The Day My Smart Vacuum Turned Against Me

If you’ve got a spare ten minutes, reading this blog post from a user known as Harishankar will make you begin to question your internet-connected devices. In it, he describes how he discovered his robot vacuum was sending information to the manufacturer without his consent. Using some simple networking rules on his home router he blocked the transmissions but the vacuum soon stopped working – an action he initially saw as a coincidence. After much back and forth with the company’s repair facility and some impressive reverse engineering of the vacuum’s components he discovered that the manufacturer had sent a “kill switch” command to remotely disable the device as a consequence of not sending the logs. Harishankar’s blog reads a bit like a spy novel, and admittedly there is no opportunity for the manufacturer to respond to his allegations, but his conclusions certainly ring true for me: “Smart” often implies a lack of control. “Cheap” signifies compromised security. “Convenience” often involves hidden surveillance.