
The House That Spied on Me - surlyadopter
https://gizmodo.com/the-house-that-spied-on-me-1822429852
======
pc2g4d
This was brilliant and disturbing. The legal implications are crazy---even if
the owner of the house has agreed to the EULAs of all the devices, their
visitors have not. Is their a legal obligation to notify visitors that data
about them is being generated, collected, snooped through, and potentially
sold?

If people could be made more informed of what their devices are saying (and to
whom) perhaps they'd be more reluctant to "smartify" their homes. Transparency
would enable more informed decisions.

~~~
drdaeman
> If people could be made more informed

I'd really really really like to see some AR glasses that would somehow
visualize all sorts of invisible things: radio traffic (incl. special
indication of weak encryption and non-encrypted communications), ultrasound
and infrared tags, location of detectable microphones and cameras - all sorts
of things like this, whatever can be detected.

Like, look at the smart TV and be aware that it sends out data (if you're on
the same network and can observe the packet headers, maybe also somehow see
some details where it talks to). Or see that this store front screams
something on an inaudible frequency and worse - that your phone had just
replied something as you walked by.

Which is probably not going to happen, not only because it's extremely
complicated from the technical side, but because people would freak out over
such tech even more than over Google Glass ;)

~~~
Fnoord
Hmm, triangulation is what happened to give Strava user's home location away
with privacy zones. I also read the other day how multiple mics ("smart
speakers" etc) can help locate someone's movement throughout a house. There's
also smartphones who have infrared cameras on them like the CAT S60. And
there's research where Bluetooth and WiFi can be used to assess if someone's
home, and where their WiFi devices are located. Finally, I saw this picture
with regards to 5G [1]. None of this is about AR glasses but I still thought
it was interesting. Because the AR glasses part -even though AR isn't
widespread- builds upon all of the above examples as input data.

[1]
[http://ictvietnam.vn/files/tccntt/source_files/2017/01/27/06...](http://ictvietnam.vn/files/tccntt/source_files/2017/01/27/06272517_IoT_17-01-27.jpg)

~~~
kakarot
We are FUBAR'd, why deal with mics and smart speakers when you can sell
privacy-invading Wi-Fi routers?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LTr02cJkiA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LTr02cJkiA)

------
Asdfbla
It's all extraordinarily creepy because you expect your home to be the safe
haven of privacy, but considering how ubiquitous smartphones are and how much
of our lives already happens digitally, you could somewhat cynically argue
that the privacy loss is comparatively small (because you have very little to
begin with nowadays).

But if smart utilities take off, maybe some privacy label for consumers would
be nice. Maybe in the future it's a selling point if when device is dumb as
opposed to smart and connected. I also somewhat dislike the conclusion of the
article that smart homes for everybody are inevitable or necessary. The
utility, at least right now, of smart devices seems to be limited, so you
don't have even to be a crazy hermit to boycott a smart home.

~~~
jaclaz
Off-topic, but not much, I always loved the results of the Biarritz
experiments with video-phones (actually visio - phones).

How the device looked:
[http://www.rxcontrol.org/Visiophone/index.html](http://www.rxcontrol.org/Visiophone/index.html)

A good summing up of the results of the paper by Francis Jaur (1990) is here:

[http://archive.li/Qe1Kl](http://archive.li/Qe1Kl)

Basically people soon understood that the thing has its use, but limited it to
"public" areas of their home and to selected communications.

------
bittermang
Somewhat off topic, but anyone else think it's kinda weird that an article
about data privacy has so many third party tracking scripts?

I know it's sitewide on every article from the mothership, Gizmodo, but
still...

~~~
username223
Not really. Online publishers think that surveillance is free money, so
they're always happy to add more. Savvy users block it all. Some day there
will be a reckoning.

~~~
bittermang
I think we need to force the reckoning to the forefront, for the sake of the
unsavvy. This affects us all, and we need to get out in front of it, before it
bulldozes everything.

If it hasn't already.

------
saagarjha
> Almost every TV on the market now is connected—because otherwise how do you
> Netflix and chill?

If you buy a "smart" TV, refuse to connect it to the internet and just get an
Apple TV/Chromecast/whatever.

~~~
devmunchies
I tried to do this and just use my PS4 for apps, but my wife thoughtlessly
accepted the TOS on the tv within 2 days.

We still don't use the apps on the tv though.

~~~
intopieces
Disconnect it from your WiFi and change password. If you're not using the
apps, there's no reason for it to be on your network, right?

------
gregmac
Once again, one of the biggest underlying problems is "why" \- or more
technically, what is the use case behind <technology>? This was always a
problem back when it was merely "home automation" but as we started this "IoT"
craze things only got worse.

I laugh at the ancedote in the article about voice control just behind
frustrating and resorting to using the physical buttons.

No one has ever explained why I'd want to remotely control my lights. Or why I
would remotely turn on my coffee maker, after I have to physically touch it to
prepare it before-hand anyway.

Some amount of this tech is useful when it goes unnoticed and solves real
problems. For example, my outside lights turn on dimly at sunset and turn off
at midnight, unless there's motion or my garage door is open, then they go to
100%. If no inside lights are already on, the front hall and a couple other
lights turn on as it gets dark. This means we never come home to a dark house,
but also if we're already home, we aren't having lights automatically changing
on us.

I can control many things from my phone, but it's pointless. There's a button
in the entrance to the kitchen that turns on several lights (that otherwise
require using switches in four separate locations), another that makes them
all dim, and another for off. If we leave them on, they turn off automatically
by 3am.

So much of these IoT products do not solve useful problems, do not blend
seamlessly into your life, and do not even work well in the first place.

------
acomjean
these smart homes bring up ethical dilemas. I worked for a company and someone
got a home automation kit. It monitored comings and goings. They looked at the
logs and realized the dog walker one day did a really short walk. How do you
broach this? Do you bother for an otherwise responsible walker.

I worked for a power monitoring company that put a box in your house,
monitored power use for each circuit breaker. The CEO noticed that his house
cleaners turned on lights in all the rooms and turned them off as they
finished cleaning them.

You can learn a lot from watching a homes power, especialy if its split up
circuit by circuit.

~~~
autokad
When obama said we need a more 21st century efficient power grid, i thought
that sounds great. i thought that meant better equipment and lines that doesnt
waste as much electricity, nope. it meant 'smart meters' that can tell all
sorts of things about us. they didnt want to save electricity, they wanted our
data.

The city wanted to install one of those smart meters in my home, i refused.
but I was told that unless i have them installed, they would shut off my
electricity. Being that they were in a position of power over me, I complied.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Question: what does the smart meter tell them that monitoring your usage
otherwise wouldn't?

~~~
kageneko
I seem to recall a paper about using the noise in the electrical system of a
home to determine what appliances were plugged in and turned on at any point
in time.

Sidhant Gupta, Matthew S. Reynolds, and Shwetak N. Patel. 2010. ElectriSense:
single-point sensing using EMI for electrical event detection and
classification in the home. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM international
conference on Ubiquitous computing (UbiComp '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA,
139-148. DOI:
[https://doi.org/10.1145/1864349.1864375](https://doi.org/10.1145/1864349.1864375)

[https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1864375](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1864375)

That said: I used to work for a smart meter manufacturer and (AFAIK) we didn't
do anything like that. Granular readings were the most important part. Our
meters could report in 15 minute buckets, which was useful for tiered billing.
Most of the push back against these meters were because they use radios to
report readings back and there was concern about radiation. There were people
who were building faraday cages around the meters.

------
aplorbust
Where is the code/setup configuration for "iotea"?

Ever since "IoT" started gaining momentum as a marketing buzzword I have been
thinking this type of router could be an interesting product for non-nerd
users.

Idea: The one device that _only_ the user controls. User veto over all traffic
to and from "smart" devices. In theory.

I recall seeing a comment from a Googler on HN once that basically admitted
the users only hope for privacy is to control a router.

Not a laptop, phone, browser, smart thermostat, smart speaker, etc.

A router.

Boring.

But not insignificant.

Something as inexpensive and accessible as an RPi was good enough for this
user.

------
goblins
This simple horrifies me. Why would you do this to yourself and your family?

I don't see myself ever getting anything smart, and if I can't avoid it there
is no way it touches my internet connection!

~~~
bigiain
Do you have a modern phone in your pocket?

~~~
goblins
Fairly modern. Galaxy S2 lineageOS, fdroid.

I know where you're going with this, some things are unfortunately
unavoidable. Still I do what I can.

------
tremendulo
I'd rather live with the Amish or with John Plant than potentially be arrested
by my own house or car. The house would merely lock me in but the car would no
doubt drive me to the police station also.

I'd also rather get up to switch the lights on. Moving about periodically is
healthy, right?

------
username223
> Roomba requires your attention: Your Roomba is stuck.

Why?! When I bought a Roomba a decade ago, it was a decent vacuum that picked
up dirt, could not connect to the internet, and never nagged me. Why would I
want it to be worse?

------
astronautjones
Wow, a lot of this (especially when she gets to dropping many brand names at
once) reads almost uncannily like a George Saunders story

------
creep
As annoying as the "smart homes are annoying" posts are becoming, I really
enjoyed the format and the depth of this article. And I didn't know one could
buy internet-connected vibrators. That's... odd. I also don't know why these
folks were surprised their devices were constantly communicating to their home
servers.

My stance on the smart home and privacy phenomenon is optimistic. I think
apple will eventually have a fully integrated smart home ecosystem similar to
their standard ecosystem now, which will make the process easier in general.
Perhaps we can one day have a single device to control every other device, or
a few devices which perform multiple functions (such as a bundled music
player, television, light controller, air monitor etc) and that such a device
or devices will be bundled such that the meta data will contain only
information that the device is being used but not which function is employed.
Surveillance is unstoppable at this point, and this means that everyone has
the ability to watch everyone else, and I think this is a good thing. We
already have a good sense when those in our social group are lying, or hiding
things, or even when they need help. If governments and citizens alike
understand what each party is up to, we can have a fully accountable society,
and of course eventually we must negotiate the relevant social rules that
keeps this accountability relevant and practical. This is something I believe
we have to work with. We have to take responsibility and understand what is
going on, and to also take the power into our own hands and create balance. We
can figure this out, and I don't believe that necessarily involves destroying
the structure of how our governments and corporations do business. It's simply
more efficient to restructure, not to totally resist but also not to be
completely complacent. and that's all I have to say.

~~~
fg8qfg8fg8
"everyone has the ability to watch everyone else"

is it entirely symmetrical ?

~~~
germinalphrase
It's also explicitly untrue. Very few people have regular access to my house;
even fewer have access to the "private" domestic areas of my house. Losing
this perception of privacyand safety can/does/will have real psychological
impacts. It's also the cornerstone of psychological attacks - zersetzung - to
lose control over your private life.

------
smb111
I was wondering about visitors to the home too, will they all have to sign
some sort of Release form before entering?

