Robot vacuum cleaners hacked to spy on, insult owners

<i>Hacked Robot Vacuums Across the U.S. Started Yelling Slurs</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41815055">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41815055</a> - Oct 2024 (1 comment)<p><i>Robot Vacuums Hacked to Shout Slurs at Their Owners</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41812546">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41812546</a> - Oct 2024 (1 comment)<p><i>Insecure Deebot robot vacuums collect photos and audio to train AI</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41753983">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41753983</a> - Oct 2024 (37 comments)<p><i>ABC News hacks into popular robot vacuum, watches owner through camera</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41735871">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41735871</a> - Oct 2024 (138 comments)

It&#x27;s almost like you shouldn&#x27;t connect random ass appliances to the internet.<p>My ancient roombas clean just fine with no cameras, internet, or AI nonsense.

God bless these teenage degenerates and their endlessly creative fuckery. They bring more color to the world.

My Roborock has a three button combination you have to press on the bot to enable remote viewing. I suppose once you do that all bets are off. But at least it requires access to the hardware and is off by default. Better if you could configure it to disable again after each use or periodically.<p>I&#x27;d really want this feature to keep an eye on my pets if I work away from home again. I could see buying a bot just for that.

Related <i>Insecure Deebot robot vacuums collect photos and audio to train AI</i> (82 points, 15 days ago, 37 comments) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41753983">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=41753983</a>

These darn things don&#x27;t need to be &quot;cloud enabled&quot;, or even wifi. Please make them Bluetooth, etc only.<p>These dopey use cases of needing to trigger a cleaning while miles away have always seemed like a stretch.

Maybe the fact it shows how these devices can spy might educate people on what IoT&#x27;s are doing all day every day in their homes and around their kids. Would this be considered hactivism?<p>I&#x27;m half curious if they got some of the idea from Michael Reeves [1].<p>[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=mvz3LRK263E" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=mvz3LRK263E</a> [video][11 mins][language, wear headphones maybe]

I’m immediately envisioning the watch dogs 2 “jumper” bot.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;f5oKFufx2Z0?si=xGMEkAMZRgIqJuH_" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;f5oKFufx2Z0?si=xGMEkAMZRgIqJuH_</a>

Put Valetudo on it - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;valetudo.cloud&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;valetudo.cloud&#x2F;</a><p>Robot incompatible? That’d be a hard pass…

I was almost starting to think hacking had gotten too professional and commercialized for script kiddies to exist.