
These Toys Send What They Hear to a Defense Contractor - reirob
https://consumerist.com/2016/12/06/these-toys-dont-just-listen-to-your-kid-they-send-what-they-hear-to-a-defense-contractor/
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M_Grey
My rule of thumb? Don't buy a ton of microphones and stick them in your home.
Don't overthink it, just don't do it; there's no really compelling argument in
favor of it after all. If you have something like a webcam or a mic, unplug
it. Avoid the IoT. Be aware of your cell phone.

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throwaway2016a
I took a different approach. I have an outbound firewall hardware device that
alerts me of suspicious activity like a device sending a lot more data than it
should. I just stay very conscious of it.

Plus I love my Amazon Echo and the rest of my smart home.

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synicalx
If you really want to get your tinfoil hat on though, what's to say the
firewall isn't all part of it?

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throwaway2016a
I use an open source pfSense firewall. I have not audited their code but I can
SSH into it and see what is going on.

But mostly I just don't worry about it that much.

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wheaties
The scary thing is not that this happened. The scary thing is how easily this
could be going on with any microphone equipped IoT device. How will we
continue to monitor for malware and other things that any type of company
wants to put on a device? There's just too much IoT right now and most
manufacturers lack the infrastructure to cope with this problem.

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bdavisx
Thinking about it, I'm sure there are already hackers that have targeted all
kinds of IOT devices with microphones trying to get all kinds of information.
Blackmail, trade secrets, etc.

You could probably make a bundle in the stock market with the right hacks --
although your trade patterns might eventually get you caught.

