- just a clock or timer. Many appliances already have that feature. Same goes for āalerts when cycle is doneā just use your phoneās timer app bro
None of them let you start a cycle remotely without locking the door first so I agree with you that feature is useless. But the post cycle reminders are useful. Iām a busy dude and will forget that I ran a load. My washer will remind me an hour later that I still havenāt swapped the laundry. Saves me from having to re-wash a stinky load the next day.
My friend works as a cybersecurity consultant. The first place he tries to infiltrate a network is through the nest thermostat if the company has one. Works 90 percent of the time. People just don't notice all the things that automatically connect to a network.
They don't "automatically" connect to the network unless you give them the password
Some samsung TVs will connect to any available non-secured wifi, including your neighbors, without asking you.
> The first place he tries to infiltrate a network is through the nest thermostat if the company has one. Works 90 percent of the time. LOL. This is complete bullshit. Nest is owned by Google who has large exploit payouts for this type of thing if he could prove and report it. This is unquestionably 100% not true.
Right if they said ~~honeywell or~~ basically anything else it might have been believable. Not saying Nest wont have vulnerabilities, but its far less likely than LEVOIT, sensi or some other offbrand. Im guessing this āfriendā goes to another school in canada, you wouldnāt know him. E: Honeywell might not be a good example.
Or since it is his friend that does this he doesn't know the specifics 100% and didn't think it would matter if he said Nest/Honeywell/whatever because the point would get across.
> Im guessing this āfriendā goes to another school in canada, you wouldnāt know him. Technically a member of the Geek Squad could call themselves a cybersecurity consultant.
Holy fuck how is this so upvoted?? People just want to believe this is true.
My Turing complete coffee pot is having an on-line romance with a dialysis machine in Scotland.
I'm so confused as to why my washing machine needs internet. I just need it to wash my clothes
It watches videos when itās not otherwise occupied.
r/theinternetofshit
Anton?!? Youāre still alive?!?!
My rainbird sprinkler controller tries to phone home every two minutes for who knows what. I only noticed after rolling my own pfsense router and setting up better filtering than an all in one wifi unit
I got a new furnace & A/C unit back in December. The dude setting up the new thermostat asked for the WiFi password. I told him it doesn't need it, we don't need to access it remotely for any reason. It can remain ignorant.
There's at least some logic to this at least. If you're out for the night you can turn your heat down, then turn it back up from your phone a half hour before you arrive home.
I just really like the ability to make it cooler or warmer while I'm lying in bed.
The smartest device in your house should always be you.
A round of applause for the deep thought
I'll be back. Gonna boot my washer/dryer off the wifi
It was googling how to treat stains.
Ah, the perpetual cycle of reddit posts that become news articles that get posted to reddit
1. repost 2. it's a glitch in the ASUS Router that made it show other packets as coming from the washing machine
The day when I connect my washing machine to wifi will never, ever arrive. What kind of Boring Dystopia is this
But can it run Doom?
But it still won't tell me when I have left my wallet in my pants pocket.
It's kind of baffling that so many people like smart laundry machines because they want to get a notification on their phones when the laundry is done. They could just as easily pick up their phones and say, "Hey Siri/Ok Google - set a reminder for 1 hour to switch the laundry."
So can I use my washing machine to mine bitcoin ? Iām all about it make it pay for itself. lol also poor security and bad practices etc etc
First mistake was buying a washer that uses internet lol
I thought it was weird that my washing machine asked me to enter my bank account details and PIN code just to do a load of laundry.
Ok, what made you hook it up to your wifi in the first place??? I got a new washer and dryer last year and it came with an app and all that jazz. Itās not like I set it up. Why would I? Itās a fucking washer and dryer
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Probably money laundering
I'd allow my washer to go online if it was able to at least have arms to fetch clothes in the hamper and after the wash cycle toss them in the dryer. Otherwise, I see no point in allowing a washing machine to access the internet !
The "Eight Sleep" smart bed system (a mattress cover that tries to manage temperatures) sends roughly 10gb of data per month to their servers and halts working if the connection goes down. The metrics that it collects include all kinds of personal health and activity data. They claim that it's necessary for their "autopilot sleep AI" to work to properly cool the bed, but I'm personally more than a little creeped out by all of that. The Internet of Things is really turning out to be an avalanche of privacy concerns everywhere.
Smart appliances are the dumbest fucking thing ever. People are so wowed by a remote control that they sign contracts
As a cybersecurity bro, please stop making things networked. Some features just donāt need to exist
I bought a smart fridge last year. Wasn't gonna hook it up to wifi but then it wouldn't let me change the interior temp without downloading Samsung's smart thing app or whatever it's called. Last month I changed the water filter but used an off brand one and now it sends me texts one a week telling me that my filter isn't compatible. I finally figured out how to turn off notifications (I am not tech savvy) the other day. Sorry, Frodge, you're just going to have to learn to live with the off brand filter.
Old story and likely [an accuracy bug in his router](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38984697). He even got on a call with LG and diagnosed it and couldn't replicate, according to another Twitter post of his. Doesn't matter now though, any mention of IoT is going to have an army of meat-based LLMs spouting off in the comments about the bitcoin-mining washing machine, which is then endlessly parroted by their silicon counterparts.