
Security flaws in smartwatches for children - caglarsayin
https://www.forbrukerradet.no/side/significant-security-flaws-in-smartwatches-for-children
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tudorw
I'm eternally disappointed that the highest quality products are usually
produced for adults, it seems perverse, surely handing the most sophisticated
tools to the youngest would be more productive ?

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tlb
The adult product usually is the right one for kids. Most 'for kids' products
aren't actually easier to use, and suck to administer (which falls on the
parents.)

The problem is, if you send your kid to school with the latest iPhone, it gets
jealous reactions from other kids.

Also, an expensive phone creates cognitive dissonance WRT allowances. My
youngest gets $1.50/wk, which she budgets carefully to buy craft supplies. If
I also get her a new $800 phone, the numbers seem out of whack. I can't give
her a comparable number for allowance, because our house would overflow and
she wouldn't learn to budget. So we give her our old ones when we upgrade.

It's a shame, because (as you say) younger people probably get more benefit
from better tech.

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dTal
"Better" isn't always "more expensive" or even "more performance". The best
computer anyone ever gave me as a kid was a TI-83+ - it did far more to
stimulate my interest in computers and mathematics than an iPhone ever could
have.

It's true what you say about "for kids" products, but really an iPhone _is_ a
"for kids" product. It's a computer with a dumbed-down interface, limited
functionality, and a walled garden of "apps" \- like those old Leapfrog
laptops. If you want to give them sophisticated tools, _give them
sophisticated tools_.

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cateye
I read the discussion about this news item on more mainstream media. As
expected, the topic was mostly that kids shouldn't use this kind of technology
because it is not a substitute for parenting, or this kind of other vectors
bringing children in more danger than without, or that children shouldn't be
limited in freedom or privacy.

These kinds of polarized opinions irritate me a little bit. As if the factors
are mutually exclusive. Why is it unthinkable for most people to combine
proper parenting with balancing freedom and privacy while still being aware of
technical issues?

I really love the usage of such a wareable (Tinitell) for my kids. Of course,
any security issues need to be resolved and can always be improved. But most
of the discussion is currently about the existence or emergence of the
devices.

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reitanqild
Ouch.

 _" Through a few simple steps, a stranger can take control of the watch and
track, eavesdrop on and communicate with the child."_

I wonder what this means: is it a vulnerability that can be triggered remotely
or are we talking about the possibility that the watches can be reprogrammed
if an attacker has physical access?

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lb1lf
The impression I got when this aired on national radio yesterday, was that
this simply was part of the feature set of the watch; the root problem was
that the access code you needed to pair the watch and app was printed on the
watch - thus enabling anyone with access to the watch to stalk the kid like
only its parents were supposed to do...

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yorwba
In the report, they claim four different ways to obtain an IMEI for pairing,
but the three ways that don't require physical access are redacted.

However, they also mention that you can receive information about already
registered accounts by submitting an IMEI, so I'm guessing that one of the
ways involves simply enumerating plausible values and checking whether they
are registered. If the IMEIs are mostly sequential, you'll probably also find
specific targets that way.

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fulafel
Consumer officials everywhere should be doing proactive software stuff like
this.

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cjsuk
Yes. They should start at the desktop operating system that you can’t easily
disable tracking and telemetry on...

