The Internet of dangerous Shit

Posted on | by benteh

I am not a Luddite, I promise. But we are drowning in the Internet of Shit.

We are producing awful products at a frightening rate. Not only is it hard to find a real need for bluetooth-connected inlay shoe soles (“remember to charge your shoes, darling!”). Or an umbrella that warns you of text messages. An internet-connected wine bottle. Stuff that orders its own refill over the net (what could possibly go wrong?). A clothes peg that tells you – via an app on your phone – that your washing is dry (WTF?!). An internet connected floss dispenser. Yes, floss. Dental floss. Another thingy you need to charge, another app do download. A water bottle and app that tells you when to drink some more water… ‘cos there would be no other way for you to know you might need or would like a sip. A thing that tells you your baby has peed in her diaper: and tells you. Via fucking Twitter. Connect your defenseless offspring’s bodily fluids to Twitter. How useful.

It is insane. Then there is the DDoS. Most of these things, I suspect, are made by enthusiastic college kids that hopes for a Kickstarter success. The cheap parts, the below par programming. The utter lack of security. This thing going around, that all kids should learn programming? I am not a fan. Programming well is difficult. Do we want all these kids producing more stupid products with vulnerabilities?

Check this: the other day I did an experimental search for webcams. I found thousands. Some of them I can take control of, as there are no passwords. Some of the cams were inside houses. One was clearly a children’s room. A child of about 7-10. One was a living room, where I could see people in the sofa.

And: these people are not all idiots: one of the feeds came through the university net provider. So some uni employer spies on their child of 10. With no security, so I can do too. I did not even start search on dedicated babycams…

So all those other, idiotic products? I can probably take control of these too. Order thousands of dollar worth of stuff you do not want. Use them in a DDoS attack, as we saw recently. If you don’t get it: all these stupid, connected thingamabobs are on the net. That goes both ways. They may not have much juice or storage, but grab millions of them, and that is not an issue any more.

 

Amazon Echo: the creepiest piece of Internet of Shit
Amazon Echo: the creepiest piece of Internet of Shit

Don’t even get me started on Amazon Echo. That is creepy as fuck, as we bring this into our homes voluntarily! Big brother sees you, and hears everything.

Imagine: a TV show, radio show, or a commercial could activate Echo. And do some real damage… If you have Echo, I am not visiting your home. I’ll be at the pub.

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